Comment by marshall scholz on November 22, 2010 at 4:24am

something like this would really increase development on the original ardupilot, I myself have actually been working on something for it myself. http://www.diydrones.com/forum/topics/ardupilot-imu is basically a stripped down oilpan for the original ardupilot. it with the media trek gps and ardupilot should make a complete autopilot system for under $100 which should really increase popularity for the ardupilot. i hope that your boards turn out well and that maybe we can integrate our 2 ideas.

Comment by Bernard Michaud on November 22, 2010 at 5:50am

Kevin,
For the benefit of my passionned novice understanding, need meaning of TWI, GCS, FPV, BTW so I can follow your ideas.

Comment by Ken on November 22, 2010 at 6:27am

TWI -- Two Wire Interface -- a short distance, two wire, serial interface between chips in a system (those which come with this ability)
GCS -- Ground Control Station -- primarily a display, possibly (but not too often) offering a secondary command channel to the vehicle to allow upload of waypoints or other options, that shows status of the aircraft and its systems; airspeed, heading, main battery voltage, location (lat/lon), etc.
FPV -- First Person View(er) -- having a camera on board that sends images back to the operator
BTW -- By The Way
FWIW -- For What It's Worth
IMO / IMHO -- In My (Humble) Opinion

Comment by Cliff Dearden on November 22, 2010 at 11:49am

I too was having problems with most of those abbreviations, thanks for asking the questions Bernard and
thanks Ken for answering them.

Developer Comment by Doug Weibel on November 22, 2010 at 1:36pm

The Ardupilot board still has lots of "legs", especially using it with ArduIMU.

A TWI interface between the two, leaving the serial port free on the AP should make bidirectional comms easy.

Doing both OSD and downlink telemetry is a challenge, but if you only want OSD (acting as telemetry) it should be fairly simple to accomplish with the Maxim chip. You can get it on a breakout board from Sparkfun.

Comment by Kevin Bloch on November 22, 2010 at 5:28pm

Thanks for the translation Ken!

Comment by Kevin Bloch on November 22, 2010 at 5:39pm

First photos of the easystar being built and modified...

Comment by Kevin Bloch on November 22, 2010 at 5:40pm

Comment by Kevin Bloch on November 22, 2010 at 5:46pm

During the current ground testing it's all held together with tape but as I get time I'll be mounting everything securely, if you look at the picture a few frames above showing the side view of the fuselage you can see a small clear circular roll, this allows the ESC (electronic speed controller) to be pushed back to make room for the IMU and removed later on if required.

Comment by Greg Fletcher on November 22, 2010 at 6:39pm

Kevin, I have been working well for the past month on additional capability with the ArduPilot. I have got the 2 way coms thing working very well using the thermopile version. For the GCS hardware I am using a very tricked out Ardustation attached to my RC transmitter. The reasons for not using a laptop are purely logistical. I want to keep my eyes on the plane as much as possible and the Tx in my hands at all times. I don't have an assistant to run the GCS. That was my starting requirement, every thing in my hands.

Also I designed the system to be very simple to use and not distract me from the aircraft. There are audio cues to every thing that happens with the AP,such as low batt, AP mode change, loss of GPS, loss of signal, ect. Then a temporary display you can glance down at when something happens. It also has a micro SD card data logger and automatic file name generation based on time. The AP polls the Ublox for the time and date and sends it to the GCS on start up. Automate as much as possible to keep the work load of the pilot. Oh ya, I almost forgot, all the PID gans are automatically up-linked to the AP on start up. And I can have multiple sets of gains for different models or conditions. The gains are stored on the GCS eeprom leaving the AP eeprom free for waypoints. Gain setting are all synchronized at start up automatically. They are also defaulted from the #defines which can bee programed an the ground as is normally done now. I also added a new AP mode. This comment is getting kind of long. I have been a very busy boy lately. Once you get going its hard to stop.

The uplink is all done in binary and uses Fletcher algorithm check sums and replies from the AP, and re-sends data until a valid reply is received. This is very important to insure you don't get a wild gain or mode command and you now when you hit the send button that your command was really sent.

I need to get the text in RAM thing figured out as the GCS is almost out. When I get all the bugs sorted and flight tested I will put up a blog post and link to my Google code page. My next project was going to get this working with the IMU. It will be easy with your TWI method. Right now I am sharing the serial port between the GPS and Xbee Which was no easy task.
I haven't posted it yet because it not quite done and tested,but it's ~ 90% done and working. PM me if you want to collaborate. PS I am not on the dev team because I am still learning and didn't feel I was qualified enough, but I am leaning fast.

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