Meet the minds behind the OpenROV, a submersible, camera-equipped watercraft you control remotely.

It's customary and a tradition that we celebrate every new 1,000 members here and share the traffic stats. This time it's 45,000!!!!

There were 1.8 million page views in the last month! (we get around 58,000 pageviews a day on average). It took us just 28 days to get this latest 1,000 members--we're averaging one new member every 40 minutes.

Thanks as always to all the community members who make this growth possible, and especially the moderators who approve blog posts and otherwise answer questions and keep things ticking here.

Regards,

TCIII Admin

An award-winning New Zealand Southland farming family are looking to the sky for inspiration to reduce costs on their hill country sheep, beef and cropping farm.

They purchased a $4000 drone package from the USA and hope to realize a $40,000 yearly savings in time and fuel costs using the drone to monitor their sheep flocks.

Full story here: Farm drone in NZ

by Emile Orzea

Aleksey Zaytsevsky is at it again, another breakthrough in the field of camera stabilization technologies.

Over the past year, video operators have been actively switching to controllable camera mounts directly connected to an electric motor. The result might seem satisfactory, but the overall quality of this solution tuned out to be questionable, since an electric motor without a gear box is inefficient at low RPMs.

An alternative solution demonstrated by Aleksey Zaytsevsky was simple and elegant: it only required the replacement of the position sensor in the servo drive with a force sensor. As the result, the servo drive rotates the camera resting on the unstable base, but the tilt of the unstable base makes no sense. This allows the operator to rotate cameras of any mass and use all the benefits of inertial stabilization, including the possibility to use a camera with an additional counterweight.

A few prototypes of the devices being designed have been presented so far. The video shows that the unwanted mechanical resistance of the servo drive can be so low that the arm can be rotated with a burnt out match. In a different experiment, the reduction servo drive rotates and stabilizes a 6 kg platform with the torque being as low as 3.8 kg/cm. The servo drive was also tested on an Ecilop Easy drone. For a more visual demonstration, an on-board camera with zooming was used.

Force Servo also allows for other usage scenarios. Thanks to Force Servo, the rudder turn angle is automatically limited at high speeds, preventing hypergravity. At low speeds, vehicles retain their maneuverability. It also prevents mechanical overloads in cases of rudder jamming.

http://f-servo.com/

By David Szondy

October 23, 2013

If you've ever wondered where you left the laptop or how your dog came home smelling like a frog pond, then a GPS tracking device might seem like a good idea. The trick is to find one small enough to be practical and doesn't need its batteries replaced every day. The Retrievor RET-100 is a self-contained, solar-powered GPS tracker no wider than a US quarter that is looking to find a way to market via a crowdfunding campaign. Full story here: Retrievor

This UAV apparently got away from its operators and wound up in the trash being collected at a local park in Malibu, California. Can any of the members on DIY Drones identify this UAV and who it belongs to? Full story here: Lost UAV

It's customary and a tradition that we celebrate every new 1,000 members here and share the traffic stats. This time it's 44,000!!!!

There were 1.7 million page views in the last month! (we get around 57,000 pageviews a day on average). It took us just 31 days to get this latest 1,000 members--we're averaging one new member every 45 minutes.

Thanks as always to all the community members who make this growth possible, and especially the moderators who approve blog posts and otherwise answer questions and keep things ticking here.

Regards,

TCIII Admin

By Evan Ackerman

Last week, NASA and AUVSI invited a carefully selected, elite group of media (which obviously included IEEE Spectrum) to take a tour of the Unmanned Aircraft Systems programs at NASA Dryden. The Dryden Flight Research Center (DFRC) is located approximately in the middle of nowhere, inside Edwards Air Force Base on a huge dry lake bed out in the Mojave desert. The remoteness of the area, plus the availability of over 100 square kilometers of empty flat lake bed to land on if necessary, makes Dryden a fantastic place to test out all kinds of futuristic and occasionally bizarre aircraft. And we got to meet a few of them.

Read the full article here: NASA's Futuristic Drone Research Lab

By Ian Lee

At the Nashville Mini Maker Faire last weekend, I had the pleasure to speak with the makers at the New Valence Robotics booth.  They were showing their 3D printer which they claim is the world’s first fully automated 3D printer designed for schools.  I had an opportunity to see the printer in action and it definitely has some unique features.

I spoke with Mateo Pena Doll, a mechanical engineer who works on the project.  He says they have talked to many schools that have 3D printers and the problem they hear over and over is that teachers very often need to print many copies of the same part. With most traditional 3D printers this means loading up a part in the software, starting the print, coming back in a few hours to remove the part, then starting the next print. Rinse and repeat for 30 students…

New Valence’s printer solves this problem by adding specialized software and hardware to the printer. The printer can hold a queue of print jobs and then automatically remove parts after they have been printed. It then begins the next print job without any human interaction required.

They’ve also developed web-based management software that makes it possible to completely monitor and control the printer remotely via the web. This could be very useful for schools that may have many teachers sharing a single printer that stays at a remote location.

