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Unlocking Data Insights: A Journey with Datalink Plotter and Wind Calc in UAV Flight Analysis

This document outlines the development of innovative tools, Datalink Plotter and Wind Calc, aimed at transforming complex data from UAV flight tests into easily interpretable insights. Chris Frost, a Computer Science student at the University of Virginia, alongside mentor Steve Norris, explores the challenges of handling large datasets generated from UAV missions and how these tools automate data analysis, enhance visualization, and improve understanding of critical parameters. By utilizing these solutions, Dynetics gains profound insights into UAV performance, thereby enhancing operational effectiveness.

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Unlocking Data Insights: A Journey with Datalink Plotter and Wind Calc in UAV Flight Analysis

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  1. From Data to Knowledge A Journey Through The Mountains Of Information Chris Frost Mentor: Steve Norris

  2. About Chris Frost • School: The University of Virginia, Upcoming First Year • Major: Computer Science • Other Academic Interests: Engineering, Physics, and Mathematics • Non-academic Interests: Running

  3. Outline • Introduction • Development of Datalink Plotter • Development of Wind Calc • Related Projects • Conclusions

  4. Data Introduction • Dynetics provides support for TUAV Project Office • Simulation • Flight test • Performance evaluation • Information collected from tests is invaluable • Magnitude of this data limits its usefulness New tools were required to solve these problems

  5. Datalink Plotter “In data analysis, a picture is worth a million rows of data!” • Problem: UAV flights generate large volumes of hard to deal with information • Datalink Plotter Goals: • Produce clean, intuitive plots so that data is easy to interpret • Automation of common tasks • Simpler, targeted interface • Allows Dynetics and customers to have a deeper understanding of link data

  6. Datalink Plotter Capabilities • Architecture for reading any binary data • Currently supports the following data types found in the TUAV Datalink Specification • Bits • 8bit signed and unsigned integers • 16bit signed integers • Allows plotting of multiple items, synchronized with time, for event comparison

  7. Datalink Plotter Capabilities, Continued • Data filtering through custom and pre-built binary masks • Communication links often use ranges of bits which have varying purposes • This filtering thus lifts interleaved messages of different repetition frequencies out of the larger data pool

  8. Uplink Packet Content • Always 52 bytes in length • Different message types uplinked serially • 2Hz A • 2Hz B • 4Hz • 8Hz

  9. Uplink Packet Content,Continued • 2Hz A Example • Byte 20, bits 7, 6, & 5 • Bytes 24 & 25: Altitude • 2Hz B Contrast • Byte 20, bits 7, 6, & 5 • Bytes 24 & 25: Gain and Level • Result: Intertwined Data

  10. Masking Example

  11. Wind Calc • Problem: Calculating wind data summaries from TUAV flights is a long, tedious process • Wind Calc was created to find instantaneous, average, and interpolated wind summaries • With ability to easily be extended

  12. Wind Calc Usage • Three methods of interaction: • Single-entry call (filenames and time of event) • Interactive frontend • Batch frontend

  13. Convert coordinate system orientations Save summarized data to ASCII file Wind Calc Program Flow Read data entries from high rate and low rate file repositories and perform averaging/interpolation

  14. Related Projects • Variable Editor • File Format Backend for Flight Visualization Tool • Background Research in JMASS and sockets

  15. Development ofVariable Editor • Purpose: Allow easy manipulation and plotting of equations for those not familiar with Matlab • Capabilities: • Create and edit equations • On-screen input • Loading and saving of variables • Plotting

  16. Variable EditorInteresting Concepts Explored • Concurrency applied to a database concept • Wrote a light variable database with spinlocks • Reentrant Guide Created Figures • Explored novel way to address graphical objects

  17. File Format BackendFor Flight Visualization Tool • Dynetics is using a 3-D visualization tool to graphically demonstrate vehicle dynamics • Began work to extend the program interface to deal with multiple file formats • Initially with support for SCD, JMASS, FTIP, and RAVIN • Status: On hold pending availability of necessary software

  18. Background Research • Investigated porting JMASS to Windows 95/98/ME • JMASS uses the POSIX system call standard • Use Cygwin to support the system calls under Windows • Sockets for using the flight visualization tool to display a flight in realtime

  19. Lessons Learned • Aspects of parallel programming • Matlab • Fortran • UAVs • GUI programming and design • Designing, building, and delivering a product • Life as a contractor vs. working in the Army • Matlab GUI tools have a tendency to kill Win95/98

  20. Conclusions • People can gain a much deeper understanding of data, more quickly, through graphical means • Translating data to a usable form is the “key” to the mountains of data “lock” on information • The development of these tools is already proving to be extremely helpful to Dynetics and the Army

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