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Hi everybody.

I am new to this community. I am from France, and I am building robots as a hobby.

I have just begun a new project called “BOB4”, which will be my 4th robot. (my previous robot can be viewed HERE). The hardware of BOB4 is ready and tested. I am now trying to program it. I am now working on IMU software (small video HERE).

Some pictures of my project. 

My aim is to make an autonomous indoor UAV, based on a coaxial helicopter, and on a custom electronic board. I want to make it alone, but I plan to share my project here.

Why coaxial heli? Because it is a very stable platform, and small enough for indoors flights.

Your community is a great source of inspiration for me. That’s why I jointed in.

Some characteristics of this project:

• Based on LAMAV3 - Esky coaxial helicopter
• home made landing gear
• 3 in 1 module (motor controler + gyro + mixer) from Esky
• Motherboard: Embedded Master from GHI-Electronics (ARM7TDMI + 8Mo Ram + 4Mo Flash)
• Bluetooth radio link using 2 Free2Move modules
• 4 SRF02 sonars
• One 6DOF IMU from Sparkfun
• one HMC5843 - 3 axis magnometer
• One 100mW white LED (just for fun)
• total wheight: 260g

I use one external power supply (8V 50W) for tests. I had to add some electrochimical capacitors to this power supply.

The 2 PCB of my BOB4 are designed by myself using Eagle (demo version). They were manufactured by OLIMEX, an European (Bulgaria) electronic manufacturer.

I have removed all the electronic of an existing "radiocontrol". I then placed a bluetooth module, a PIC microcontroler, an LCD display (4x16 characters), a link to the serial port of my PC (using a MAX232) and some switches. The board of the new radiocontrol was made using "wrapping". I want to use only one radio link for all data needed: manual control + orders sent via PC + programming + data feedback from heli.

I added a very simple "failsafe": I can cut the power of the motors and servo via one switch of the radiocontrol, or when loosing the radio connexion.

I will keep this page updated as soon as possible. Meanwhile, do not hesitate to ask me any question, or post any comment.

Leon.