Hopefully we have dodged the bullet and this post can be marked up as "paranoia"

Potential threat of GPS disablement!   I know this has been an ongoing issue for a while. A company called LightSquared has been trying to build a cellular network that interferes with GPS.  You don't hear much in the news about it these days, but it seems that maybe the…

ArduCopter / ArduRover / ArduPlane specific GPS devices with uBlox NEO6 modules are here...

Finally they are here. We have been testing and developing these GPS devices over 4 months and now they are available on jDrones store. These modules are optimized for ArduCopter and…

There have been discussions before calling for reliable and accurate alternatives to GPS. The Vikings may have had the answer without knowing the physics. They were adept navigators at latitudes where frequent cloudiness and low sun angle(winter) could have made direct observation of the sun difficult. Legend has it that they had a magic stone, called a…

    The last post was almost laughable as ArduCutter barley got off the ground and certainly didn't do much in the way of entertaining. Well, it still isn't ready for Vegas however I've been feeling pretty good about the progress especially since the project was started with a strategy of hope. In the past week or so I have successfully put this quad through many of the basic flight modes and everyone walked away with no broken bones and no blood spilled. A…

Introduction

In the last 3 months I have done a bit of thinking about an as-simple-as-possible and as-small-as-possible "follow-me"-box. The design goal is to have something so small that it can be e.g. attached to clothing by velcro and so simple that it's just switch on and go. After some googling, I stumbled upon the Arduino Fio which seems ideal for this kind of thing. I am primarily maintaining…

Slashdot is carrying a story about new research published by the good folks at…

Now SmartAP autopilot has Autonomous Waypoint Flight Mode. The demo shown in the video above consisted of 4 waypoints. After the last waypoint quadcopter came back to the initial home position and automatically switched to position hold mode there. Moreover, autopilot has Stabilize,Altitude Hold, Position Hold and Return to Home flight modes. Flight can be controlled…

Better Battery Box For Yellow FPV Plane

An improved battery box for my FPV plane project.  The front wheel need mounting on a spring piece, as do the rear struts. I don't like…

Globaltop PA6C Gps module

• based on new mediatek 3339  chipset
• Real sattelite fix time 5-7s (in home too) before ardupilot is calibrated -module always get lock…

Yesterday a few  of the UK Ardupilot group (Malcolm, Dean & I) arrived at a flight field ready to take a look at and test the DJI Innovations WKH on a traditional Heli, this was installed on a Spectra petrol Heli, it was sent out to hold its position in GPS ATTI mode, we filmed the Spectra to show how it got on! Dean had his OctoCopter there so we…

I managed to test the Altitude Hold and Loiter functions of my ArduPilot Mega2 controlled Hexacopter and was pretty impressed with it. There was strong winds initially but when it died down to a breeze I turned on the altitude hold and it seemed to hover with a deviation of around 2m. Then when I turned on the Loiter mode, my hexacopter stayed within a 5m radius…

ARIA and ReAllocate.org are seeking an UAV expert interested in the development of an UAS (an Unmanned Aerial System = UAV + Base station) for a project at the Burning Man festival.  For this project, we will be delivering a system that is capable of tracking a person (via GPS enables tracker) and…

Hi everyone! I'm very happy to announce our new u-blox based GPS board. The development teams and 3D Robotics have been working on this GPS unit for some time, and we have seen very good results on ArduPlane, ArduCopter and ArduRover. The Sparkfun AVC and the Quadcopter Rodeo were excellent opportunities to observe this GPS…

A report on how a team of students HIJACKED a drone in midair - all for a "$1,000 bet with

U.S. government"



Not sure if this has been posted here yet, but I was reading the full report…

Hello,

In 2001 I built a plane with an autopilot.

To take off the driver uses the remote control.

Then when the plane is high in the sky the pilot shut down the remote.

The autopilot captures and stores the GPS coordinates.

Then the plane turned around GPS coordinates in…

An Incredible Adventure! by Chapelat Daniel [with translation mistakes by Mike Pursifull] 

   First of all, thank you to the developers, to Google, and for the Xbee telemetry module (without these accessories and associated MediaTek GPS and APM Mission…

jDrones News: Upgraded MediaTEK 3329 GPS

Another exciting product update from us. Some people already have seen this new jDrones MediaTEK GPS. GPS is based on same GPS module…

Early customers are starting to receive their Naza GPS Units, and while I await mine, the early feedback appears positive.

DJI customers in the southern hemisphere will be pleased to hear there are as of yet no reported issues regarding GPS lock. The GPS Upgrade, which brings Position Hold, Return to Home and Simple mode (often known as Carefree mode) appears to be around the $190 tag for existing…

Hi Everyone,

If you are developing some GPS based applications maybe you know, GPS data protocol is serial and %90 of data is just garbage. You have to listen it every time, data parsing a headache and impossible to making other time critical applications in same time.



I'm glad to announce the Navigatron - I2C GPS solution :)



Navigatron is an Arduino based board with GPS and backup battery. It is…

So after reading through the comments on this post, it got me thinking about the possibility of using the MinimOSD, or soon to be released jDrones MiniOSD, on the ground to have one less item up in the air. The appeal of keeping the aircraft…