Hello! I'm new to this site and although I am interested in UAV's, I don't think I am good enough to create one. The main thing I want to talk about is my senior project from my school and to ask some questions that I hope can be answered.
My Project:
Focus on motion tracking using a GPS-IMU fusion method. Place a GPS on say a helmet and then have a person put it on and walk/run around a field. The GPS would track the person's movements and convert it into data, but it wouldn't be very smooth from Point A to Point B. I plan to correct that by implementing an IMU to obtain all the values in between and then reset my starting position to gather new data. I would then like to process that data so that it makes a servo attached to a camera to track the person. My question starts with how would I jump start this project? I know that UAV's use a combination of GPS and dead reckoning systems to check for errors and think this kind of system is perfect for what I need. So any ideas?
Replies
You have picked a great place to start; a larger problem for you might be how much you want to do yourself. Much of this is working virtually "out of the box" with, say ArduCopter. Most of this data is required for APM/ArduCopter to fly.
Some of the issues you might want to consider are:
* how do you get a firm GPS location the first time. The position accuracy may be less than you are targeting, if you are looking to use dead reckoning.
* do you want to stream the data wirelessly to a remote station? If so, do you want to use an established protocol, or make your own? MAVLink is already integrated into the APM-related projects, and I think you will find it is very suitable (position, attitude, speed, all the sort of data you in which you would be interested.)
To jumpstart, I would read everything in the arducopter manual, as if you were building one, then begin asking how to cut out the parts you do not need. Decide if you want to go with a deductive project (less work, allows you to focus on making a more advanced end-result,) or if you want to go the other direction (more work; less advanced results) and build something from more basic parts, maybe a spark fun sensor stick, an arduino pro mini...
Welcome to the community! Good luck w/ TJ.