Good Morning DIYDrones,
I am pleased to introduce a drone platform that I have been working on for some time. I have not finalized my marketing materials, but I thought this community would like to see an early peek. Please see the included rough-edit promo video as well as my website. Questions/Comments are encouraged.
Thanks,
Adam (Sentient Drone, LLC)
Comments
@Mark: Thank you! OpenTLD is definitely more sophisticated than my method of tracking. I am considering swapping my algorithm out for OpenTLD. I had followed the project early on before there were ports to c, c++ which is the main reason I didn't use it for this (matlab dependency). I do indeed use my MacBook for VS2010. I boot to Windows 7 natively for most of my development. VS is really a great IDE. Good luck with your studies! It is a fascinating subject.
Adam congrats on your new baby, and cool Video tracking code release. I missed your posts,
I have followed OpenTLD and it has been ported well to C, C++ Your tracker works very well too.
You use your Mac PowerBook to run VS 2010! looks like it works great, maybe better than on a WinOS,
I will follow your efforts as I am studying machine learning and AI nice work good luck with S Drones.
I'll give it a try on my Firefly frame. I need to rig up some kind of landing gear. I'll print an integrated one on my in the future, if this is successful.
@Ellison: There are a lot of things at work in the prop up vs prop down configuration, but propeller down is more efficient. It is admittedly more difficult to create a prop down frame of this size. I contemplated putting the propellers up several times because it would have made creating this frame a whole lot easier and faster, but it was worth the gain in flight time to leave them down. I am excited to get my next video posted here which will showcase the frame much better.
There is also Skin Friction which will reduce efficiency... but that is fairly negligible compared to the form drag.
The patented piece of plastic that sits on top of the booms in some of the Droidworx frames was a great improvement. I suspect that it moved the form drag from 90% down to maybe 30-40%. That being said, propeller down configuration is even better than that because there is no form drag at all. I suspect that this configuration has not been popular because with propellers down it takes up real estate that is normally used for landing gear. I have addressed this by creating landing gear that is able to retract without hitting the props.
@Adam
Yeah, that's what I was saying. I guess it was not so clear. ;-)
@Ellison: Not true... Your quad may not be large enough scale for a noticeable difference. With downward props the air is drawn into the props from all sides and the propellers create an air column that is not obstructed. The air being drawn into the props is not affected by the presence of the boom above because air is drawn in from all around, however, as soon as that air is focused and pushed in a column to generate thrust it is affected by anything that could possible generate drag (reducing efficiency). This drag is referred to as Form Drag. The air that is drawn into the props is not generating any lift until it is pushed through the propeller. It is that pushed air that will be affected by drag.
Yes, I would suspect that there would be no difference between downward and upward props, in terms of efficiency. The same amount of area is being blocked by the arms. Maybe it's a question of turbulence. In a downward prop configuration, the turbulent air is pulled across the arms, but then redirected down where there's no arms to cause turbulence. Whereas upward blades, push air across the arms, and they cause turbulence in the thrust stream.
@Ellison:
I have this small custom quad (500gr) unsing pushing props. I don´t see really any difference with another quad I have very close the same but pulling props. It least in this size. Fligh time is very close the same.
Angel
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