Jack Crossfire's Page

Nifty new wording for something everyone knew about since 1995. What CNN left out was Germany, Iran, China, India, Israel, & N. Korea having exactly the same capability. http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/07/09/remote.fighters/index.html

GizModo

XBee Pros have been raised from $32 to $36. Feel like a fool for not buying more at $32, although the direct store still has some. Still have 2 $32 modules from last year. The higher priced model is the XBee ZB ZigBee PRO Series 2 supporting "more dense mesh networks". Maybe it even has Techron to clean your speed controller. In 5 years these obsolete modules will be $65. Should buy some paperclips. The next bull market is paperclips I tell U. The good news is a new 900Mhz module has appeared… Continue

uBlox 5 is an enabling technology as far as navigation is concerned. We're going to see amazing things in cheap autonomous rotorcraft because of it. Optical flow may actually be knocked out by uBlox5 & the former complexity required to damp velocities is gone. Have 2 videos of the uBlox 5 controlling position in the wind. This is of course, totally electronic stabilization without flybar. Continue

Another first from the "don't apply if your resume doesn't say MIT on it" department. The Eurocopter may have been the first to summit Everest, Alan Szebo Sr/Jr may rule the 3D kingdom, but the Hummingbird's got the endurance record now. http://www.darpa.mil/body/news/2008/A160DARPAReleasev4.pdf Now if only the Hummingbird could repeat these stunts without crashing.

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This was my first UAV.

It was the simplest, cheapest UAV possible: a magnet. It couldn't fly very high, it couldn't follow waypoints, it couldn't carry much of a payload, it was even more unstable than a helicopter, but it could fly as long as PG&E didn't have a rolling blackou… Continue