Dear reader,
We are now live at www.skycat.pro. The development project continues, and updates are added to this blog in random intervals.
We have parachutes launchers available in many weight ranges; optimal 1 - 6 kg and these could be extended with higher impact level up to 11 kg. For larger up to 23 kg multicopters we have XL - series with pilot chute principle.
For those who wants to digest all information available of products, we have left this blog as it is. This blog follows closely main steps we have gone through while developing parachute launcher. Blog might feel like Do It Yourself kind and to be honest, in the beginning it was.
After hundreds of hours thinking, designing, prototyping and testing our patent pending launcher turned to be the most reliable parachute launcher for professional use. We have searched all possible boundaries of technology and from this blog you'll find results of these successful tests but also not so successful tests.
You never know where The final limit of technology is without experiencing it. That's the reason why we have done tests for scenarios which might not be even realistic on flight.
For production versions of Skycat we could proudly to say that we have experienced zero mishaps, never failed a single eject and parachute has deployed every time. This includes rescue scenarios with every imaginable scenario copter could face in air. Check this out as one sample of our test sessions!
Skycat parachute launcher has been tested beyond all imaginable abuses copter possibly could experience in flight. We have sink it to water, it has been heated hours to 90°C and exposed to extensive moisture, we have frosted, defrosted and frosted it again, it has been in mud and snow and still it has worked. Same overshooting tests we have done also for electronics. This is not promise you can use our products outside of submarine but we have tested it so :)
This blog will still be updated as well our Facebook pages www.facebook.com/skycat.pro and Twitter at https://twitter.com/skycatpro
Fly safe - Let's keep our copters flying!
Henri
Skycat.pro
DJI Inspire 1 / Skycat X55-CF parachute integration by www.remotevision.ch:
Other documentary videos:
OPENTX for parachute eject and 6POS switch
DUAL spring loaded switches - single RC channel for parachute eject, OPENTX
Ground eject demonstration in slow motion
Aerial test No 2 for Opale Paramodels 2.5m^2 parachute
Aerial test No 1 Opale Paramodels 1.8m^2 parachute
Manufacturers contributed to this project:
- http://www.opale-paramodels.com/
Replies
Hey Henri,
Other than a kill switch of sorts I wouldn't know how to do this, maybe the output could interface with that kill switch which was mentioned earlier, then again, it's added complexity etc...
There could be an output from the control board to the APM (simple PWM or High, Low) to cut the motors otherwise I wouldn't know how to do it.
You wouldn't want it to release parachute simply because you wanted to drop quite fast however I don't think you could drop as fast as if something went catastrophically wrong.
PWM would work but isn't so simple. Throttle idle PWM stops motors but it varies and therefore needs to be adjustable. And also it has to replace FC PWM. Easiest would be just take power from FC but what ESC:s does then is unknown, or varies with different settings. Some keeps last speed, some throttles at full power, some perhaps shut down.
I think there isn't simple solution for shutting down motors with external automatic trigger. Manually it is simple if OpenTX or equivalent is in use.
Here is a video demonstrating 9kg impact and acceleration from 17meters. It starts at 1:15. Please try it with speakers.
There will be some threshold when it is surely not normal fast descent.
Not to be too pushy on the MAVLink thing but if the smartboard understood MAVLink it could issue a 'disarm' command to the main flight controller which would stop the motors.
Eject without stopping motors leads crash. Therefore it needs to be done somehow or automatic eject shouldn't be used.
Nilsen, what if you to do this first to development state which is only for algorithm tuning and reliability testing? Board would be "dummy" containing eject code, green and red light and logs. Red light simply shows if eject happened during flight and green shows it is powered. Obviously it doesn't eject anything but you get a lot flying hours for adjusting algorithms.
When core is solid it might be expanded for shutting down motors some way.
You get at least one test pilot from here.
Manual parachute could be used meanwhile or manual in combination of APM trigger.
Hi All,
@Randy - I would love to use the MAVLink but I think the ATTINY has a serious limitation with regards to decoding the MAVLInk messages, is there an arduino library which is used to decode them? Is it single line input? I see on the Minimosd it's a number of data lines, the ATTINY only has 2 in 2 out.
@Hugues - Great idea, I remember earlier in this thread someone was also talking about a kill switch of sorts, Triacs and SCR's are usually 40 Amp max unless you go large scale so something to handle potentially 100's of Amps could be hard to come by but a single wire cut solution would be great.
1. Cut motors
2. Deploy chute
3. No destruction :)
@Henri - Good idea, I ordered some I2C Barometers from adafruit and when they arrive I'll put a board together with 2 LED's, 1 armed, 1 deployed thereby there can be lots of testing and refining, I'll send one over to you as soon it's together and coded up.
Cheers!
Good to hear project started! Please keep us updated and tell if there is something how we could help.
Hey Guys,
I've been giving this some more thought and was thinking what the trigger board could be and achieve.
Attiny based for independent "thought" with it's own Barometer for measuring relative changes in altitude.
Parachute input from APM where APM controls the release either automatically or manually through receiver CH7 or CH8.
Questions are the following:
1. If APM parachute deploy high but no drop in altitude, no deploy ??
2. If No APM signal but drop in altitude then deploy ??
3. Should there be a delay before releasing?
Shouldn't be too hard from the code perspective and the electronic part is ok as well as long as we can supply 5v either from BEC or it's own regulator, maybe the board should have it's own battery for added redundancy.
Cheers!
If we're going for a smart parachute release board, I'd recommend a board that can understand MAVLink messages sent by the autopilot. I know that makes it more difficult but there's a huge amount of useful information in there including whether the vehicle is armed or not, attitude, altitude, etc, etc.
Some small boards like the MinimOSD can decode these messages.
Communication between smartboard and autopilot makes easier to shut motors down in case of eject which is triggered by smartboard. Also pilot triggering and motor shut down order should be passed to autopilot if smart board handles that also.
Studying Cypres could give some ideas for altitude control even though it is made to detect larger altitude changes.
How reliable altitude measuring and altitude change measuring is in general with APM sensors or with sensors what could be used for smart board?
As part of this parachute support I've added a "CMD_DO_PARACHUTE" command to MAVLink which could be sent to the smartboard from the flight controller if the flight controller wants to trigger the parachute release or if the pilot tells the flight controller (perhaps via a ch7/ch8 switch) that he/she wants the parachute to release.
The altitude estimates from the flight controller are pretty reliable especially on the Pixhawk and it's fancy EKF.
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