Latest Activity

Ravi replied to Frederik Borg's discussion How to setup ArduPilot for 3-channel fixed wing? in the group ArduPlane User Group
"use like configuring a 4 channel plane. just do not connect the aileron. since your plane does not have aileron so it does not needs stabilization on roll axis. it would stabilize only on pitch axis using elevator. second option is you can add…"
3 minutes ago
Coraleigh Abrams replied to heckmic's discussion Arducopter won't stay in Position (Loiter)
"Hey when I put my quad copter in loiter it doesn't seem to go all different directions but it just goes straight up and wont stop until I manually move the sticks to bring it back down and the other day all the motors just cut out and it fell…"
9 minutes ago

Developer
jasonshort commented on jasonshort's blog post Getting ready for Arducopter 3.0
9 minutes ago
Soko posted a discussion

APM not uploading in Mission Planner

Hi,I have tried for about 2 weeks trying to get mission planner to upload arduplane to my APM 2.5.  Each time I try to load the firmware from Mission Planner it tries to read the hex file and freezes about 9/10 of the way through the process of reading the hex file (Attached Screen Shots). I was able to upload via Ardruino, but I was hoping to use Mission Planner in the future to update. Settings:Using COM 2 @ 11520 via a USBLoaded Arduplane 2.72See More
12 minutes ago
Scott Fuller replied to Nathaniel Caner's discussion Help Tuning Arduplane 2.73 With A Large Slow Airframe
"Span is 1.8m, I'd have to go back and calculate my wing loading. and I'm coming in probably around 2000 Grams.  I have one field where I can take the SH is a 2.5km by 1.5km field. Usually I do a bunch of my  testing at that…"
14 minutes ago
andrew replied to andrew's discussion Multicopter not lifting too heavy, time to upgrade parts!
"I am using the C ratings of about 35, for the 3s.  But the 4s coming in is 50C.  How much of a difference would it make?  And low or high threshold, then effects?   Would that cause a little unresponsiveness i've been…"
17 minutes ago
Brian Keller replied to Jason's discussion Mission Planner Problems
"At should have said "at the same time" instead of "as the same".  I've had problems connecting to the PC with the USB port while the 3DR Telemetry module was also connected to the APM.  I just unhook the…"
27 minutes ago
Dean Franks replied to Tim V's discussion HAM RC Transmitter
"Sec. 97.215 Telecommand of model craft An amateur station transmitting signals to control a model craft may be operated as follows: (a) The station identification procedure is not required for transmissions directed only to the model craft, provided…"
28 minutes ago
Soviet87 commented on Chris Anderson's blog post Scientists monitor dragonfly brains on the fly
"I wonder if the dragon fly will suffer any ill side effects? I couldn't think that probes in your back and brains would be conducive to good health!"
34 minutes ago
Sergio Beltran replied to Rafael Villegas's discussion Ajustes PID y Entonación de un OctoCopter in the group Spanish arducopter Users
"Hola Rafael, tengo un octo el cual lleva un mes en pruebas de sintonizacion. Pienso que puede ser muy útil retroalimentar información de la experiencia que ambos llevamos. Acepta la solicitud que te mande. "
38 minutes ago
Stephen Ross replied to Jason's discussion Mission Planner Problems
"Brian, Sorry I'm not sure what you mean. Are you asking if I have the 3DR Telemetry radio plugged into the same USB port as the USB cable for the APM? If so yes I'm using the same USB port but I have only one (3DR or USB port from the APM)…"
39 minutes ago
Alex O. replied to Randy's discussion ArduCopter-3.0 ready for wider use
"Awesome!.. I have been holding at 2.9.1 for months and very soon I will be upgrading to v3.0.0-rc6.0:)))"
42 minutes ago

Developer
Randy replied to Randy's discussion ArduCopter-3.0 ready for wider use
"Novrizal,      Yes, that's right.  It will only trigger if you lose GPS while you're in a mode that requires GPS.  Alt Hold, Stabilize, Acro won't be affected."
44 minutes ago
Hunter Parris commented on phillip.anthony.smith's blog post Simpler Cellular Telemetry?
"I'm having some difficulty getting the MAVCell app to work.  I've connected all the wiring using the Lilypad to the TELEM port on the APM 2.5 board and my Galaxy SIII.  The phone starts charging but I cannot open the COM port.…"
46 minutes ago
novrizal herdananto replied to Randy's discussion ArduCopter-3.0 ready for wider use
" GPS failsafe only triggered when copter at GPS required modes, so when i don't have GPS lock when alt-hold, it would not matter.. am i right ?"
1 hour ago

3D Robotics
Joshua Ott posted a blog post

Thirty Days (#30): Tour of 3DR North

This was shot on a couple of different days, with a couple of different states of tune. Nothing fancy, just a hard mounted GoPro 2. It gives you a quick view of our sweet little office in the corner of the Swerve Co compound. See More
1 hour ago

Start a discussion

Click here to start a forum topic below. Remember to select a category!

