Hey guys, as many of you know the AeroQuad has teamed up with DIY Drones on developing a very full featured multicopter! Chris from DIY Drones has proposed the name of this new effort to be called the ArduCopter! It will be based on the ArduPilot Pro Mega (APM) and the APM sensor board currently nicknamed the Oil Pan. Here's an initial feature list and software road map. Please chime in! Your input is valuable! I'll keep updating this front page until we agree on the first version of the ArduCopter's capabilities.
ArduCopter Feature ListSoftware Roadmap
- 6 Degree of Freedom IMU stabilized control
- Gyro stabilized flight mode enabling acrobatics (loops and barrel rolls)
- GPS for position hold
- Magnetometer for heading determination
- Barometer for altitude hold
- IR sensor integration for obstacle avoidance
- Sonar sensor for automated takeoff and landing capability
- Automated waypoint navigation
- Motor control using low cost standard PWM Electronics Speed Controllers (ESC's)
- On board flight telemetery data storage
- Mounted camera stabilization capability
- Wireless command & telemetry for long distance communication
- Capability to fly in "+", "x", hexa and octo configurations
- Battery level detection
- User configurable LED flight pattern
- Capability to use any R/C receiver
- ArduCopter Configuration and Ground Control Software
- Realtime graphs of flight data
- GUI for configuration of PID and other flight parameters
- On Screen Display integration
- Waypoint programming using Google Maps
- Mixertable view to auto configure "+", "x", hexa and octo configurations
- Initial baseline using Jose Julio's v3 software
- Provides absolute angle PID flight control
- Obstacle avoidance
- Waypoint navigation
- Generalize basic ArduCopter functions (ie. Separate PPM receiver input and motor control functions into separate libraries. Allows future coding of PWM vs. I2C ESC's)
- Emphasis on developing new capability into easy to use C++ libraries
- Integrate user defined EEPROM storage capability
- Develop/optimize AeroQuad serial real-time command/telemetry for ArduCopter
- Integrate AeroQuad Configurator for external software configuration of ArduCopter
- Rename Configurator to Ground Control Station and integrate graphical programming of waypoint navigation
- Integrate AeroQuad rate PID control
- Integrate mixertable configuration for multicopter configurations
- Integrate AeroQuad camera stabilization
- Integrate I2C motor control
- Develop capability to wirelessly control ArduCopter directly from Ground Control Station (USB joystick controller from laptop or through waypoint programming)
Announcing ArduCopter, the merger of the ArduPilot and AeroQuad projects!
I'm pleased to announce that we've joined forces with the other Arduino-based powerhouse in the aerial robotics world, the AeroQuad quadcopter team, to extend the ArduPilot platform to whirlybirds of all kinds. The project, called ArduCopter, will use the ArduPilotMega and IMU shield hardware along with a low-cost custom platform that will be available commercially to provide a full quad UAV with both stabilization and GPS waypoint navigation. It builds on the awesome work of Jose Julio in ArduPilot quad development, with the excellent full-systems integration of the AeroQuad team. We expect that first code and hardware will be available this summer.
And here's the impressive work of the AeroQuad team:
Another team is also extending this to traditional helis, starting with the Trex 450 heli (and its equivalents), which should be ready for release this fall. Along with Blimpduino, this should make for 100% coverage of all aerial robotics platforms on the Arduino platform, with shared libraries and ground stations across projects. Go Arduino!
We'll be setting up a proper microsite here, along with dedicated tab, for the project in the next few days.
If you haven't already seen this preview of what the ArduPilot/ArduIMU combo can do with quads, check this out:
And here's the impressive work of the AeroQuad team:
Here's the announcement from the AeroQuad team:
ArduCopter - The Full Featured UAV Multicopter!
