LAB NOTES
Technical notes from the lab.
Ascend Labs publishes notes to make progress visible: what we are learning, what we are testing, what assumptions are changing, and how drone systems become field-ready.
Introducing Ascend Labs
Ascend Labs is where drone ideas become field-ready systems: simulations, prototypes, technical notes, training pathways, and practical experiments connected to medical drone logistics in Africa.
- 02
Why Drone Simulation Matters for Africa
Drone simulation lowers the cost of learning, testing, and de-risking drone logistics. For African contexts, simulation is not a luxury; it is a practical bridge between ambition and field-ready capability.
[PUBLISHED] - 03
Building MAVLab: Friendly Gateway to Drone Simulation
MAVLab makes drone simulation approachable by using an Android phone, MAVLink telemetry, QGroundControl workflows, mission simulation, failures, and a 3D SIM to teach core drone concepts without requiring the full ROS/Gazebo/SITL stack on day one.
[PUBLISHED] - 04
Payload, Battery, and Range Tradeoffs for Medical Drone Delivery
Ascend Labs studies payload, battery, route, and reserve assumptions because a medical delivery drone must be evaluated as a mission system, not just as an aircraft specification sheet.
[PUBLISHED] - 05
Inside the MAVLab Technical Paper
We wrote up MAVLab as a proper technical paper: the phone-first architecture, the protocol-first methodology, live QGroundControl acceptance results, on-device performance, and an evaluation that separates what is verified from what is still future work.
[PUBLISHED]