I want to build an Arducopter that is controllable using the accelerometers of a smartphone, meaning that the copter "syncs" to the plane that the phone is currently facing. If the phone screen faces straight up, the Arducopter hovers, if you tilt it forwards, it flies forwards, etc. Ideally, the Arducopter is controlled directly from the smartphone, but perhaps it's easier to have a laptop bridge between the two, so that the smartphone sends it's sensor data to the laptop, which then gives instructions to the Arducopter.
I would also like to integrate a video camera that streams live to either the computer or even the smartphone to enable first person flying.
Now, I'm basically wondering if this is possible to implement using Arduinos and XBees. Does the XBee provide enough bandwidth for live video streaming? Would it perhaps be better to communicate to the Copter using wifi? I'm hesitant to do this because XBees have a longer range.
Finally, in what format are control instructions sent to the Arducopter? Does the Arduino need to be told at a "low level" what to do (do the instructions tell it specifically what rotors to set to which speed, etc.), or would it be possible to send the Arducopter the smartphones current accelerometer data and then have the Arduino on the copter compute the new required rotor speeds? In short - does the computer or the Arducopter do the computation?
Any kind of advice is greatly appreciated, and don't hesitate to tell me if this is a really ridiculous idea.
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Hi, this could help. I have connected arducopter by WiFi link with embeddable low-cost boards. Check here: http://lukse.lt/uzrasai/2012-05-carambola-powered-quadcoper/
Hi Philipp,
I am new to the ArduCopter and I share this goal of smartphone control (using a Motorola Defy). I just bought an ethernet shield and a tiny wireless router: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0022TWQ22/ and http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0045TLF10/ . My plan is to fly these both on the copter and replace all tx/rx with wifi. Wifi clearly has disadvantages -- reduced range compared to Xbee and large power draw. On the other hand, it should have sufficient bandwidth to handle video, control, and telemetry. I don't know what the power draw is yet -- I hope it is not a major problem to use this for short flights.
By the way, I have just begun to master flying my copter in stable mode over the last few days, tons of fun! How is yours doing?
but you need to do all the coding alone, there is nothing that is finished for this type of application
you could give the desired angles to the arducopter and make it fly like that, but it is a bit of coding work
I hope you are not using an iphone (that would be even more coding work lol)
video is possible right now though via 3rd party system. there are plenty of sites that offer this for 200>.
using the iphone to controll the arducopter is not impossible but would require some programming. There is one quad which already allows this, but I'm not sure if it uses the accelerometer or touch screen controls. arducopter currently takes input from the transmitter(controller).
I know this is not a technical answer, but i'm new to the site and I think my answers are correct, but may not be as technical as you are looking for. I'm sure another user will follow up!
joel