VIew all discussions

Click here to see all forum topics.

Forum

Mission Planner Problems

Started by Jason in ArduCopter 2.x (multicopter). Last reply by Brian Keller 27 minutes ago. 6 Replies

HAM RC Transmitter

Started by Tim V in RC equipment. Last reply by Dean Franks 28 minutes ago. 2 Replies

What do I need to start

Started by Mitchell Yazdani in ArduCopter 2.x (multicopter). Last reply by Mitchell Yazdani 2 hours ago. 9 Replies

Camera trigger, again

Started by brakar in Aerial photography. Last reply by Dan Ho 2 hours ago. 19 Replies

"ArduPilot Source Code" Licensing Information

Started by Shyam Balasubramanian in ArduCopter 2.x (multicopter). Last reply by Jorge Torres 3 hours ago. 9 Replies

Site license

Creative Commons License
All content is free to use under a Creative Commons attribution license.

Videos

  • Add Videos
  • View All

Photos

Loading…
  • Add Photos
  • View All
 

Welcome to DIY Drones!


This is the home for everything about amateur Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs). Use the tabs and drop-down menus above to navigate the site. (About us/Site rules)

This community created the Arduino-based ArduPilot, the world's first universal autopilot (planes, multicopters of all sorts and ground rovers). The APM 2.5 autopilot hardware runs a variety of powerful free UAV software systems, including:

  • ArduPlane, a pro-level UAV system for planes of all types
  • ArduCopter, a fully-autonomous multicopter and heli UAV system
  • ArduRover, a fully-autonomous ground-based vehicle system

I'm new to all this--where do I start?                    Are amateur UAVs legal? (yes)

Examples of civilian uses of drones                   Glossary of confusing terms

Blog Posts

Thirty Days (#30): Tour of 3DR North

Posted by Joshua Ott on June 17, 2013 at 8:00pm 0 Comments

This was shot on a couple of different days, with a couple of different states of tune. Nothing fancy, just a hard mounted GoPro 2. It gives you a quick view of our sweet little office in the corner of the Swerve Co compound. 

Scientists monitor dragonfly brains on the fly

Posted by Chris Anderson on June 17, 2013 at 7:48pm 3 Comments

One of the best ways to design micro-UAVs is to emulate insects. But figuring out how insects navigate and fly is hard, unless you can monitor their neurons in action. Scientists have now figured out how to do that. A fascinating piece from my alma mater, Wired:

The brain of a dragonfly has to do some serious calculations — and fast — if it hopes to…

Continue

VTOL with APM 2.5

Posted by Chris Anderson on June 17, 2013 at 7:31pm 0 Comments

From the YouTube video "Wingcopter - first fully tilted flight with the new APM2.5"

Looks great. Anybody have details?

(via RCBill)

Discussion of Business Opportunity With Drones

Posted by Timothy Reuter on June 17, 2013 at 5:35pm 0 Comments

Dr. Darryl Jenkins, author of the recent AUVSI report on the Economic Impact of Drones, spoke last week with the DC Area Drone User Group about business opportunities using drone…

Continue

DIY Drones at 40,000 Members!

Posted by Joshua Johnson on June 17, 2013 at 3:00pm 1 Comment

It's customary and a tradition, that we celebrate every new 1,000 members here and share the traffic stats. This time it's 40,000!!!!

There were 2 million page views in the last month! (we get around 62,000 pageviews a day on average). It took us just 25 days to get this latest 1,000 members--we're…

Continue

Getting ready for Arducopter 3.0

Posted by jasonshort on June 17, 2013 at 11:20am 13 Comments

I flew AC 3.0 (rc5) at Sparkfun which required me to rethink my vibration dampening strategy. In other words I had to go from no strategy to something very robust. If you want to fly 3.0 in any AP mode you'll need to consider at least some of these methods. Once upgraded, my copter was able to hold a…

Continue

Successfully Flew A Three 3k Waypoint Flight

Posted by Trent at MyGeekShow on June 17, 2013 at 11:13am 2 Comments

I set up three 3k circles around my field to test range and how the Raptor would perform during an actual travel environment, and it performed very, very well. A perfect flight. You may see at the end I realize that my RTL altitude was set to zero, but luckily I was quick enough to set a guided mode until I could manually return it home. 

