Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Zeq on September 23, 2007 at 1:24am

Hey Paul,

When I started the project, no. Wasn't my greatest strength, designing autopilot system. But the little knowledge I have of control systems was enough for me to source out the right people, the right company and the right information to get suitable autopilot system. I have nothing but admiration to those who can make autopilot systems - its just too complicated for me. Now, I'm teaming up with other universities to try to appreciate the complexity of making an autopilot system. For me, making airframes are much less complicated, and also making payload pods. I would be happy if I can say at the end of the day that the expensive stuff people put inside my airframes are safe and sound for its design. To date, I've been lucky to have tested MP2000, MP2028G, UNAV and couple more autopilot systems. I look forward to hear about your test - I recall I lost lots of sleep before the flight tests when I used to test these autopilots those days.

--
ZEQ

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Permalink Reply by Ryan on September 23, 2007 at 7:16am

Hi garry

The aircraft is pretty big inside as you will be able to see from the photos. Since i am only just getting back into flying i have 2 off these aircraft. One is going to be used as my trainer so i can learn to fly again and the other im going to turn into and AP/AV/UAV platform.

The toffee bomb hold is the triangle shaped hole which i am going to mount a pan/tilt av camera in and the larger square one is going to be for a fuji finepix a600. The front one is the battery compartment but i plan to move the battery further back, to help with balance, which will also allow me to put the camera in out off the airflow in a gyro stabilized platform.

For the gps i am going to use my xda min pda with memory map software with the fma direct fs8 copilot and associated parts.

Hopefully when my current job ends in 2 years i am going to try and get into the uav sector of the avaition market as this is where my interests are.

Attachments:

• 2007_0923_182508.JPG, 2.2 MB
• 2007_0923_182518.JPG, 2.4 MB
• 2007_0923_182532.JPG, 2.4 MB

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Permalink Reply by Ahmad Usman on September 29, 2007 at 3:15pm

HI All I am an aerospace engineer in Pakistan and working on amatuer satellite from a long time and now I have shifted my mind to UAV project. I am starting a UAV project for agriculture purpose. The main purpose of the project is to monitor Salin Water in which is a major problem for farmer. In my views the use of UAV is more better and easy in case of satellite however the scope is limited. The link to my project is http://www.informationvision.net

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Permalink Reply by Ahmad Usman on September 29, 2007 at 3:16pm

Dear All
I am also working on a mini UAV in Pakistan. The link to my project is www.informationvision.net

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Permalink Reply by Barrett Ames on November 18, 2007 at 5:26pm

Hey guys,
My highschool Robotics club has decided that we're going to expand into the UAV field. We're going to enter into AUVSI competition if we can get a plane in working order. So far we have a computer system. The system specs i don't have but to give you an over view, we have around a Ghz of processing power, 1 gps chip *possibly move up to 3 *, and our own code for stabilizing the plane. Unfortunately resources have limited us from buying a plane that we can test the code with. We're planning on using a 10-12 ft telemaster with a gas engine. We'll also have a camera system with shape recognition software *yet to create this software* that will be on a pan and tilt system that hopefully will fold up into the plane.

I was ecstatic to find such a great resource as this website.

Looking forward to our entrance into the UAV community.

-maverick

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Permalink Reply by Ben Merrill on November 23, 2007 at 7:19am

This isn't my project, but I thought it fit here. I ran into this blog post on Gizmodo about a Georgia Tech researcher that is creating algorithms for helicopters to land at any angle, with 60 degrees being the current best, and an auto-retry feature. Pretty impressive.

http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/spidercopter/helicopter-model-lands-on-6...

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ModeratorPermalink Reply by Gary Mortimer on November 23, 2007 at 12:27pm

Excuse my French but F me thats impressive.

But as I live in dial up world now I can't see the video, to see if its for real.

It has made me get my helicopter manuals out though.

Something tells me that you can't take an R22/44 on a slope greater than 7 and 1/2 degrees without worrying lots.

But I can't find it anywhere.

The military will be queing up for that tech.

I see safety notice SN-9 Many accidents involve dynamic rollover and in my manual I have added a little picture which has 15 degrees inside the slope. But for the life of me I can't remember what it means ;-)

I love R22 safety notice SN-15 Fuel Exhaustion can be fatal. ..... Well who would have thought.

Landing a helicopter on a 60 degree slope is really really really cool.

Well done that team.

I wonder if it will scale up. Perhaps fixing velcro to every slope of 60 degrees or less could become a new trade.

Maybe they could comment here and put me straight about my helicopter knowledge.

G

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Permalink Reply by Skylar Givens on April 24, 2008 at 2:28pm

Hey guys! I'm working on a high-altitude glider consisting of mostly off-the-shelf hardware. In a nutshell, the glider is carried to near space (65,000ft+) by a weather balloon where it cuts free and begins it's descent. Then it begins to autonomously navigate back to the landing zone, collecting data and photos along the way. Waypoints and autopilot code can be changed on the fly by the ground control software. The onboard control system consists of a Gumstix w/Robostix along with some custom-built hardware to interface with sensors and communications systems. The custom autopilot is highly modular which allows it to be easily adapted to different hardware configurations. Nearly all code is written in Ruby simply because it is much easier to work with than ASM or C. I believe that the benefits of Ruby outweigh the performance cost associated with using an interpreted language.

