Indoor fun with a tiny ArduCopter quadcopter
Do you have an Ardupilot Mega and shield and want some fun for little money? check this tiny quad... my last drone in family...
Some specs:
- Size : 26.5cm (10.4 inches) from motor to motor
- Motors : 18-11 200kv 10 gram motors
- Props : 4x2.5 (standard CCW props)
- ESCs : Turnigy 6A
- Battery : 3S610 (or 3S800)
- Sonar : Maxbotics LV-EZ0 [optional]
The nice part about this frame is that it use standard kite parts, so it´s very easy to construct and it´s perfect for some radical tests.
I tried to find a bit different design that also make the quad less simmetrical (it´s very easy to loss the orientation with a quad) and I wanted to do as small as posible to flight indoors...
At this size and weight it´s very safe and robust also. The props use prop savers and this help a lot in crashes...
I am not very good writing... so I took a lot of photos during the build phase and I created a build log: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1fIZL-Ca2fx2RPhBQLzoOdqdCuikXRKe...
This code supports a sonar for altitude hold and also has a battery alarm (2 alarms).
This quad works with ArduCopter code, but because how main board is mounted, actual code doesn´t work. This is the code that I used with this quad :
http://code.google.com/p/arducopter/source/browse/#svn/branches/Arducopter_indoor
(as zip format: Arducopter_indoor.zip )
note that this will be integrated on main Arducopter code. Now is temporarily in a branch.
The PID gains are different than in standard ArduCopter, so you need to Initialize EEPROM on Configurator or put this ones manually:
-Stable mode: P : 4.8 ; I : 0.12 ; P_rate (D in configurator) : 0.4 ; Yaw : (4.5 ,0.15 ,2.8 )
-Acrobatic mode : P : 0.75 ; I : 0.1 ; D : 0 ; Yaw : (2.4 ,0.2 ,0 )
OK, but was all so perfect like in the video? I don´t believe that...
Yes, you are right, but fortunately this design is very crash resistance... and this part is also fun...
After all this battles I only needed a few drops of ciano in the crash with the lamppost :-)
What´s the real size?
On center, standard arducopter frame, on left, old ArduIMU quadcopter part III, on right-top this project.
And what about the automatic aerobatics on video?
I am starting to test a new function to do automatic aerobatics (Automatic Aerobatic Procedure). The idea is that you enable this function with a switch in the Tx to make an automatic predefined aerobatic and then automatically recover to a stable mode.
This is actually a proof of concept but works very nice. One limit here is the maximun rate of the gyros, in our case 500deg/s. If we exceed this, the IMU get confused...
An interesting point to note is that the IMU doesn´t loose the orientation in this hard movements...
The story is that I have never feel too much confidence doing flips manually with quads. Then I start thinking that with an automatic code we can get a precise timing and controled movement so maybe this could help to do better aerobatics. I started testing this function outdoor, on an open field but I was improving the code and got more tightly maneuvers, so tight, that I ended up doing flips with a quad inside my room!!!
Here is the code I was testing : (AAP function: AAP.txt )
I implemented this functionality as a state machine where there are three kind of states:
- fixed commands for a limited period of time. (example : Apply a throttle command)
- fixed commands until we reach some IMU state (example : roll until we reach a certain angle)
- And a mix between this categories and a control (example : Throttle command + stable mode on roll, pitch, yaw)
There are many things to test and improve here but the basic concept works very nice...
If I can get a bit of help from a friend, I will probably made a carbon fuselage for this prototype...
Enjoy this “Science & Fun” mix...
Jose Julio.
Arducopter Team
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Comment by Mauro Rodriguez on November 15, 2010 at 12:09pm -
Niceeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!! :))) Congrats!!
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Comment by Earl on November 15, 2010 at 12:16pm -
VERY impressive !!
Earl
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Comment by Leon on November 15, 2010 at 12:43pm -
WOW!! Impressive! Great job!
You might have a lot of wun with this quad!
I am a fan!
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3D Robotics Comment by Chris Anderson on November 15, 2010 at 3:08pm -
You are a god! You can fly and walk at the same time, and with no protective ring around the props!
Love the auto acrobatics at the end--this is clearly the future of the project. Go ArduCopter!
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Developer Comment by Jose Julio on November 15, 2010 at 4:00pm -
Thanks Chris,
to be honest, I never dreamed to do this acrobatics inside house, so I am a bit surprised also about the performance of the ArduCopter and the IMU... and I think we can probably improve this a bit more...
and thanks to Ramon, my friend and camera in this video... and the other player in the tennis quad video!!
Jose.
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Developer Comment by Sandro Benigno on November 15, 2010 at 6:18pm -
Well... as you can see, I'm not your fan without a reason.
Awesome as always.
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JDrones Comment by Jani Hirvinen on November 15, 2010 at 6:39pm -
Sandro you said it :)
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Comment by Patrice Mainville on November 15, 2010 at 7:40pm -
Damn, I'm fan too!
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Developer Comment by Doug Weibel on November 15, 2010 at 8:27pm -
Cool Jose,
Where did you source the "kite parts" and what size props are you using?
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Comment by DODY on November 16, 2010 at 2:51am -
Super José, beautiful work
DODY
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