December 2009 Blog Posts (92)

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Using ArduPilot as an aerial minesweeper?

I read in Aviation Week (Nov 16th issue) about the International Astronautical Federation and the Minseeker Foundation teaming up to study landmine detection from space. Landmines are a terrible leftover from war in many developing countries. There are an estimated 100 million landmines in the world, and they kill or maim 15,000 to 20,000 people each year. Many international organizations are working on ways to efficiently remove these landmines.



This got me thinking about the… Continue

Added by Tom Yochum on December 11, 2009 at 3:03pm — 62 Comments

THIS WEEK IN AEROSPACE







There it is. The coveted $3.30 14.7456Mhz crystal. With that & a small bugfix installed, the C328 works perfectly at 115200, the pictures stream continuously from the microcontroller & we're up to XBee lockups.



Even 1 way communication locks up in this high interference environment because the ACKs collide. Your only option is… Continue

Added by Jack Crossfire on December 11, 2009 at 11:30am — 3 Comments

MatrixPilot 2.0 Released for UAV Dev Board

What's New in MatrixPilot 2.0

  • Combines the functionality of MatrixNav and AileronAssist into a single firmware.
  • Supports navigation using both ailerons and rudder.
  • Increases the number of Radio Input channels (from 4 to 5), and Servo Output channels (from 3 to 6).
  • Supports controlling Delta wing and V-Tail airframes, in addition to Standard airframes with or without ailerons.
  • More responsive to switching between Manual, Stabilized, and…
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Added by Ben Levitt on December 11, 2009 at 1:40am — 18 Comments

Camera setup for my future UAV

My UAV build has officially started. In order to make the whole process easier, I am taking one system at a time. First up is the camera setup. Not necessarily a logical starting point but I have the camera and I can always use it on an RC aircraft until the UAV is done. Also, this gives me a chance to practice with it and tweak.



I used a Webbie for the camera. Just remove three screws and carefully pop the back cover off to gain access to the photo and video buttons.…



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Added by Jason on December 9, 2009 at 3:30pm — 11 Comments


3D Robotics My 3D printer arrived. What should I make?

I know what I'll be doing over the holidays (other than ArduPilot projects and the T3-4 contest): assembling my new MakerBot. An open source 3D printer for less than $1,000. I can make ABS plastic objects… Continue

Added by Chris Anderson on December 9, 2009 at 12:48pm — 42 Comments

MicroPilot Newsletter - Export Controls

MicroPilot recently started publishing a newsletter that members of this group may find interesting. The first issue includes an article on export control regulations as they pertain to UAVs.

You can find a copy of the newsletter at:

http://www.micropilot.com/newsletter-vol-1-issue-1.htm

Added by MicroPilot News on December 8, 2009 at 1:39pm — 2 Comments


3D Robotics Summer robotics intern positions at PARC

These are dream internships, at Xerox PARC in Silicon Valley:



Autonomous robotics - summer

The intern will develop autonomous capabilities for mobile robotic platforms such as unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs) and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). The focus of this effort is on probabilistic algorithms for sensor processing, motion planning, and vehicle control. The overall goal is to… Continue

Added by Chris Anderson on December 8, 2009 at 11:44am — 2 Comments

Pretty cheap camera+DVR system

http://www.supercircuits.com/Security-Cameras/Specialty-Security-Cameras/RCCAM1?cmpid=136



Sorry about the commercial post. Not my company, not affiliated with them in any way.



The specs: 3 inches long, by .75 inches wide, weighing in at less than .75 ounces.



I'm super-poor, or I'd be trying to pick one of these up… Continue

Added by Ty on December 8, 2009 at 10:54am — 18 Comments

Ardustation's tracking hardware

Hi,

here is my antenna tracker. A simple BCAC (brain controlled analogic cut :D) wood case. Simply, cheap, working.
In the video a first test with an EZ* flying autonomous, this way I can record the AT working.

Ric

http://www.vimeo.com/8054260

Added by Riccardo Kuebler on December 8, 2009 at 7:30am — 18 Comments


Developer Ateryx 2.0 - The happy medium



Here is something that might peak some intrest. I plan on selling my autopilot in the near future and would like to see if there is any intrest in my product.