The Nitromodels 63" Predator is currently acting as a test platform, but I am fairly certain that it won't be able to stand up to the stresses required for a high altitude mission. I will need to build a custom airframe unless I manage to find one that's up to the job.

The ground control software is primarily a Ruby on Rails server which integrates with Google Earth, allowing for ridiculously easy 3D mission control and visualization. Anyone with an internet connection can watch the missions play out live in Google Earth. All data and images will be available to the public the moment they are received from the glider.

I'll be posting photos, diagrams, schematics, and code on my blog as things move along. I expect to be making a few low altitude test launches in the coming months, followed by the real deal early in the summer.

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Permalink Reply by Jeffrey Johnson on April 24, 2008 at 3:06pm

Rad! Where are you going to do this? ... Keep us posted!

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Permalink Reply by Skylar Givens on April 24, 2008 at 4:20pm

I live in Edmonds, a small town North of Seattle. My original plan was to attempt launch and recovery from a nearby field. However, I recently discovered that I am surrounded by fairly busy Class B airspace for many miles in every direction. If I were to launch here I would not only be in trouble with the FAA, but would likely be dealing with issues of national security (especially after 9/11).

My current plan is to carry out missions near Washington State University in Pullman, WA. It's a long drive but it looks like my only choice at the moment.

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Permalink Reply by Neal Clark on April 24, 2008 at 6:43pm

It would almost be just as far to drive up to Canada. The boundary bay area has lots of open beach and there are virtually no limitations on where or how high you can fly. It is very close to the border and a lot closer than Pullman, WA.

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Permalink Reply by Achal Agrawal on May 29, 2008 at 10:10am

PUSHPAK-1, THE UAV PROJECT

ABOUT MYSELF:

Hi Everybody! My name is Achal Agrawal. I am an engineering student from India. I am a weekend flyer and a robotics enthusiast. I also head the Robotics Club in my college. I have participated in and won many robotics contests at college level. As I have both Aeromodelling and Robotics as my hobbies I have always dreamed of making my own UAV and now I have decided to turn it into a reality. I am here to share my work and ideas with you. Hopefully your comments will help me achieve my goal.

PROJECT GOALS:

• To Design, Build & fly a UAV.
• To design & build the Airframe and Avionics myself.
• A budget of $600.
• The Avionics carrying no high cost IMU.
• UAV capable of flights upto 1 hr.
• UAV capable of multipoint navigation, Altitude control, Airspeed control & circling over a waypoint
• Build Time approximately 6-7 months.

SPECIFICATIONS:

AIRFRAME: Powered electric/Engine Glider, 6 ft wing-span. Balsa wood construction.
CONTROLS: Throttle, Rudder & Elevator.
AVIONICS:
• dsPIC Microcontroller with 12 bit ADCs as the flight computer.
• PIC18F Microcontroller as the Servo Controller.
• Pressure sensor-MPX5010 with Pitot Tube for Airspeed Measurement.
• Pressure sensor- MPX4100 (Static) for Altitude Measurement
• 32 Channel GPS for Navigation.
• Compass for heading measurement.
• Futaba GY240 Rate Gyro for combined Roll and Yaw axis stabilization.
• Elevator control is based on altitude measurement.
Throttle control is based on Airspeed Measurement.

OVERVIEW:
As I have a low budget for my project, so I decided not to go for an IMU (Inertial measurement Unit, containing gyros & accelerometers for knowing attitude of aircraft). Buying an IMU was not in budget and developing an IMU wasn’t easy at my level. I decided to go for an Inherently Stable Airframe which wouldn’t require a full IMU. The Airframe I had selected in the beginning was a Powered Parafoil as it has self stabilizing characteristic due to pendulum effect. The stall speed is also very slow for parafoil. I decided to first have it autonomous only in glide mode so only control to be operated was steering of parafoil. The autopilot comprising GPS for navigation & Compass for heading information and a PIC microcontroller for taking GPS & compass reading compute the required heading & control the steering servo.

How I landed up selecting a glider as the Airframe?
I have an engine powered glider which I started learning with & still love to watch it go 1000ft+. The glider has only elevator and rudder as control surfaces. Due to its polyhedral wing shape, it is very stable in air. One day I was teaching my friend to fly that glider. He was always turning more than what he wanted to. I told him not to just leave the rudder to neutral on finishing the turn, but to give some rudder input in the direction opposite to that of turn direction, as soon as he finishes the turn. That excess turning was due the wing banked and what the opposite rudder input did was to bring the wings level. What I realized at that moment was that the bank angle has some relation to yaw rate. In short, by monitoring the yaw rate, you can have control over the bank angle. I have a FUTABA GY240 gyro which I use for making my robots go straight. I decided to do a small experiment by putting the gyro on the glider in rate mode to sense yaw rate and cancel if any. It was a very simple experiment and what I had to do was just to connect the gyro in between the receiver and rudder servo, mount it properly on fluselage and test fly. With a gain of 60% on the Gyro, the glider flew satisfactorily and now it was automatically bringing the wing level as I released the rudder, which was not happening previously. This solved the Roll axis stabilization problem. For Pitch control I decided to select altitude as the reference and airspeed as reference for throttle control.

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