As promised, this post describes where we are in the development of the UAV DevBoard for stabilization of a CCPM Helicopter. It is still a work in progress and should not be regarded as an out-of-the-box ready-to-go system at this point.First I want to acknowledge all the help Bill Premerlani gave in this development. Without his UAV DevBoard, his innovative DCM control formalism, and keen programming skills, this development would not have been possible.I will take you through our development process and point out some of the pitfalls and key issues we encountered. Our hope is that others will pick up on the development and bring it to a quicker conclusion.The progress report can be found here.
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Wow! I'm excited about this project! I'm pretty new to the RC Heli world and so far have only succeeded at crashing my chopper. I have a Esky Belt-CP 450 v2. From what I can tell, it's a CCPM type just like the Trex that John has so I think it will work as a test platfrom.
I'm ready to buy a dev board and get started, but it sounds like perhaps I should wait based on the current tests you're running?
Also, regarding the right board to buy, my ultimate goal for my helicopter project is to have it such that it can be manually or automatically controlled with a standard PC. At the same time, an onboard video camera would send a feed back to the PC (allowing it to be off flying around without me physically looking at it). To acheive this I expect that I'll have to dump the transmitter and receiver that it came with and use a different wireless technology. Will the dev board accept input other than PWM? Or is this goal just a pipe dream that I should abandon?
I am a final-year Electro-Mechanical engineering student and am also currently working on this CCPM stabilization. However, I am still doing research on the topic. I agree that it is unlikely that the errors are due to EMI or gyro vibration but rather an accelerometer issue. I have noted that none of the flybarless systems (that i have seen) include accelerometers. It seems that the only absolute roll/level holding method used in these devices is a CCD. Perhaps they gave up on using accelerometers in model helicopters.
I've bought a belt CF E-sky Belt CP and am planning to build up my own UAV board. I will most probably use a high-end Freescale DSP (10 PWM's or so) and will start with their accelerometers. I'm not sure when i'll 'actually' get round to doing it but I'll get the stuff shipped anyway. In the meantime i'll try and familiarize myself with DCM - it sounds interesting :) Good luck to all!
John,
Can you tell us which ICD2 you are using? I have an "Olimex" ICD2 (USB) from Sparkfun that will download code to my PicPilot, but it will not work as an In-Circuit Debugger. I have checked everything I can, but the vendor did not say anything about a known problem. Any chance that you are talking about the same ICD2? Thanks.
For those who don't want to download and read the pdf, the short form is that they've got it up and running on the bench, but it's unstable under power.
"This leads us to believe it is, in fact, the vibrations from the Heli producing adverse effects on either the gyros or the accelerometers. Bill has code to isolate the two and will allow us to further isolate the source of the problem."
Replies
http://www.sparkfun.com/commerce/product_info.php?products_id=9401
http://eu.st.com/stonline/products/families/sensors/datasheets/lpr5...
If the resonant frequency is any better, they might be worth considering. Unfortunately, the datasheets don't list it.
Wow! I'm excited about this project! I'm pretty new to the RC Heli world and so far have only succeeded at crashing my chopper. I have a Esky Belt-CP 450 v2. From what I can tell, it's a CCPM type just like the Trex that John has so I think it will work as a test platfrom.
I'm ready to buy a dev board and get started, but it sounds like perhaps I should wait based on the current tests you're running?
Also, regarding the right board to buy, my ultimate goal for my helicopter project is to have it such that it can be manually or automatically controlled with a standard PC. At the same time, an onboard video camera would send a feed back to the PC (allowing it to be off flying around without me physically looking at it). To acheive this I expect that I'll have to dump the transmitter and receiver that it came with and use a different wireless technology. Will the dev board accept input other than PWM? Or is this goal just a pipe dream that I should abandon?
Cheers,
Justin
I am a final-year Electro-Mechanical engineering student and am also currently working on this CCPM stabilization. However, I am still doing research on the topic. I agree that it is unlikely that the errors are due to EMI or gyro vibration but rather an accelerometer issue. I have noted that none of the flybarless systems (that i have seen) include accelerometers. It seems that the only absolute roll/level holding method used in these devices is a CCD. Perhaps they gave up on using accelerometers in model helicopters.
I've bought a belt CF E-sky Belt CP and am planning to build up my own UAV board. I will most probably use a high-end Freescale DSP (10 PWM's or so) and will start with their accelerometers. I'm not sure when i'll 'actually' get round to doing it but I'll get the stuff shipped anyway. In the meantime i'll try and familiarize myself with DCM - it sounds interesting :) Good luck to all!
Dean
Can you tell us which ICD2 you are using? I have an "Olimex" ICD2 (USB) from Sparkfun that will download code to my PicPilot, but it will not work as an In-Circuit Debugger. I have checked everything I can, but the vendor did not say anything about a known problem. Any chance that you are talking about the same ICD2? Thanks.
"This leads us to believe it is, in fact, the vibrations from the Heli producing adverse effects on either the gyros or the accelerometers. Bill has code to isolate the two and will allow us to further isolate the source of the problem."
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