Have you helped a newb today?

Hi all, first time UAVer here. I'm trying to put together a stabilizing/navigation autopilot on a high school student budget. I can fly and I know a lot of model flyers, but none of them have ever tried autonomous; I thought I'd ask you guys to point out the obvious flaws in my plan before I waste too much time/money.The plan so far:Airframe: "Cessna 206T" (cheap hong kong, 42" span, lots of power)MCU: ATMega 168 on stripboard (with arduino software)Att. sensor: 2-axis MEMS inclinometer (datasheet attached)GPS: sparkfun EM406 (product page attached)The receiver and sensors will be hooked up to the mcu, which in turn will be wired to the servos. Human/auto control will be toggled by an unused channel.Any feedback is appreciated

SCA100T inclinometer datasheet.pdf

product_info[1].php_products_id=465.html

The Ardupilot base board is essentially little more than an AtMega/Arduino with some servo connectors (oh yeah, and a "servo Switchy over thing") which is of arguable importance - but in any case can be cheerfully ignored. So if you're intended to use an AtMega, you'd just be silly not to use one already mounted to servo pins.

The same can be said about the softwareish bits.

You can buy the raw thermopiles - but the signal is quite small, so you'll need an amplifier. That's what the module is - it's the raw sensors, with an amplifier, and the raw amplified signal.

I would point out as Chris has already done, (and perhaps with less bias) that the Ardupilot really is the best chance you have of succeeding to build and fly an autopilot on a HS budget, while you're still in HS. Once you've done that, you would be well qualified to launch out on your own and do better - or more likely, you could choose one problem to focus on and solve, and contribute the solution back to the others who are themselves working on other problems. A little bit of that, and soon, the project works, and you participated.

Projects which are simple enough for (even a top) HS student to complete solo in a term don't generally become open source projects, (and visa versa).

Best Luck

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bGatti August 24, 2009 at 4:10pm

The Ardupilot base board is essentially little more than an AtMega/Arduino with some servo connectors (oh yeah, and a "servo Switchy over thing") which is of arguable importance - but in any case can be cheerfully ignored. So if you're intended to use an AtMega, you'd just be silly not to use one already mounted to servo pins.

The same can be said about the softwareish bits.

You can buy the raw thermopiles - but the signal is quite small, so you'll need an amplifier. That's what the module is - it's the raw sensors, with an amplifier, and the raw amplified signal.

I would point out as Chris has already done, (and perhaps with less bias) that the Ardupilot really is the best chance you have of succeeding to build and fly an autopilot on a HS budget, while you're still in HS. Once you've done that, you would be well qualified to launch out on your own and do better - or more likely, you could choose one problem to focus on and solve, and contribute the solution back to the others who are themselves working on other problems. A little bit of that, and soon, the project works, and you participated.

Projects which are simple enough for (even a top) HS student to complete solo in a term don't generally become open source projects, (and visa versa).

Best Luck
3D Robotics

Chris Anderson August 24, 2009 at 11:51am

You can't fly a plane with just accelerometers. See this post (on the front page!) for more on why.

Why not just use ArduPilot?

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Have you helped a newb today?

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