The team traveled to Nashville, Tenn. from Boston, Mass. where they are all MIT students graduating this year. I expect that we’ll hear a lot more about these makers post-graduation. They hope to start a beta program in Q1 of 2014 at select schools – possibly including some in Nashville.

The printer that New Valence brought to the fair was an earlier prototype. After the Fair they sent me a copy of their current version which, unfortunately, wasn’t available to make the trip. It definitely has evolved and looks much more polished than the one at the fair. I’m eager to see the final version.

By John Baichtal

At World Maker Faire last weekend, I got the chance to check out Minnowboard, a new Open Source microcontroller board that is going after the Raspberry Pi market not by emulating the popular RasPi, but by blowing it out of the water with a four-inch $200 mini PC running Ångström Linux on an Intel Atom CPU. It has a host of intriguing features like x86 compatibility, gigabit ethernet, and a gig of DDR2 RAM, as well as the GPIO pins that hardware hackers like.

As a brand-new platform, the MinnowBoard has precious few accessories to offer. However, they have released the MinnowBoard’s specifications for their add-on boards, called Lures, enabling fans to start building compatible open-source products.

At Maker Faire, they had a neat demo at their booth — a hobbyist robotic arm controlled by a MinnowBoard and equipped with a camera and OpenCV computer vision library, enabling the MinnowBoard to detect an object and direct the manipulator to pick it up. 

By Brian Dodson

Intel's Futurist and Director of Future Casting, Brian David Johnson, was at this week's Maker Faire in New York City to introduce an open source, 3D printed companion robot called Jimmie.

Johnson's job is to advise Intel as to what innovations may be expected in the active marketplace roughly a decade into the future. His use of science fiction writers as projective futurists in Intel's Tomorrow Project is well known.

With the 21st Century robot project, Johnson plans to introduce an easy to build, completely open source, human-like robot that can be built created from a kit and a home 3D printer, then stand back and see what a group of highly motivated makers do with it.

The open-source software, 3D printing files, and the kit are projected to be available next May. The vehicle for the project is a book called 21st Century robot, which combines science fiction with a how to guide for creating your own robot. A "work in progress" version of the book can be downloadedhere [PDF].

Although there are no firm details at this stage, the kit will reportedly consist of processors, memory, servos, power packs, and other parts to enable easy construction of a robot. Jimmie (Johnson's name for his prototype, which is at this stage just a shell) is roughly humanoid, about 20 inches (0.5 m) tall and has a strong family resemblance to Aldebaran Robotics Nao robot (my personal all-time favorite robot). Interestingly, Intel was one of Aldebaran's major third round VC funders.

The target for such a kit is highly focused, as only rather accomplished makers will have the 3D printing capabilities at hand, and also the electromechanical and software chops to turn a kit into a working robot to be upgraded, modified, and taught new tricks. Johnson wants to make the kit available for US$500-1000. Comparing this to Nao's $17K price tag, it's clear why such a kit may be popular.

While we can only speculate about Jimmie's base capabilities at this stage, it is being described as a companion and helper. We expect that Jimmie will be able to understand and speak some subset of a spoken language. Also, it seems likely that it will be able to walk about and have some ability to grab and manipulate objects – particularly as Jimmie appears to have inherited Nao's opposable thumb.

We'll bring you more details as they become official. In the meantime, you can watch Johnson talking about the project in this CBS News interview.

Source: 21st Century Robot via All Things D

By Travis Good

Jaws drop when makers see a five-axis CNC at work. That’s what happened to me when I saw PocketNC performing its magic. I peered closely and saw a spindle moving along two axes milling a piece of plastic mounted on a trunnion moving along/around three axes. The result of a three-year, four-prototype development effort of husband and wife team Matt and Michelle Hertel,PocketNC is getting ready for market.

Machinists and mechanical engineers, this couple loves building things. After participating in many Instructables contests and putting in up to 30 hours per week on their entries, they eventually decided to channel their energies into something which they could sell as a product. Matt had wanted a mini mill but couldn’t find what he wanted at the price he was willing to pay. Over the course of their research, they found that many others wanted the same thing so they decided to build their own but jumped straight to five-axes.

While their prototyping efforts started in the house they quickly converted a 10×10 shed to a workshop where they worked. From the start, the mill’s frame was built of aluminum but they are always working to reduce weight, presently at 25 pounds. The mill uses stepper motors and they can cut dependably to a tolerance of +/- 1/5000th of an inch, the spindle turns at 500-6000 rpm for plenty of range for speeds and feeds of various materials. The millable volume is  5″ diameter by 4″ tall. This gem can mill plastic and aluminum and they’re confirming that it can also mill steel and titanium

World Maker Faire was their first big public showing of PocketNC and they found it invigorating. After years spent working on the project in isolation it was exciting to see so many positive reactions from the maker community. They’ve come a long way after multiple prototypes. They still want to test more materials, switch their controller to Synthetos, and then go to market but with measured organic growth till they get it totally right.

