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Issue 3
July 19, 2011
Ben Coughlan
Unmanned Aircraft
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
4
Ben Coughlan
PHD SCHOLAR, AUSTRALIAN UNIVERSITY
Interview with Ben Coughlan, consultant/engineer, working on unmanned aircraft.
7
Unmanned Aerial Vehicles
BY
BEN COUGHLAN
A look into the study of aircraft behavior.
9
Accuracy of the Computational
Experiements called Time Domain
Simulation
BY
MICHAEL STEINBERGER
WITH SISOFT
Time domain simulations of high speed serial channels are really computational experiments
rather than mathematical evaluations. They have confidence limits just like any physical
experiment, and users should determine what those confidence limits are.
14
Advantages of Packaging a Proximity
Sensor with an Ambient Light Sensor
BY
TAMARA SCHMITZ
WITH INTERSIL
Consumer devices like cell phones are using more and more sensors to save power and
enhance our interaction with them. It is a natural question for cell phone manufacturers to ask if
any of these sensors can be co-packaged to save power, space, and cost.
17
RTZ - Return to Zero Comic
3
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INTERVIEW
Ben Coughlan
Unmanned Aerial Vehicles
engineering. These concepts are
very familiar after learning about
software architecture and design.
The thing I find the
most useful is the
abstract concepts
required for systems
engineering.
How do you ind working in
other disciplines given your
software background?
How did you originally get into
electrical engineering and
electronics?
I touched on a number of other
disciplines during my degree
including basic electronics and
mechanics. The things I find
most useful are the abstract
concepts required for systems
My interest in electronics can
go back as far as playing with
“Funway into Electronics” kits from
Dick Smith. My background since
then has been mostly software.
I completed my Bachelor’s
degree in Software Engineering
at the Australian National
University in 2009 while working
at Codarra Advanced Systems.
Ben Coughlan - PhD Student, The Australian National University
After getting a taste for embedded
software development on a few
projects, I jumped at the chance to
return to university to complete a
PhD focused on Unmanned Aerial
Vehicles. So far this has taken
me well outside of my software
comfort zone involving a lot of
electronic and mechanical design.
My interest in
electronics can go
back as far as playing
with ‘Funway into
Electronics’ kits
from Dick Smith.
4
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INTERVIEW
When I approach a new discipline,
it’s easy to map the required
system knowledge. It’s then just
a matter of learning the specifics
of design and implementation
for what I’m trying to build.
Do you have any tricks
up your sleeve?
Pololu TReX motor controllers and
serial servo controllers, as well
as some higher level functions
like steering, throttle, and a
controller for a 3 DOF arm.
Nothing specific. My usual
approach always involves doing
things the hard way, or from scratch
myself. Often I learn why I shouldn’t
be doing it myself from scratch
but it does leave me with a better
understanding of how something
works. As the quote goes: “Aim
for the moon; even if you miss
you’ll land among the stars.”
We built a robotic vehicle named
‘Buzz’ as a demonstration for our
project. Starting with a 4WD RC
truck we constructed a chassis
to mount the extra hardware we
wanted. This included a pan/tilt
CMOS camera, a 3DOF arm with
a gripper, various controller boards
and transceivers for 2.4GHz wifi
and video. The main processor
was a 32bit AVR on an Atmtel
NGW-100. This was a conveniently
sized, low powered board that our
sponsor was using at the time.
What are your favorite
hardware tools that you use?
The tool I use most often would
easily be my callipers. Simple
yes, but whenever I need to build
a model, which is pretty often,
my callipers are invaluable.
It always helps to surround yourself
with people that know things.
I’m lucky to have experienced
colleagues that can easily answer
all my silly questions. Otherwise I
can always turn to online forums.
It’s important to involve yourself
and your work with the world.
I should probably also mention my
cast-iron frying pan. It’s the easiest
way for me to reflow a board with
surface mount components and
it makes pretty great pancakes.
We built a robotic vehicle named
‘Buzz’ as a demonstration for our
project. Starting with a 4WD RC
truck, we constructed a chassis
to mount the extra hardware we
wanted. This included a pan/tilt
CMOS camera, a 3DOF arm with
a gripper, various controller boards
and transceivers for 2.4GHz Wi-Fi
and video. The main processor
was a 32bit AVR on an Atmtel
NGW-100. This was a conveniently
sized, low-powered board that our
sponsor was using at the time.
What are your favorite
software tools that you use?
Do you have any note-worthy
engineering experiences?
I think my two favorite pieces of
software would be Altium Designer
and Solid Works. Between these
two products I can design and
model just about everything I
want to build. Being able to create
virtual prototypes is invaluable
when money for physical
prototypes is hard to come by.
My most noteworthy
accomplishment would be
an award for innovation my
team and I won in 2009 at the
Australian National iAwards for a
software framework supporting
the development of robotic
applications on Linux platforms.
What is on your bookshelf?
The Linux Robotics Framework
was my final year project for my
Bachelor’s degree. I managed
a team of five other students
to produce the framework for
our sponsor Nias Digital. The
framework was intended to
provide a collection of software
components and accompanying
design concepts to simplify the
development of robots running
Linux. This included a hardware
abstraction layer with drivers for
a few interface devices like the
There are a lot of textbooks.
The two most relevant/recent
additions are
Feedback Control
of Dynamic Systems
by Franklin
Powell and
Probabilistic Robotics
by Thrun, Burgard, and Fox.
More recently, the first prototype
of Asity, the avionics board I’ve
developed, came off of the
frying pan and actually worked
on the first try. It being my first
significant electronic design,
I was pretty happy with this.
On the fiction side I’ve been
enjoying the
Book of the New
Sun
series on audio book. At the
moment I’m listening to
Catch-22
.
What are you currently
working on?
My PhD is investigating
energy usage in unmanned
5
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