To fly a full wing (flaperon) electric powered glider for as long as possible on autopilot.
The challenge:
The autopilot / flight director needs to hunt for lift. It needs to be completely aware of wind direction in all directions. It also needs to track changing conditions.
Which autopilot hardware and software can you recommend?
I am a newbie. I understand that this proejct is not going to be an easy thing to achieve. I have electronics and software skills, patience and a good understanding of long term suicide projects.
Some thoughts:
I wish to start with an existing project and grow it, using existing modules where possible. My developments will be open source.
The autopilot code needs to be portable i.e. transferable into a more powerful platform. The final version will need some considerable processing power.
I would prefer the autopilot code to be c/c++ based. I am open to other suggestions. There may be a mix of languages in the end.
Real time telemetry is needed to do this and really understand the data. It may be easiest to keep the flight director ground based at first. Running the director on a laptop would make developments easier.
A full flaperon wing will need at least 7 channels of servo control.
Airspeed measurements are neeeded. I wish to fly the glider to indicated airspeed.for best performance.
.
This probably has to be IMU based, not thermopile. Correct me if I am wrong.
Video telemerty would be interesting but not necessary. If it helps to make the whole thing work, I will use it.
The budget is supposed to be low but that never works out.....
Any advice is appreciated.
You need to be a member of diydrones to add comments!
Replies
Matthew,
I'm working on something like this too: http://www.diydrones.com/forum/topics/atv-autonomous-thermalling
How is your project going?
GliderUAV
Building thermal-seeking on top of stable IMU-based open source autopilot seems like the best choice for you.
It might be possible to have a datalink onboard that can download the weather from some service to aid, or perhaps look at the clouds to search for thermals.
Currently you could base your project on ardupilot(atmega) or UAVDevboard (pic) as they already have working autopilots for you to start working with, and openpilot seems to be an interesting new autopilot, there is also one called gluonpilot which is also pic based. I suggest you take a look at them and decide which one will be most suitable to your needs.
But still seems interesting and all the best and remember to start small and first try to get a working and reliable UAV before you start spending all your money on expensive extra components only to loose them all in a crash.