About

Location

San Francisco, CA


About Me:

_


Please tell us a bit about your UAV interest

Hobby piloting - 15+ years embedded systems development, 5 years R/C flying, seems like the logical next step.


Hometown:

Adelaide, South Australia


Activity Feed

Michael Smith replied to Marc's discussion PX4
"You may have more luck asking questions about the PX4 components on the PX4 Answers site here:

http://answers.px4.ethz.ch/questions/"
May 27, 2013
Michael Smith replied to Mike Mac's discussion Firmware Updates
"Well, for posts like this, one has to wonder what you expect them to say. Nobody is hiding anything from you, as far as I can tell.
The firmware repository is public on GitHub, so if you're interested in following any changes they're right out in…"
Mar 6, 2013
Michael Smith replied to redge regis's discussion FTDI cable: 3.3v or 5v
"Either cable will work. The 3DR radio actually works for input power down to about 3v, and the serial interface is 5V tolerant."
Feb 1, 2013
Michael Smith replied to Stefan Gofferje's discussion Encryption in 3DR radios?
"There seems to be some confusion here.
Encryption, correctly implemented, prevents someone from comprehending the contents of the messages being sent.
Authentication, correctly implemented, allows the recipient to trust that the sender actually sent…"
Jan 30, 2013
Michael Smith commented on Bill Nesbitt's blog post AutoQuad ESC32v2
"From a heatsinking perspective, the package plus board stack thickness for the FETs is almost exactly 1/4".  With the copper clearance from the edge of the board, extracting some more heat might be as simple as a little TIC and some aluminium…"
Jun 30, 2012
Michael Smith commented on crystal garris's blog post Techpod Prototype Build Blog
"Fantastic to see you still making good progress with the Techpod."
Jun 30, 2012
Michael Smith commented on Chris Anderson's blog post ArduPlane home page
May 21, 2012
Michael Smith replied to Adam Crain's discussion ARM based Arduino
"The ARM processor (CortexM3) in the upcoming ARM-based Arduino does not support "native double calculations".

There is a variant of the core (CortexM4F) that has hardware support for single-precision (32-bit) floating point operations, but that's…"
Feb 25, 2012
Michael Smith commented on Gary Mortimer's blog post Perhaps not the best news for UAS in the NAS, in the USA well private ones anyway.
"Gary,
As usual, the last link from Pat Egan lays it out clearly enough.  I share your concern that folks are just burying their heads in the sand on this one; but short of rioting in the streets, what *should* we be doing to balance the situation?…"
Jan 8, 2012
Michael Smith commented on Bill Nesbitt's blog post AutoQuad ESC32 v1r5
"Randy, most UARTs (including those on the STM32) support operation in a multi-drop mode.  There are a variety of ways to wire things; you can use RS-422/485 differential signalling (requires a line driver) as in many industrial applications, or you…"
Dec 13, 2011
Michael Smith commented on George Tarrant's blog post Offer of help with tuning PID loops
"George,
 
This is a remarkable offer and I'm truly a little surprised that more folks haven't jumped on it already.
 
Something that would help, I think, would be if you could clarify what inputs one would need to supply you with for the process,…"
Jul 22, 2011
Michael Smith left a comment for Phil Sammons
"Phil,  I did write a MAVlink bridge to FlightGear, yes.  I was never able to get FG working properly to verify/finish it, sadly."
Apr 4, 2011
Michael Smith commented on Andrew Tridgell's blog post Python MAVLink interface (version 0.2)
"I'm a bit curious why you need a parser if all you're doing is proxying.
 
Are you maintaining state on e.g. stream requests/rates and filtering accordingly for the various downstream consumers?  Do you do request/reply matching?
 
I built something…"
Mar 1, 2011
Michael Smith commented on Chris Anderson's blog post San Francisco-area fly-in today
"@Mark - the meetup is more irregular rather than regular, but ping Chris and I'm sure he'll drop you a line.  We usually get a day or two's notice at the moment. 8)
 
 "
Feb 6, 2011
Michael Smith commented on Chris Anderson's blog post EyePlane kits and ARFs now available
"It's a Jarel design, meaning that a) it's not going to be "conventional", b) construction will be somewhat involved, but c) it will fly better than you expect.
 
In general his designs aren't the best if what you want is to have "one of them" like…"
Feb 6, 2011
Michael Smith commented on Duane Brocious's blog post New AMA Documents shed light on NPRM
"It would be interesting to understand the 2lb number; a little higher (2-3kg or so) would grandfather in many if not most of the currently popular foam UAV airframes.

Is it based on a bird-equivalent mass? Or was it just a nice round number?"
Feb 6, 2011
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