Hi All

The Big Black X8 Wing is now in stock at FPVflying.com…

http://noticias.uol.com.br/cotidiano/ultimas-noticias/2012/05/30/mini-helicoptero-com-celulares-a-bordo-e-encontrado-perto-de-rodovia-no-interior-de-sp.htm

Says that roadside cleaning workers found a abandoned hexa-copter near a penitentiary (in  Presidente Venceslau, São Paulo state,…

Good news for those joining us at Sparkfun's Autonomous Vehicle Competition: if you're bringing your kids, they'll have something fun to do:

Sparkfun announcement:

At this year's competition, we will…

In case you've missed the news today:

The return to Earth completes a historic first mission to the International Space Station (ISS) by a privately operated vehicle.

Impact with the water was confirmed at 08:42 Pacific Daylight Time (15:42 GMT; 16:42 BST).

Fast boats positioned in the splashdown zone were despatched to recover the…

As you might have heard, a few days ago a strong earthquake hit the North of Italy, destroyed lots of industrial buildings and caused several deaths. On an Italian news portal there is a video of a RC quad (cannot recognize the model, but maybe someone else can) used to survey collapsed buildings, trying to…

A few details here (love the RADAR mount!). 

(Via Robot…

In the five years that we've been running this site, the Moderators have banned thousands of spammers, but only three or four members for violations of our Terms of Service, which make clear that civil discourse is paramount and personal attacks will not be tolerated.

This is not something we do lightly. It happens only after repeated violations and warnings, and we do it with a heavy…

The Turnigy H.A.L Frame looks to be quite nice....Not sure what Heavy means, but this this is made of aluminum, and at 614grams, is not too heavy, provided the right motors and props are used....I think I will go ahead and order one, and try it out...

Anyway, more information over at HobbyKing: …

ST extends it's gyro line with a new 9 axes IC - LSM333D.

Features:

1. 3 axes gyroscope with ±250 to ±2000dps selectable rotational acceleration full-scale range;

2. 3 axes accelerometer with ±2g to ±16g selectable linear acceleration full-scale range;

3. 3 axes compass with ±2 to…

Hello Everyone, we all know our GPS board (the one that comes with the APM1) has no battery to backup data.

This has the disadvantage to make the GPS not very precise in the first minutes after power up and that every startup is a cold startup (at least one minute to get a 3D fix).

This is because the GPS needs find the satellites without a…

[Sorry had to change some inlined images to link.  Too big]

devkits

This is very good for Home Automation. I was just thinking if this can be anything useful for our UAV Automation....

Any Suggestions or comments ?…

New research by the NIMBUS lab at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln has demonstrated how a UAV could hover over electronics on the ground and charge them. This might be useful for distributed sensor networks that can't use solar energy…

Hi all,

We have been selling our AeroMapper UAV as a kit so far, and we are glad to announce our new Ready To Fly version is available now.  Basically this is our second option which includes installed servos, motor and ESC, batteries, RC transmitter, and even battery charger.

We have our first batch…

Anna

It has been a long time since I have posted, however things haven’t stopped in the autonomous sailing group. We have built and tested a quiet stable RC Trimaran, the head-designer of the boat is …

I've been thinking include OpticalFlow whit laser sensor point.

all came into my mind after seeing …

On 5/20/12 North Texas Near Space (NTNS) and Project Soar collaborated on a dual launch during the annular eclipse. Albuquerque was directly in path of the eclipse. The NTNS payload had most of the electronics that I had intended for a guided flight. That airframe is no more, but I have some data that I'd like to share with the group as a result. The dual launch was a great target of opportunity…

Long time readers here will know of my love for LEGO Mindstorms NXT, and my first NXT autopilot many years ago. So I was delighted to see…

From Boing Boing:

"In the New York Times today, Brian Lam (formerly of Gizmodo, now the…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZVgKu6v808&feature=player_embedded

Pretty interesting video on the basic principles of these chips.

A Slashdot user aesoteric writes "Australia's top miners have opened a new front in their march to automation, flying unmanned aerial vehicles in increasing numbers at remote sites across the country. They've been used to inspect a fire-damaged oil rig, perform aerial photography and stockpile surveys.

There is also a trend towards non U.S.-built UAVs, due to the lag in receiving export approvals for the aircraft and spare parts."…