So, A while ago I started following a netbook called the touch book by a company called always innovating. Now, after looking at some schematics here's why I think it would be a sweet xBee based ground station. First off: The touchscreen can detach from the keyboard, which is nice for portability. Second: It has pretty decent battery life (great with the keyboard attached). Third: it can run linux. But why, you ask, is this any better than any other tablet? For a couple reasons: It has a built in compartment for storing electronics. I forget the exact dimensions, but I think it is plenty big to fit a serial xbee module. You can just stick it behind the screen and forget about it. Second: It has a serial circuit on the inside. The serial goes through several stages, and at one point the TX and RX voltages are 3V (before they're turned into RS232 levels). This is right around what the xbee wants. The serial level converter chip also has a 3v3 pin, which I would guess has a solder pad too. I just think it would be sweet to be able to control a UAV with a tablet, or really pretty much anything that uses an xBee connection. Here is a pic of the touch book internals, with 2 USB drives installed:
It also has an accelerometer, which could be a fun way to integrate with a UAV control-wise. I just wanted to point this thing out to you guys and see if you did anything with it. will
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looks really interesting. i could try to browse local supplies here in Asia and try to find similar or maybe even this same device. (after those redshirs are off from streets hahah)
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--jp