Notes from meeting with Will, 31-Oct-06 (TC) …

Notes

• UAVs and Flocking
• seems to be a fair body of recent work in this area
• adding this into the project plan, to be covered as part of the literature review
• Bats
• bats flock, but it could be that only one of them performs any echolocation
• lots of questions stem from this …
• how do you work out where your neighbours are when flying in the dark, being but one!
• however, could make sense: if you have a flock of 100 bats, all sounding off, how does each one work out which signal is theirs?
• Jython
• started coding
• aiming to have re-done previous model using Java by 16-Nov
• bit of a stretch target!
• Misc.
• Kalman filter experts at Reading

Tuesday Jython-ing …

Today I managed to get a yellow circle in a box … through Java!! Bit crazy at the minute, as I’m trying to work out how to get Java classes to do my bidding, whilst going through a crash course of Python. I’ve downloaded 2 tutorials off the IBM website though, and think I’ll go through those, partly as a refresher and partly as a eye-opener to Java.

I can already see the bonuses of using Jython though. I went through the demo pack that comes with the install earlier todayl, and there’s an easy way to get dialog boxes, etc up and running, and getting information back from them. This means that I can more easily control the visual display of information — I had no idea what VPython was doing at times — plus get information into application via using standard GUI components, as opposed to hard-coding each change.

Monday — installing Jython …

Today I’ve installed Jython, after much too-ing and fro-ing about it (fair bit of research done on the web prior to install.) Following this, and a number of reboots to make sure everything still works on my system, looks like the install is working.

Tomorrow, we’ll be going through some online tutorials.

Wandering around Wikipedia …

A quick (are they ever? ;-) ) excursion to Wikipedia, to look at UAVs, led to the following:

• Computational geomertry
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computational_geometry
• probably good for a revisit at some stage
• Control theory
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Control_%28science%29
• should revisit at a later stage
• Convex polygon
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convex_polygon
• Decision theory
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decision_theory
• revisit
• Decision tree
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decision_tree
• revisit
• Driverless car
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Driverless_car
• revisit
• Graph theory
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graph_theory
• revisit
• Graph (Data structure)
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graph_%28data_structure%29
• revisit
• Kalman filter
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalman_filter
• revisit
• Motion planning
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motion_planning
• revisit
• Sensor fusion
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sensor_fusion
• revisit
• Soft sensor
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soft_sensor
• Tree traversal
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tree_search
• (& finally …) Unmanned aerial vehicle
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UAV

Don’t you just love Wikipedia ;-) !!

3d flocking reference …

Induced Drag of a Bird Flock

J. J. L. Higdon, S. Corrsin

American Naturalist,

Vol. 112,

No. 986 (Jul. – Aug., 1978),

pp. 727-744

Another journal to look up …

Flock Foraging in Nectar-Feeding Bats: Advantages to the Bats and to the Host Plants

D. J. Howell

American Naturalist,
Vol. 114,
No. 1 (Jul., 1979),

pp. 23-49

Notes from meeting with Will, 26-Oct-2006 (TC)

Report comments

• writing style: try to lean towards a more academic style:
• start sentences with facts
• less “An interesting proposition along these grounds is …”
• the word “interesting” is often used to convey results that cannot be explained
• the word “significant” alludes to “statistically significant”
• wikipedia links
• better to use text book as a reference
• e.g. fluid mechanics text book
• use ibids in conjunction — see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ibid

Next couple of week’s activities:

• due to start next report Thu 9-Nov (may push this back to 13-Nov, to start a new week)
• probably looking to do the following:
• 26-Oct — ~31-Oct: explore some additional routes, extra journals found of interest, etc (sooner I finish though, the sooner I will start on the next piece)
• ~1-Nov — 13-Nov: start look at Jython

Misc.

• may be contacted by an undergraduate regarding flocking project (initials DG)

Some quick bird research …

Some very quick notes about birds:

• they seem to be reasonably intelligent (Wikipedia: Bird Intelligence)
• they can detect variations in pressure (Kreithen 1974): however, this appears to be equivalent to altitude changes of ~10m, so not of sufficient use in flocking I would have thought
• also found this Journal:

Induced Drag of a Bird Flock

J. J. L. Higdon, S. Corrsin
American Naturalist,
Vol. 112,
No. 986 (Jul. – Aug., 1978),

pp. 727-744

• … which looks v. interesting, as it details the aerodynamics of a flock moving in 3D.

The plan for the next few days …

Having managed to submit the drafting report, the next couple of days will look like the following:

• work out how much time there is between now and the next critical path activity
• plan out what activities to perform in this time period
• do them
• start on next activity

With this in mind, I’ll be doing the planning exercise tonight, so I can start working on the next piece tomorrow.

Monday writing …

Still going through and attempting to finish off vs1 of the drafting report. Almost there I think — just need to add in a short piece about vortex streets (maybe — still undecided), and some tidying.