Hi everyone,
I put together a short list of many details that have gone into making a RPi quad. I have some pictures posted in my photo album. I'll get those updated soon as well as some video when I locate a firewire port for the DV camera.
I've started a group as well. I'm sure there are others out there flying or at least attempting to fly a Raspberry Pi =)
Quad-FU - Project Outline
X525 Frame Kit
20A ESCs
*Tossed the KK Multicopter Controller
Raspberry Pi 700MHz ARM
Debian Linux
-hostapd;
running as a WiFi Hot-Spot to easily connect all sorts of devices =)
-Quad-FU Master Controller;
our quadrotor controller software, currently written in C
Arduino Nano **Thank you Tom!
-Quad-FU SPI Slave Controller;
arduino code receiving motor throttles and generating the 1-2ms pulse to drive the ESCs
-Motor Throttle Data is sent from the RPi over SPI from the Quad-FU Master Controller software
-Used for two good reasons: 1) 5V was needed to drive the ESC 2) The little duino needed a good home
Wii Motion Plus && Wii Nunchuck
-Reading Gyro and Accelerometer data over I2C via RPi
-Processing data on the RPi with a modified Kalman filter we wrote in C
Un-Named Controller Input Software
-Written in C# and used to interpret the PS3 Controller
-Sends throttle, pitch, roll, yaw, and button data over UDP to the quad
PlayStation Controller
-Opened the controller and removed / modified the joystick assembly to prevent the stick from returning to center
-With a modified throttle it was the cheapest way to have a decent wireless controller to control our quad
COMING SOON
-Soon we will be receiving a bleeding edge IMU from a sponsor
-Laser 3D Modeling of surroundings
Replies
ReneeLov3, this is an exciting project. Will be folowing your endeavor closely.
I've been working on a similar concept to use the RPi. Started with a basic 5/8 channel ppm generator to be hooked up to a joystick for control of airplanes (code.google.com/p/gt-jtx). Since the AVRs get limited after a while, I am considering doing something similar and have the RPi take over the ground display and joystick interface; and add on other stuff like Gyro/Video etc later
BW
GS
Looks really good! Would love to see videos.
I want to build a self balancing robot using the Raspberry Pi and having trouble with the sensors.
Any chance you could shed some light on how exactly are you reading data from the sensors and actually getting the orientation?
Awesome project!
I am currently working on something similar, except with a BeagleBone instead of an RPi, plus an Attiny85 for the glue logic between the Linux board and the ESCs. Have only done bunny-hops so far, PIDs are not tuned right yet. My ultimate goal is to be able to run OpenCV or something like it straight on the copter.
Do you have any videos of it flying? It looks like you have a big foam bock strapped to the bottom of it...
Marko