The autopilot world is hard to attract the hoby level audience because of the steep price jump in higher performance systems. The cheaper approach is to buy the DIY kits and depend upon the opensource code to carry you along. My product is a happy medium between the… Continue

Added by Ryan Beall on December 7, 2009 at 4:00pm — 20 Comments


Developer Help testing radios

Hi everyone, I'm looking for some volunteers to test some code that's part of the 2.5 release of Ardupilot.

I'm looking for a wide range of radios and here's the trick: You need to solder a jumper from input 3 to Pin 13 on your ardupilot.



I'm sure some people will have issues, so better to catch them now versus the final release. I'm also going to be posting more code snippets to test in the coming week.



Here is the file:… Continue

Added by jasonshort on December 6, 2009 at 6:41pm — 10 Comments


Developer Ardu-IMU-Pilot firmware ready for beta test!

I have completed ground testing on the new firmware I have written for ArduPilot to use ArduIMU in place of the thermopiles. It has been snowing here and I probably won't get to fly the code for a bit, but figured others might be interested in giving it a try at this point. This firmware will probably exist on a temporary basis, with the code getting incorporated into the regular ArduPilot firmware in the future. If there is sufficient interest in this approach I will consider working on a… Continue

Added by Doug Weibel on December 6, 2009 at 2:30pm — 95 Comments


Developer The Ardupilot FG Control for the Flight Gear Simulator

The ArduFGControl is a PC application which allows you to test and tune your Ardupilot CPU board with the Flight Gear Simulator. FlightGear is a free and an open source flight simulator developped by Curtis Olson.… Continue

Added by Jean-Louis Naudin on December 6, 2009 at 7:00am — 28 Comments

KoaxPilot open source autopilot for RC helicopter

hi

i will here present my new projekt .look at my hompage : www.KoaxPilot.de
when you have any question then write it in the forum ;)

Have Fun

Added by Ludwig Färber 2 on December 6, 2009 at 4:22am — 3 Comments

NavChip (a complete IMU chip) from InterSense

InterSense is going to release the "NavChip", a complete IMU chip. They also offer NavChipTM Developer Kit.

Added by Roberto Hawkowski on December 5, 2009 at 5:28am — 8 Comments


3D Robotics Updates from the DIY Drones dev teams

Here's the latest from some of the Dev Team leaders:



First, the core ArduPilot team is close to a beta release of ArduPilot 2.5, which is a huge clean-up of the code, with top to bottom improvements. As always, you can get a preview by watching the activity on the Google Code development repository. This team is also creating the code architecture foundations for ArduPilot Mega.… Continue

Added by Chris Anderson on December 5, 2009 at 4:00am — 22 Comments

THIS WEEK IN AEROSPACE

5 FLIGHTS TO NOWHERE



FLIGHT #1



The severe wind storm crashed us real good into another roof.

Fortunately accessible by foot. Obviously either 40mph wind is above

limits or you need to tilt the engines.



FLIGHT #2



Aft propeller wouldn't spin. The crash must have damaged the propeller

so it wouldn't grab the crown nut.



FLIGHT #3



Aft propeller wouldn't spin again. The roof crash stripped the… Continue

Added by Jack Crossfire on December 4, 2009 at 12:59pm — 3 Comments

Another UAV-specific Job; Just FYI

UAV EMI/EMC Engineer; Easton, MD

Click HERE for job posting.

Added by Paul Marsh on December 4, 2009 at 10:52am — No Comments

New 9 DOF sensor for $99



Its means to be interfaced to a PC over USB, but it appears to provide 9 DOF (accelermeters, gyros, and magnetometers). The device apparently can output the raw sensor values and/or Kalman filtered quaternions



http://www.pnicorp.com/products/all/spacepoint-fusion



Too good to be true?



-… Continue

Added by Roy Brewer on December 4, 2009 at 10:28am — 12 Comments


Moderator Very stable and Cheap Homemade Camera Platform - MUD DUCK

I found this company while searching for homemade plane ideas. I've always the "rugged" look of agri-planes so the planes on this site really caught my eye. The cool part is they are built with foam board and are very stable slow-flyer planes. I've included another link to a guy's vimeo site who's big into FPV. He uses Mud Duck inspired planes and tosses up HD video camera. He's got some really nice video posted.



Mud Duck Aviation… Continue

Added by Brian on December 3, 2009 at 9:00pm — 12 Comments

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