by David Ferreira Espisode 1: Multi-Mode Robot from RC 4x4 This post accompanies this Fourier Automation video . Project Description: This playlist will walk the viewer through an intermediate / advanced home hobbyist robotics project. This project will be free-form and enthusiastic beginners may also enjoy it. We will convert a large, inexpensive RC 4x4 vehicle to a multi-modal autonomous rover. Note: Our robot won't have any actual RC capabilities after the first stages -- it will be better and more exciting than that. We will use the term "pseudo-RC" to refer to this style of control where user input will be intercepted and interpreted by the microcontroller before being transmitted to the motors / servos.  Here are the features we will build into our robot: IR Proximity Sensors (Optional) GPS navigation Multiple modes Idle Mode: Steering tests (pseudo-remote control) Pseudo-Remote Control Mode: RC Transmitter communicates with microprocessor and microprocessor interp

by  David Ferreira, Fourier Automation Preface & Links This is part 3 in a series of tutorials from Fourier Automation on using NASA's core Flight System (cFS), an embedded software framework used in everything from cubesats to NASA's flagship spacecraft. Video accompanying this post: cFS Tutorial 3: All Aboard the cFS Software Bus The entire tutorial series: Fourier Automations cFS Tutorial Playlist NASA training material: Core Flight System (cFS) Training Putting Messages onto the cFS Software Bus A key component of NASA's cFS Framework is the (local) Software Bus or SB. This structure facilitates the publication of messages by a sending application to one or more subscriber applications. On a higher level, cFS also has a Software Bus Network (SBN) which connects various systems running cFS locally. But in this video, we will limit ourselves to learning how place messages onto the local software bus (SB) from our sample application. For a more in-depth understanding u

Copy & Customize Stock cFS sample_app and Connect It Up Build Automation ... by David Ferreira NOTE: This post is a sequel to my first cFS tutorial . These steps assume you have completed all the steps in the prior post. Without those step, these instructions will make no sense. Intro In my last post, we downloaded NASA's cFS framework, made a slight modification to the NASA sample_app and then build it and ran it. In this post, we will start where we left off and progress to cloning the sample_app and making it our own. We will focus on the idiosyncrasies of loading a new application module on cFE boot and linking our new, cloned application into the existing cFS build automation which relies on CMake and make to build both the applications and the framework. This is very much non-trivial and worthy of its own blog post. This post WILL NOT FOCUS ON how to efficiently rename 20+ files at a time in Linux terminal. Nor will we focus clever use of find/replace in a text editor to

Demo / Tutorial: NASA's cFS (core Flight System) by David Ferreira This post is a companion to our video tutorial on YouTube. Click here to view that video as you follow the steps below. NOTE:  Your background will vary according to your own configuration of VM. Steps 1. Stand Up a Target Machine If you already have a target Linux machine handy, please skip this step. If not, consider setting up a Linux VM.  If you don't already have VirtualBox or some other VM management software installed,  click here to install VirtualBox from Oracle .   Here are two videos that will guide you through setup of either a Ubuntu Linux VM or a Raspberry Pi VM: How to Install Ubuntu on VirtualBox in Windows 10  (by ProgrammingKnowledge) Windows Hyper-V Virtual Machine Tutorial (by Kevin Stratvert) How to Install Raspberry Pi OS on VirtualBox  (by SysDrive) NOTE: Special steps are required to make this process work on Raspberry Pi. Please chec

Lake Travis Water Level Forecast (as of 03/01/22 ) Author: David Ferreira (Resume) Data Sources:  LCRA, Texas Water Development Board (WaterDataforTexas.org) Forecast Fig. 1: 6-month forecast with 80% and 95% confidence intervals. Forecast Data Table 1 shows our mean forecast (“Point Forecast”) and 80% and 95% confidence intervals. ( Confidence intervals explained. ) We encourage readers to view our forecast as a range, rather than a specific number. However, we are excited about the accuracy of our Point Forecasts and encourage readers to compare our mean forecast to the LCRA’s own median projections*. Table 1: Mean forecast and confidence intervals by month (6-month forecast) Period Point Forecast Lo 80 Hi 80 Lo 95 Hi 95 Actual Delta % Delta Mar-22 660.9 655.6 666.3 652.8 669.1