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A Very Special thanks to the company RFM (the maker of the amazing DNT900 radio) for their support of my project!!!
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PLEASE RESPOND IF YOU ARE INTERESTED!!! OR HAVE ANY SUGGESTIONS!!!
SOURCEFORGE :
https://sourceforge.net/p/dreamshield
Project DREAMSHIELD - What is it?
Dreamshield is an Arduino Mega shield that will effectively replace or augment your limited hobby remote control system with a long range (DNT900P based) open source alternative. Your Remote will be augmented with a "basestation" board (attached to your arduino mega #1). If you do not have a nice remote, it will allow a PS3 (or other) controller to act as your remote. The receiver module will also be replaced with a similar "remote" board (attached to your arduino mega #2) that will interface up to 16 servo's and ESC's, up to two camera's, GPS, IMU, flight LED's and has an onboard pressure/temperature sensor.
What sort of vehicles can it be used with?
Any! well, within reason of course! There will be an "on-the-fly" programming button that will allow the user to pick a vehicle mode (0-4). This means that you can toss this in your favorite RC car, (set it to mode 1), drive around a bit... then pull it, place it in your quad-rotor (set it to mode 4) and take an adventurous flight around the neighborhood.
Each of these settings will re designate the servo's/esc's, how they act, and what control sticks do what. It will give a little more versatility to the board, and open up the possibilities of what you can mod it to do! Instructions and video demo on page 5 of this forum.
((there will also be modes for X-Y camera and X-Y antenna tracking - neither, either/or, or both))
Now the more nitty-gritty. BOTH the Base and Remote boards have...
- DNT900P long range telemetry radio which offers up to 40km range with proper antenna's - with a data rate of 115200k! If you are interested in slightly less range, you can crank the baud rate up to a fast 500k!
- RGB status LED(s) for feedback
- External interface connector that allows connection to +5v, GND, Serial TX/RX (3.3v), 2 analog inputs, 2 PWM outputs, 4 digital I/O's, and one transistor/PWM driven LED output. This allows other devices (gps, imu, other sensors) to interface to the board
- Power input connection for easy interface to a BEC to power it ((5V INPUT))
- Programming button to select vehicle type, camera/antenna gimbal, and controller type. Programming instructions are on page 5
The BASE has
- USB port on it will allow for a completely new kind of control! a PS3 controller can now be used to control your long range UAV! The PS3 is a fantastic interface because the 10 buttons on it are all pressure sensitive and will read out a value between 0-255. There are three buttons with boolean output, two triggers with pressure sensitivity, and two thumb joysticks! There is also two adjustable output rumble motors (high/low), and 4 LED's that can be used for feedback (ie. signal strength)
With some more programming, it can also be made to recognize your preferred USB enabled RC transmitter/controller.
The REMOTE has
- 16x Servo/esc connections, each at 12-bit (4096 step) resolution.
- video switching, so up to two camera's can be interfaced with this board, and you can remotely switch which camera is being broadcast by your video system!! typically, I for-see a tilt compensated flight camera, and a camera pointed strait down for observation. Then they can be alternated via the SELECT button on the PS3 controllers!
- Pressure/Temperature monitoring on I2C
- (the external connection ports are for you to interface your own IMU and GPS to the board - everyone has their own preference!) the LED connection is a 2222 transistor driven output that should allow for some bright flight LED's (strobes, or flood lights)
There are two boards per kit - a BASE(command) and a REMOTE(uav). The boards are Identical - but are populated differently based on their desired purpose. This is a (poor) picture showing the board and where the connections are located
PRICES
DIY - two boards, and all the parts to populate them
Prebuilt - Two boards built up, and ready to go!
(arduino boards not included in either kit)
A ROUGH price estimate will be between $100 ~ 315 (DIY - PreBuilt , respectively).
Things are liable to change - v1.0b is not finalized.
CODE will be open source - some of it is adapted from other open source projects, and credit is given in my code.
please let me know who's interested!
((remnants of my proof of concept))
New Boards!
** I do Not expect this shield to work with the Arduino Mega ADK due to interference of extra USB port, and possible programming shenanigans, but i can not confirm or deny this.
For the time being, Arduino Mega 1280 has been tested and 2560 should work.
