Comment by Jack Crossfire on February 12, 2012 at 3:22am

That's $100 of sonar modules.  That's the 1st time someone got this to work, but it needs to stay near a wall.  The next step is map construction & navigation through a building.

Comment by Leon on February 12, 2012 at 3:37am

@Jack :

With the sonars, you are right : I need to stay near a wall (up to or 3 meters is good).

But with the Wii-camera, if several IR spots are put on the floor the UAV could theoretically navigate through a building. Unfortunately this doesn't work fine for the moment : at low altitude (under 1m), the field of view is too narrow, and at higher altitudes (over 1.5m), the precision is not good for x-y speed estimation. Some of my problems are due to the fact that the orientation estimation and the wii camera measures do not have the same delay. I am still working on this part.

Leon - French hobbyist.

Comment by Grips on February 12, 2012 at 8:04am

This is really interesting Leon. I have to congratulate you. Is there any reason why you did not incorporate a fourth sensor on the rear ?

Also, those are some impressive soldering  jobs!

Comment by Leon on February 12, 2012 at 8:14am

There is no need of a sensor at the rear. The UAV can rotate so that it always faces 1 whall in front. Furthermore, I decided to put battery at the rear of the UAV, and it would have been difficult to incorporate another US rangefinder.

Comment by Grips on February 12, 2012 at 9:16am

Okay, sounds logical!

Comment by Jack Crossfire on February 12, 2012 at 3:51pm

Downward facing camera guidance is done all the time, but it's surprising no-one has thought of using markers on the floor to guide it through a building.  Whoever does a line following copter will be the 1st.

Comment by Leon on February 13, 2012 at 10:33pm

> Whoever does a line following copter will be the 1st.

Here is a helicopter that does line following.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CEkcA-_ji10

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