Awesome stuff! Thank you…

Continue

Replacing Naza with Ardupilot - Weekly Video #10

Posted by Jake Wells on June 17, 2013 at 11:03am 6 Comments

This week has had quite the number of battles. I finally got the Coffin Copter in the air and flying very nice using the  Ardupilot. I don't think I'll even go back to Naza.

Flymanta Avatar on a Football Ground.

Posted by patrice.rance on June 17, 2013 at 4:03am 0 Comments

Here is the FlyManta AVATAR movie shoot made this week-end with a 2 axes Direct Drive Brushless. I was at Cité Universitaire in PARIS where i live. (A kind of Big Campus for foreign people. All nationality is represented here)

FlyManta particularity is the YAW movment made with 2 Servomotors on front Arms.

The Yaw command is the same than a normal…

Continue

Droning for Rhinos

Posted by Marcel Norman on June 17, 2013 at 1:00am 5 Comments

Hi people

I've launched a campaign on Indiegogo to build UAS kits and supply them to Nature Reserves in and around Southern Africa to fight the war against poachers.

Please spread the word, we need some serious help to stop these thugs…

Continue
 
 
 

Social Networking

Contests

Season Two of the Trust Time Trial (T3) Contest has now begun. The fourth round is an accuracy round for multicopters, which requires contestants to fly a cube. The deadline is April 14th.

A list of all T3 contests is here

Groups

Advertisement

UAV news from sUAS News

Trimble’s new UAS targets big survey, geospatial projects

Trimble’s new UAS targets big survey, geospatial projects

Holding thumbs that the FAA will come through for them in 2015, Trimble unveils its latest wing. Sunnyvale, Calif.-based, publicly traded (Nasdaq: TRMB) Trimble, with $2 billion in 2012 revenue, uses positioning technologies – GPS, lasers and optics – to focus on applications requiring position or location, including surveying, construction, agriculture, fleet and asset management, public safety and mapping. Like the X100 but better  Just like its predecessor, the Gatewing X100 – the market’s first commercial aerial imaging rover – incorporates mission planning, automatic field image acquisition and fully digital and automated image processing software. Trimble acquired privately-held Gatewing, a Belgium-based manufacturer of lightweight UAVs for photogrammetry and rapid terrain mapping, in April 2012. The UX5 carries a Sony NEX-5R mirrorless, 16.1-megapixel camera with a fixed focal-length external lens, which has a surface area nearly nine times that of the Ricoh camera carried on the X100, which was already 1.5 times larger than the biggest on the market at the time. The large field of view from the camera allows the rover to cover 50-75 percent more area to enhance efficiency and reduce operational costs. In addition to the increase in flight efficiency, the Trimble UX5 is capable of producing [...]

Washington’s $10B Unmanned Industry

Washington’s $10B Unmanned Industry

By Rick Anderson Tad McGeer, multimillionaire godfatherof the state’s drone industry, was heading home the other day from his office in the rain-swept Columbia River Gorge town of White Salmon when he picked up his cell phone and dialed a Seattle reporter. In an earlier e-mail exchange, the reporter had asked about the growth of drone manufacturing in Washington, and McGeer had written back, “Are you jumping on the hype bandwagon, or do you want to discuss reality?” The hype he referred to was the drone-phobia that hovers over any discussion of unmanned flying vehicles, from the small model-sized planes that buzz Seattle neighborhoods to the multi-ton aerial robots that are used in war and prowl Washington’s northern border. To McGeer’s dismay, the public doesn’t seem to like them much—the airborne snoops fly right up and peek through your window, don’t they?—even though civilian drone use is growing and the Pentagon is expanding its drone air force, including four bases in the Evergreen State. Assured by the reporter that reality rocks, McGeer agrees to call. “I’ve got about a 20-minute drive,” said the 56-year-old Stanford aeronautical engineer, steering towards Hood River, Oregon, across the old two-lane toll bridge stretching three-quarters of [...]

