Gender

Male

I'm an Mechanical Engineer who works a manufacturing process engineer. I've loved everything that flies since I was old enough to look up.

Building from scratch a Quadcopter and incorporating absolute inertial position tracking.

Hometown:

Minneapolis, MN

### Activity Feed

Phillip Schmidt replied to Evorowy's discussion Homemade FlightController.
"I hang out in Plymouth area and am also a mechanical engineer.

Joop's code is great for learning some of the basic concepts of level flight, but it it not a good place to start if you actually want to make something fly well.

My code is really…"
Oct 5, 2020
Phillip Schmidt replied to Evorowy's discussion Homemade FlightController.
"A couple of tips:

Gyro integration speed is critical to stability (400Hz is reasonable for an 8bit micro).  Drift correction can happen at a slower rate to save computation time (~100Hz).

You have to translate Mag, and Accel readings from…"
Mar 23, 2017
Phillip Schmidt replied to Ascent AeroSystems's discussion Hiring: UAV Engineer
"If it wasn't for the move to NY, I'd be all over this."
Mar 23, 2017
Phillip Schmidt replied to Aviv Cohen's discussion my new quadcopter built from scratch, but unstable - design problem?
"5-20ms delay is huge.  You should be under 1ms.  Racing quads start their esc pulses less than 10us after the values are computed.  Most quads out today are sending motor speed updates at a rate of 400 to 4000 times per second (and higher).  It…"
Nov 22, 2016
Phillip Schmidt replied to Aviv Cohen's discussion my new quadcopter built from scratch, but unstable - design problem?
"I can't watch the video at the moment, so I may be able to add mroe later.

As long as the motors each carry roughly the same load, that should not be the problem.  Weight does not add stability to a quad.  Best stability is acheived when moment of…"
Nov 22, 2016
Phillip Schmidt replied to Gavin Jaime Fouche's discussion Centripetal AHRS Compensation problems
"You are probably way past this problem, but here's my take on it:

If you are assuming velocity aligns with the X axis, then you should only be compensating acceleration in the Z and Y-axis direction.

A_y is computed as follows:
(1.0 -…"
Nov 21, 2016
Phillip Schmidt commented on Simon D. Levy's blog post 130mm quad with simple C++ firmware, Part I: The Build
"Those interested in using my frame above, you can find it here: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1624049 "
Jun 14, 2016
Phillip Schmidt commented on Simon D. Levy's blog post 130mm quad with simple C++ firmware, Part I: The Build
"My drone inspired by your build:

I designed my own 3D printed frame because I enjoy re-inventing wheels...

Motors are RCX 1304 3200kV.  I used the same props, esc and flight controller as you.  The receiver is an Orange Rx (Spektrum) satillite.…"
Jun 13, 2016
Phillip Schmidt replied to Tony Galvin's discussion Looking for drone that can carry things?
"lol.  That's all I could think when reading the usage requirements."
Jun 9, 2016
Phillip Schmidt commented on Simon D. Levy's blog post 130mm quad with simple C++ firmware, Part I: The Build
"ok, I had estimated your flying weight too high.  Dropping it to 150g shows hover at 60% throttle.  Thanks."
May 23, 2016
Phillip Schmidt commented on Simon D. Levy's blog post 130mm quad with simple C++ firmware, Part I: The Build
"Do you have a guess as to where you throttle is at hover?  I ask as simulations show that a 2s battery with that motor and prop may hover at ~80% throttle.  Even with the added weight, 3s and 4s batteries show throttle at hoover much closer to 50%.…"
May 21, 2016
Phillip Schmidt commented on Simon D. Levy's blog post 130mm quad with simple C++ firmware, Part II: The firmware
"Very cool... I really need to get back to work on my bare bones quad control software.  It functions well already but needs some cleaning up before I put it on my github.  And now I want build a little quad like."
May 18, 2016
Phillip Schmidt commented on Simon D. Levy's blog post 130mm quad with simple C++ firmware, Part I: The Build
"Nice build... now I want one.

I assume this will be coming in a future post, but any hints on what you are changing in your version of Base/CleanFlight?"
May 17, 2016
Phillip Schmidt replied to Neil Clayton's discussion Dead Reckoning for an FPV visualisation project
May 9, 2016
Phillip Schmidt replied to Neil Clayton's discussion Dead Reckoning for an FPV visualisation project
"If all you want is what I would call "short term dead reckoning", then that is very doable.  ArduPilot does this already.

I got into this by wanting to write my own drone control software and incorporate long term dead reckoning into it.  Many…"
May 9, 2016
Phillip Schmidt replied to Neil Clayton's discussion Dead Reckoning for an FPV visualisation project
"I've tried this and current gen of mems gyro/accel are not nearly good enough.

I performed the follwing test:

Attached the sensor to a granite slab so it couldn't move
Measured the sensor bias in all six axii
Integrated the output

In a minute it…"
May 6, 2016