Comments are closed for this blog post
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Developer Comment by Max Levine on August 31, 2010 at 3:23pm -
Arent more sensitive accs is better ( just lower update rate ), and i don't know who u r, but your last post and this one sound depressing :( and a bit commercial :))
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Comment by wayne garris on August 31, 2010 at 3:53pm -
yes i have the gull to try to survive off the money i make with uavs . im not sure why this is somehow morally repugnant to some people . I barely survive and work pretty much 24/7 .yes finner resolution is always better . but sensor saturation is a death nail . i say this in the hopes that the project can be successful not to denigrate it in any way . if you would like to see the hordes of data i have collected in the past year with my AP i will make it accessible to the community . as a have said in my previous post either change or die . please do some reading on this subject of sensor saturation and come to your own conclusion . sorry if you take me as gloomy but i believe open source APs are facing some huge obstacles mostly from within the community . one large problem is the fear of commercialization . google is a prime example of open source for profit . I enjoy logical systems and see the world is full of them . applying this to the development of APs i find the equation of
$ in while no$ out as unsustainable . everyone needs to eat at the end of the day. after all wouldn't you like to do this for a living?
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Developer Comment by Max Levine on August 31, 2010 at 4:18pm -
Ok we'll fly and see :)
and btw I'am a snowboard and extreme sports photographer in Israel,... a snow sports in Israel :)))))) stick with what you like to do !!!!!
And sorry for the off-topic drift ...
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Comment by James Pistorino on August 31, 2010 at 4:38pm -
Can someone give me a weight estimate for the ArduCopter?
Thanks,
James
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Comment by Tony H on August 31, 2010 at 4:48pm -
@James
I'll be posting a comprehensive blog post in the next few days, but my ArduCopter Beta Frame with Turnigy 2217 motors and a 4900 mAH LiPo battery weighs 2.85 lb = 1.293 kg
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Comment by James Pistorino on August 31, 2010 at 4:57pm
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@TonyH
I was wondering because as I read ARC Sec. 3.3(6), if it weighs less than 2lbs, they propose that you can fly within 3NM of an airport without approval. If you look at a map of a built up area, a large part of it will be within 3NM of an airport and, thus, off limits without approval.
Excluding the battery and motors, what is your next most heavy component and what does it weigh?
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Comment by Tony H on August 31, 2010 at 5:31pm
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@James
I'd say the next heaviest would be the frame itself. I'm not sure the exact weight of just the ArduCopter Beta Frame, but I'm sure Jani would be able to answer that
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JDrones Comment by Jani Hirvinen on August 31, 2010 at 6:12pm -
Frame it self is about 260 grams. My fully flying ArduCopter weights 1004 grams with 2200 mAh Zippy included. And that gives me around 10 mins of airtime.
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Comment by Sebastian Gralla on September 1, 2010 at 8:08am -
in my oppinion you should have twice as much thrust as you have weight
eg. my copter is about 750 grams with 2000grams thrust
and btw, the arducopter uses mainly the gyros to stabalize, not the accs, it only uses them for hoovering (where you should have ~1G)
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Comment by wayne garris on September 1, 2010 at 9:31am
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doesn't the ardu-mega use bills DCM ? as i have not tested DCM myself i cant say for sure if ACC saturation would have immediate effects or not , but at the heart of the problem is false sensor data . in any "sensor fusion" algorithm be it DCM , quaternions , Kalman filter etc . one must use the long term dependability of an acc to set the bias of the pitch and roll gyros . at any one time none of these recursive systems is relying 100% on any one sensor but is weighing the long term trends of the acc against the short term trends of the gyros . I would recommend some one who is more familiar with this project to some good old fashion analysis of the problem . I have modified the schematics for the shield v14 to replace the ADXL335l with a MMA7331l from freescale . I am keenly interested in this AP and would love to integrate it into my techpod but i see the acc as a major turn off . the central question is this : can this imu withstand > 3g maneuvers and still be accurate enough to maintain flight ? i would like to see some hard data on this if someone doesn't step up to the plate and research this , I will but I don't have the time right this second to do so - getting the techpod ready for retail .
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