GA-ASI successfully demonstrates enhanced sensor dissemination capability in U.S. Navy exercise

 GA-ASI successfully demonstrates enhanced sensor dissemination capability in U.S. Navy exercise

General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, Inc. (GA‑ASI), a leading manufacturer of Remotely Piloted Aircraft (RPA), tactical reconnaissance radars, and electro-optic surveillance systems, today announced its successful participation in the recent U.S. Navy Trident Spectre experiment conducted at the Joint Expeditionary Base Little Creek-Fort Story, Va. During its May 8-18 participation, GA-ASI operated a Predator® B surrogate (King Air 200) equipped with Predator B-type sensors including GA-ASI’s Lynx® Multi-mode Radar and FLIR’s Star SAFIRE 380HD Electro-Optical/Infrared (EO/IR) imaging system. The Predator B surrogate leveraged Lynx to detect ground-based moving targets, and GA-ASI’s Claw® payload control software automatically cross-cued, or slewed, to the Star SAFIRE for target visual identification. This next-generation data dissemination capability allowed naval commanders to review data rapidly, modify follow-on mission flight planning, and demonstrate ad-hoc mission re-tasking of the aircraft directly by commanders based in the Tactical Operations Center (TOC). Sensor imagery was also simultaneously streamed to a host of U.S. government entities in real-time. “Our primary goal was to provide all-weather, day/night Lynx radar and EO/IR data on moving ground targets and disseminate that information to the Navy’s shore-based TOC,” said Linden Blue, president, Reconnaissance Systems Group, GA-ASI. “The mission was successfully executed and marked a historical milestone by demonstrating the [...]

Teal Group Predicts Worldwide UAV Market Will Total $89 Billion in Its 2013 UAV Market Profile

Teal Group Predicts Worldwide UAV Market Will Total $89 Billion in Its 2013 UAV Market Profile

Despite near-term U.S. budget cutbacks, Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) continue as the most dynamic growth sector of the world aerospace industry this decade, report Teal analysts in their latest integrated market analysis, during the opening of the 50th Paris Air Show. Teal Group’s 2013 market study estimates that UAV spending will more than double over the next decade from current worldwide UAV expenditures of $5.2 billion annually to $11.6 billion, totaling just over $89 billion in the next ten years.  (For further details and study availability, contact the respective Teal sales representative in your area at http://www.tealgroup.com/). “The UAV market is evolving, it is becoming an increasingly international market as it grows,” said Philip Finnegan, Teal Group’s director of corporate analysis and an author of the study.  “UAVs have proved their value in Iraq and Afghanistan and are being sought by a growing number of militaries worldwide.” “The Teal Group study predicts that the US will account for 65% of the worldwide RDT&E spending on UAV technology over the next decade, and 51% of the procurement,” said Teal Group senior analyst Steve Zaloga, another author of the study. The tenth edition of the sector study, World Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Systems, Market Profile [...]

Camcopter S-100 growing experience sea board on L´Adroit

Camcopter S-100 growing experience sea board on L´Adroit

Since the OPV (Offshore Patrol Vessel) L´Adroit was officially made available to the French Navy in October 2011, the CAMCOPTER® S-100 Unmanned Air System (UAS) was able to prove its highly efficient maritime capability repeatedly. The Gowind Class L’Adroit, build by DCNS, has been designed to operate, amongst other capabilities, a UAS, and by installing the appropriate cabling and supporting equipment during build, has been fitted out to operate the maritime proven CAMCOPTER® S-100 from day one. The French Defense Procurement Agency (DGA) purchased a S-100 and qualified its integration aboard L’Adroit in the frame of an experimentation ordered by the French Navy. At the moment the French Navy is the only European Navy capable of operating a UAS VTOL from a surface ship. Embarked on board the OPV L’Adroit, the CAMCOPTER® S-100 has been operating in the Indian Ocean and Asia. Thanks to S-100, the French Navy has been able to evaluate the contribution of UAS during missions assigned to L’Adroit (preventing illegal practices at sea like terrorism, drug trafficking, illegal fishing and illegal immigration, ensuring maritime safety). Over 120 flight hours and 190 take-offs were conducted since the beginning of 2012, with much more to come in the [...]

UAV news from Flight Global

Maritime Heron UAV supports European airspace trial

Europe has advanced a project to prove the feasibility of using satellite communications to enable UAS operations in non-segregated airspace ...

Brazilian navy begins UAS evaluation

The Brazilian navy has begun to evaluate two Israeli-made unmanned air systems for maritime surveillance missions ...

Indian air force to launch micro UAS evaluation

The Indian air force is to evaluate several micro unmanned air systems from around 10 companies in early May ...

VIDEO: Eurocopter demonstrates unmanned EC145

Eurocopter has unveiled an optionally piloted vehicle (OPV), based on its EC145 light twin, which has been in development since September 2011.

Israeli F-16 downs another Hezbollah UAV

An Israeli air force Lockheed Martin F-16 has shot down an unmanned air vehicle launched from Lebanon by Hezbollah militants ...

© 2013   Created by Chris Anderson.   Powered by

Badges  |  Report an Issue  |  Terms of Service