Hello,
I make a quadcopter, and before buying the pieces, I would like some advices because I'm a beginner in the subject.
So, it's based on the PL2Q printed by my 3D Printer.
But, the main idea is to remplace the gyro, telemetry, GPS, camera, accelerometer and the magnetometer with a smartphone (In this case, a HTC Wildfire) and put it on the camera place. It's connected with motors (and ESC) by a Arduino ADK board.
Here is the basic idea.
Bonus: With a phone, I can :
- control the drone at an unlimited range
- do FPV and telemetry with Wifi / 3G / Bluetooth
- do heavy computation on the phone with low or hight level interface
- have two battery, so more for the motors
- lower the price to 300$ (even 200$ I think)
- play sounds
- land and take of with proximity sensor and/or camera
- GPS
- Phone call / SMS control
So, isn't this so cool? I could even start a kickstarter campaign and sell a UAV at 200$ without the phone but compatible with Android, iOS, Windows Phone,...
But for now I build one for me and my university
Thanks for reading
PS:Sorry for my poor english
Replies
Hi, what is your progress in this?
I would like to participate on the development.
Please let me know.
We made flone, and it only cost around 70 euros:
http://flone.aeracoop.net
Hello,
How are you going to connect the android to Arduino? I've only done it successfully via Bluetooth
I think within a few years small android combination devices (basically phones, but maybe a bit smaller) will be able to have apps that do virtually ALL the flight control, GPS plus FPV and still pics/video. I can't see why it would head in other other direction, because the low cost of these devices made by the 100's of millions will have to edge out even the lowest cost dedicated hardware GPS stuff.
This is a view from the outside, but it is akin to al the things computers now do in software which previously required hardware or completely different devices.
With complete tablets selling for $150 (on sale) with GPS in them, how long before a sub-$100 3 inch screen phone/gps programmable do-dad which plugs into a receiver or other interface module and does most everything?
I say 5 years, but that's probably on the long end.
Edit -even if android is not "real time" now, additions to it plus outside interfaces for the stuff that has to be really quick could probably make up the difference. Some might depend on the use - but for photog and general flight (not flips, races, obstacle courses, etc.), would you need realtime for anything other than some of the motor balancing?
We'd need to know how slow it is....and why it could not be made quicker.
Android is not a real time operating system, it's not suitable for real time control.
You can use an APM or any other flight board(With it own's IMU, not the one on the android) to control the aircraft and have the android provide you with Telemetry, FPV and maybe use it's GPS but that's about it.
Hey I worked on this solution for a plan...I didnt fly it but I did closed the cycle and connect it to Flight Gear Simulator to test it.
I use Android smart phone and IOIO to control servo.
pls check this project http://code.google.com/p/androiv-uav-over-android/
I was thinking along the same lines. So, how have you gone so far?