Replies
Ctech, Currently, im working on integrating the SPI controlled TLS5940 PWM chip. That would be the source of the servo control, not the atmega. Is there a chip you prefer? or a reason you would like i2c ported to a daughterboard instead of servo connections on the mainboard? thanks for your input!
and Flynx, Thanks for the input! and for providing the link to the parts you used in your previous message on page 3.
I'm mulling over a small board change - and would like people's opinions
Would you prefer 8 extra servo connections (for 16 total)
or would you like the U.FL > SMA connection - aka, standard antenna screws right to board. no adapter cable needed?
(im leaning towards extra servo connections)
For those of you interested in the integration manual for the radio - this is the good one
**
http://www.rfm.com/products/data/dnt900dk_manual.pdf
**
Thanks so much for the input!!
I will look up the PWM because I have been looking for another method to do that! I wanted something that wasn't tied up with interrupts like the pwm on arduino.
And as far as using this as a TX module on a standard RC controller, that sounds like awesome capability! then you can use the basic ps3 controller for cheap easy fun, or your monolith super controller for really fine resolution!
I will begin to look up info on that, but in the mean time, would you be able to tell me if you know the pinout/protocol they use on those? and if its universal? i have a old futaba attack III for a air-boat, but i think you are at a whole-nother level :-)
Thanks again for all the input!
Personally, (and this is just my preference) I would NOT like to replace my remote (which has basic telemetry BTW) with a PS3 controller or any other controller for that matter, however the long range/telemetry idea is very attractive. Now if my Tx's removable module could be replaced by this "remote" so that I could continue to use it's precision, functions and mixing that would be awesome!
I was just thinking about how I could replace a regular R/C radio with a couple arduinos and I found this page. Very exciting! I would love to be able to combine the control and telemetry radios so I had one less frequency and radio to worry about.
I have a concern though... you said the arduino servo library only outputs 180 steps... is that correct? Futaba radios have either 512 or 1024 steps. 180 steps might be enough to fly but might not offer fine enough control to do aerobatics. If you are only using this as an ardupilot base station it might be fine, but I would LOVE to have an open-source hardware alternative to R/C controllers.
Sooooo.....
Today was interesting. Downloaded Arduino 1.0.... Big changes! but I think I have all the libraries up and running again. there's lots of double-checking to do now.... currently a 21k sketch.. yay!
I added user settings to the code where the operator can pick a number between 0-4 to pick the vehicle they intend to control!!!!! ((main topic updated)). This means, if you are putting this in a quad-rotor, you set the vehicle to 4, and it reassigns servos!!!!! Wannna put it in a car?? easssy! just set it to 1, re-download, and all the servo programming adjusts itself so you can snap it in a car and off you go! thats it! It also has modes for "custom" (user define), simple (yaw, pitch, throttle) and complex (yaw, pitch, roll, throttle) airplane.
I may intend to add a selector pin or dip-switch to the board so users can change the vehicle-type on the FLY (no pun intended) without a laptop to re download!
****
the original reason for the update is that I replaced the second posted video with a much more compelling one of the radio's connection. The antenna's are hard to see, but are orthogonal to each other due to close distance. The servo wire jumper between the boards simply passes power from one board to another. My demonstration show's the connection (green), and data (blue) between the radios. When I push the 'reset' button, we see the radio shut off completely (led-off). The other radio stops communicating, then drops to a red-led mode which indicates power-on, but no connection. once the first radio is powered on again (by the arduino), we see them both in searching mode (red), then connection (green), then immediately in communication (blue)
****
I perform this test on both radios. Enjoy!
Andy,
I'd be willing to help out. I write code for a living.... what is the cost to get into the loop?
shut up and take my money!
LATEST breakthrough - board addressing!!! Now ONLY a single arduino sketch is used. It is uploaded to both boards, and when running, it determines if it is acting as the basestation or remote, and then procedes accordingly!!!!!! This is a huge programming time-saver, let me tell you! haha
MAIN topic updated, with (slightly) better description, and hints at pricing.
NEW picture showing a general idea of what is going on.
All systems are up an running. Code needs lots of work, but that is attainable. Real-life tests on range have not been completed yet, due to lack of antennas. I have a couple log-periodic's in the 900MHz range I intend to test in the next week or two, but School is getting pretty busy. End of semester is always intense, so progress will be limited for a while.
I AM LOOKING for a few people to buy these systems at cost, so that they can help determine issues / streamline the code. :-)
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