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Scott Plunkett A little side project...

I’ve been working on a little side project. I originally wanted a case and / or a stand for my Xbee and Xbee Explorer module, so I ordered a couple from Polycase and strapped it together. It looked nice enough and attached to the back of my laptop with Velcro so it was an OK solution. Then I started getting lazy and didn’t want to lug out my laptop and everything every time I wanted to log a flight, so I went to a couple of the different on-board loggers, but never really found a solution I like… Continue

Added by Scott Plunkett on March 21, 2010 at 8:24pm — 1 Comment

Chris Anderson Just for fun, the finals of the ROBO-ONE competition


Nothing to do with UAVs, but here's some Sunday night fun in lieu of our normally scheduled podcast. Shown is "the final, suspense filled match featuring Super Dygar (the red robot that starts off on the right side of the ring) and Neutrino (on the left with the large paddle hands.)" Read more at Robot Dreams. Continue

Added by Chris Anderson on March 21, 2010 at 7:00pm — 1 Comment

Doug Weibel What is the preferred elevator & throttle control laws for Fly By Wire

Poll - how do you want FBW to work?

Jason Short came up with a great flight mode, FLY BY WIRE, in ArduPilot 2.5. This mode differs from STABILIZE. In STABILIZE the autopilot constantly tries to return the plane to 0 pitch and roll, while you give stick inputs that tell the plane to do something else. It feels a bit like you are arm wrestling against the autopilot sometimes. With FLY BY WIRE if you move the right(*) stick half way to the right then the plane will ba… Continue

Added by Doug Weibel on March 21, 2010 at 6:30pm — 10 Comments

Tim Trueman Sorry everyone, no podcast this week.

Scheduling didn't work out at the last minute… Continue

Added by Tim Trueman on March 21, 2010 at 5:35pm — No Comments

Garry Qualls Commercial Quadrotor Recommendations?

I am setting up a lab this summer for some student research that will be similar in most ways to this one at MIT: http://vertol.mit.edu/

I would like to buy 6-8 commercially available trirotor or quadrotor helicopters in the $1000 - $1500 price range that would be similar in capabilities to the old Draganflyer V Ti. I've looked around and I would be very happy using Parrot AR Drones, but they have not set a date for releasing them or published a pri… Continue

Added by Garry Qualls on March 21, 2010 at 9:24am — 6 Comments

Paulo Geraldes F-35B STOVL flight tests

F-35B
What could be the last US manned aircraft project has just had it's STOVL
capability proven this week on its flight tests.
Here are some videos.

BF1_10P03140kntAppraochandLanding_ppt.wmv

… Continue

Added by Paulo Geraldes on March 20, 2010 at 5:30pm — 6 Comments

Chris Anderson New ArduPilot Mega boards off the production line!

That's Nathan Siedle, CEO of Sparkfun, handing me the very first ArduPilot Mega board to come off the Sparkfun production line. We were at an Arduino planning meeting in NYC; that's Massimo Banzi of the Arduino project in the back.

… Continue

Added by Chris Anderson on March 19, 2010 at 11:00pm — 19 Comments

Tom Hastie Maiden Ardu-Flight for me

It was my first flight with an Ardu-anything today. Working towards getting an ArduIMU/ArduPilot working.

So far it was just a data logging flight. I had a GPS and ArduIMU installed in my Stevens Aero Edge 540 along with an OpenLog from Sparkfun.

After downl

… Continue

Added by Tom Hastie on March 19, 2010 at 1:21pm — 3 Comments

Jack Crossfire This week in aerospace

PROP ADAPTOR TERRORISM, INDUCTOR INSANITY, THERMOPILE TERRORISM, WHAT SLOW
ATTITUDE ESTIMATES MEAN, LAST WEEK'S VIDEO FLIGHT

PROP ADAPTOR TERRORISM

These aluminum GWS prop adaptors are ridiculous. Lately they started stripping before getting anywhere near the required tension. Down to threadlock on plastic again.

