Ziphius

So I have been obsessed with robotics for quite some time and up until this year it was all based on walking - Humaniod,  quad & hex walker robots.  I have put together kits, pulled together parts from Lynxmotion - I have stuff all over, I am constantly tearing apart updating as new controller boards, sensors and the like come out.  I even worked on a very slick robot from Japan like 5 years ago - Speecys SPC-101C which unfortunately never made it into production - you can check my Chuck Durham Youtube Channel for some of my robot videos.  I was all about servo control and interfaces via Bluetooth, ZigBee and Wifi

Last year I had the AR Drone 1.0 and I got the Minds-i Kit and started learning more about ESC, R/C transmitters/Receivers - I owe most of this knowledge to this site.  I have followed Arducopter for a while but never had the nerve to try.  I got the AR Drone 2.0 this year and found myself wanting.  So I have dug into the RC world like a mad man, I want to try everything so I have been buying up all kinds of things to try.  Now I think most of you will find when you start a project, it's good to have a few to do, while you wait for parts to come back in stock.  So in the quest to build the Arducopter (APM:Rover), I have stepped into the ArduRover (APM:Rover) figuring APM 2.5+, Mission Planning and Telemetry would be smart to start on the ground, the minds-i is also not a super fast platform with the single motor option I have setup, so I can out run the rover.

So today, I am waiting for parts,  I got 3D Robotics order for the Telemetry to try on the Rover.  I am waiting for a replacement motor from 3D Robotics and some parts coming from China from Hobby King.  So we have air, land and (wait we are missing something) - Sea.  

Found a water based Drone - Kickstarter:  Ziphius: The Aquatic Drone.  They have a decent way to go, I am going to keep my eye on it and become a backer to get one of these.  I read and earlier article and there was mention of $25K to fund, but it is actually $125K, they are at $38K.  Anyway this may be something to rally the community around for a possible hackable base for ArduAquatic.

There is also another more open project out there for a submersible: OpenROV

What could be the potential with this community and the APM 2.5+ on something like these.  How will the GPS work underwater, thinking of other type of sensors to integrate, etc

TiltyIMU:

I was digging around Kickstarter and found this pretty slick project - I hope to help this guy get funded because I want one, he's only about $1,600 shy.  I just backed the $100 for a unit.  If he gets close I was considering doing the $400 or $650 backing to put him over the top, I will keep an eye out.  Anyway I was looking at working out using this in conjunction with the UDOO board to come up with something like the AutoPilot boards with the addition of computer vision features.  I want autopilot features plus object tracking.  I would like to setup a camera on the base of my quadcopter to perform precision landing.  Anyway here is the project - TiltyIMU - Kickstarter Pojrect.  Spread the word, he only has 27 days to go and he's getting close.  He used this to create his own version of the Segway - check out his video.

My first backing was of the UDOO board: UDOO - Kickstarter.  They have killed it with 2,376% funded - they have achieved all their added goals.  Anyway I backed one of the UDOO Quad starter kits.  I have been working with the BeagleBone and the Raspberry PI - my main objective is to bring in computer vision - both are okay, but honestly even with the lower level C libraries on OpenCV I am finding the framerate is a bit slower than I want, I tried SimpleCV Python bindings, wow I got 1 - 2 for framerate - I have not tried the direct Camera unit for the Raspberry PI but it's cheap enough I will likely order one.

Anyway check out the UDOO, it's pretty impressive and I think based on the specs I found a board that will actually work for decent computer vision projects - without going to a FitPC like they use in the Darwin-OP platform.  Matt Trossen has the option to buy the electronics only for the Darwin-OP for a cool $1,100 USD.  You can find that: Trossen Robotics - Darwin Electronics Kit.  Matt and Andrew are awesome guys, a majority of my robotic hardware has come from Trossen.  I have a followup blog post I am going to do about a Robotic project years back from Japan that I was involved with and working together with Matt - It was a shame that it didn't take - Story for another time.

The end game is to have Autopilot features combined with computer vision.  Object tracking, so I can have the quadcopter basically run in a follow mode where it tracks something on the ground or in the air.  I would love to have CDAutoRover lead around the quadcopter.  Also for precision landing - I am waiting for the day we have wireless LiPo charging, you can land on a base station, power up and the take off once it is fully charged.

Updated pics:

I have cleaned up the placement of the electronics on the CDAutoRover and added my newly received Turnigy 9X.  Worked out the 6 flight mode settings.  I have something I am going to test for the temporary switch into Channel 7,  I am going to try out using the Rudder, since it jumps back to center  - calibrate it with center and just to the far right.  Hoping that will allow me to toggle - I read many have flashed the Turnigy 9X to the er9x, I don't feel like doing that yet, but may eventually - alot of people really like it.

So I didn't like having all the jumper wires - so I went looking for male to male end servo connectors, easy to find servo extenders male to female ends - so I got some male connectors with open wire, put my own ends on:

Much cleaner I think:

So I am going to put in an order for the Telemetry kit for the APM 2.5+,  I really wish I had just ordered that with, anyway as soon as it stops raining, going to try out my new modes and my rudder as momentary switch trick.  I will report back on that.  

Also this weekend, I am going to be getting a number of the pieces 3D printed for the Quadcopter build.

I am loving the APM 2.5+.  I am in the middle of a custom quadcopter build - but I wanted to spend some time getting used to the APM 2.5+ / Mission Planner.  So I pulled out my 6x6 Rover built on the MINDS-i robotic platform : MINDS-i.  I used my 3D printer to make a platform to hold the APM 2.5+ and some velcro / zip ties got everything wired up - you will notice I need to get some nice length female / female servo wires, I cheated and just use jumper wires for now.  Test #1 - I learned I didn't setup the input from my Spektrum DX6i Transmitter / Receiver correctly, so I after laying out the plan and heading out to this church reception parking lot - all I could do was run it around manual - at least the RC was working.  I reviewed the site and rewired.  Test #2 - I tried to do a small area around my house in my driveway,  didn't work so well, I think the area was too small, the house / garage likely blocked up the GPS and I noticed my Rover was drifting.  

Aligned up the steering, laid out a nice mission and went back out to the large parking lot.  Test #3 - third times a charm.  It ran through the waypoints, I did notice it didn't return home but stopped on Waypoint #4.  I was able to kick it into manual drove up facing away from Waypoint #1  - kicked auto is spun around and re-ran the route.

Meanwhile I picked up my AR Drone 2.0 to get some video of the rover.  I also have the GoPro on the Rover so I have some video to download from that.  I will post some pics and links to video on here.

Video Links

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CDAutoRover Run 1

CDAutoRover Run 2

Check out my channel, I have some other robot goodies: RxDTxDTTL (Chuck D)