… Continue

Added by Jack Crossfire on March 19, 2010 at 11:18am — 2 Comments

Jeff USB DSM2 Transmitter for my Blade MSR helicopter


Today i flew my Blade MSR using a joystick, my PC, and the 2.4ghz LP4DSM transmitter which used to be in the tx controller. The serial protocol is best documented here, but in

… Continue

Added by Jeff on March 18, 2010 at 6:17pm — 4 Comments

Gary Mortimer Interesting

Airservices Australia has taken the extraordinary step of banning model airplanes from entering Canberra airspace during next week’s planned visit of President Obama,
… Continue

Added by Gary Mortimer on March 18, 2010 at 3:00pm — 17 Comments

Philip Giacalone Introduction and UDB mode switching question

Hello, I've been silently following the progress of the UAV Dev Board team for a while now, and want to congratulate Bill Premerlani and his great team for their amazing accomplishments. This is my first posting, so please let me introduce myself. I'm relatively new to RC flying, and have very little experience with micro programming, but do have some background in aerospace and software engineering. Anyway, after crashing a few planes, it's exciting to see that such a capable and inexpensive… Continue

Added by Philip Giacalone on March 18, 2010 at 2:28am — 14 Comments

Chris Anderson Voice controlled heli UAV


From BotJunkie:

"This little helicopter is able to understand you when you tell it what to do. No pushing buttons, no using spec… Continue

Added by Chris Anderson on March 17, 2010 at 9:42pm — 10 Comments

Jose Julio ArduPilot Mega sensor shield testing report

… Continue

Added by Jose Julio on March 17, 2010 at 10:30am — 20 Comments

Alex Arevalo Is this Epson 6-axis sensor useful for DIY drones?

http://www.epsontoyocom.co.jp/english/info/2010/0223.html

It's intended for game machines but it comprises 3-axis gyros,

and 3-axis accelerometers. It's tiny: 0.4 x 0.3 x 0.15in. (10 x 8 x 3.8mm),

… Continue

Added by Alex Arevalo on March 17, 2010 at 9:21am — 5 Comments

David Ankers A public thank you to Caleb from CH Robotics


As some people might know there is a team hard at work on OpenPilot and we are making some progress, like every complex project things don't go as fast as you like but progress is happening. One of the things we are working on now is the low level infrastructure for the AHRS, this makes

… Continue

Added by David Ankers on March 16, 2010 at 9:30pm — 9 Comments

Irfan Mohamed A small blog tracking our progress...

Just in case anyone wants to see what me and a college buddy have been doing, pretty amateur compared to this site's standards (I promise it will get better ;)

http://uavproject.wordpress.com

Any help or advice/feedback would be appreciated :)
Continue

Added by Irfan Mohamed on March 16, 2010 at 1:14pm — 1 Comment

Earl Lab View Ground Station time lag cut to less than 1/2 second.

GSmphFT.vivideo_2010-03-16_00.07.44.m4v

After playing with lab view and the ArduPilot with the ArduIMU I have finally managed to get the time lag from the plane to the displayed… Continue

Added by Earl on March 16, 2010 at 12:00am — 15 Comments

Jonathan Lussier Great Article on how 'robots think' (or more accurately, how robots SEE)

http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2010/03/how-robots-think.ars/

Good 5-page article on algorithms, sensors and platforms used in modern robotics.
Continue

Added by Jonathan Lussier on March 15, 2010 at 11:48pm — 1 Comment

Robert Godlewski UAV flying in/around New York City?

Hey guys, this is my first post here on DIYDrones (I've been reading this site for a few months now, just not posting anything until now).

I'm in New York City (Brooklyn to be exact) and I'm really interested in building and flying a UAV. However, I'm wondering whether it's a good idea, or rather if it's even possible to fly an RC plane here. Obviously I'm not planning on flying around skyscrapers or anything, I just want to fly something and take a few camera shots or videos.
… Continue

Added by Robert Godlewski on March 15, 2010 at 7:51pm — 10 Comments

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