Cost? They’re shooting for around $3,000.

Since we have been discussing the failure of LiPo batteries during charging, I thought that it would be interesting to post this article on the shortcomings of a knockoff LiPo battery charger and how it could, in its unmodified form, cause damage to a LiPo battery.

By Phillip Ryals

Sometimes buying a low-cost clone off of eBay is a great option, but [Martin] wisely decided to test his counterfeit IMAX B6AC, and found it grossly lacking. His detailed breakdown shows an alarming array of problems, including poor design and construction, and a lack of warning if the balance circuit fails. In addition, the charger wasn’t properly calibrated. By using a precision multimeter, Martin found that the charger actually brought cells above critical voltage. So really, using a charger like this out of the box can both destroy your battery pack and/or start a fire. One other interesting detail – this model can only be calibrated once. Sweet features.

[Martin] detailed his fixes in a well-illustrated blog post. He first had to re-enable the calibration menu using this method which requires bricking the device first! Once un-bricked, however, he could do the recalibration using a voltage divider and a reliable power source.

This project really underscores the need for a precisely calibrated multimeter. Not only would [Martin] not have been able to test his charger properly, but the re-calibration wouldn’t have been as accurate as needed. As hobbyists, this is a reminder that we can only trust our tools if they are accurate.

It's customary and a tradition that we celebrate every new 1,000 members here and share the traffic stats. This time it's 43,000!!!!

There were 1.7 million page views in the last month! (we get around 57,000 pageviews a day on average). It took us just 28 days to get this latest 1,000 members--we're averaging one new member every 40 minutes.

Thanks as always to all the community members who make this growth possible, and especially the moderators who approve blog posts and otherwise answer questions and keep things ticking here.

Regards,

TCIII Admin

As wildfires grow in number and size, drones could drastically change the nature of the fight.

By Katie Lobosco  @KatieLobosco August 19, 2013

In their losing battle against wildfires, drones could be a firefighter's ace in the hole.

Wildfires have grown in number and size, but fighting them has remained an old-school game that sometimes relies on paper maps and gut feelings.

"We can get more information for less cost, and it doesn't put anyone in harm's way," said Sher Schranz, a project manager at National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration who researches fire weather modeling.

Fighting wildfires is a tricky game, since the direction and intensity of the massive blazes can change in seconds. Drones can help in two ways: They can safely gather more information about fire conditions than is currently available, and they can send that information to firefighters on the ground quickly.

Related story: Cheap drones could save your life

Today, firefighters are often sent out with tablets and smartphones so they can be updated about conditions, but those devices don't help if Internet service is weak or non-existent -- which is likely, as wildfires typically rage in rural areas where rough terrain keeps firefighters out of signal range.

Drones can hover over dead zones, providing an Internet signal. That's something researchers are making a priority, said Tim Sexton, the program manager at the Wildland Fire Management Research Development and Applications Program.

Where Internet connections are available, great information about fires can be disseminated to firefighters. Internet-based tools can help calculate the risk of a fire reaching homes or other structures, and they can determine how fires may move, depending on the weather. Currently, firefighters hike up to a ridge where they can get an Internet connection, or they'll work with the local telecom company to set up portable cell towers.

But when those Web-based modeling systems aren't available, firefighters rely on "gut feelings" from those who knew the area well, Sexton said. Without an Internet connection, they have to rely on data they received that morning, which was likely gathered late the night before.

Information available to firefighters is often so out-of-date, because manned airplanes and helicopter flights that take pictures and infrared images to map the fire perimeter are costly and risky, so they only fly over a fire once or twice a day. 

Drones, on the other hand, are comparatively cheaper, and more than one can be launched at once. Schranz estimates that a drone can cost as little as $2,000 for an eight-hour flight -- the same price for just one hour of a manned flight.

"Drones can sit up there all day long, or for days," said Sexton.

Drones aren't quite ready to assist in fire suppression, since the fire community is still in the early stages of making sure the technology is applied effectively and safely, said Erin Darboven from the Department of Interior. Unmanned aerial systems are strictly regulated by the Federal Aviation Administration.

Fifty years ago, photos taken from a plane above would have to be dropped in a tube to firefighters below, said Sexton. The process is a lot more advanced today, but drones could be a tool that gives firefighters an edge up in the battle against wildfires.

Agam Shah, IDG News Service

An open-source project aims to give a rudimentary eye to robots with the help of a camera that can detect, identify and track the movement of specific objects.

The Pixy camera sensor board, being developed by Charmed Labs and Carnegie Mellon University, can detect objects based on seven colors, and then report them back to a computer. A Kickstarter campaign was launched on Thursday to fund the $25,000 project, and the organizations are on pace to reach full funding by the end of the day.

Adding the Pixy could be viewed as giving robots basic vision, said Rich LeGrand, founder of Charmed Labs.

“Once you have vision, then you can introduce the idea of tasks,” LeGrand said. “If you want a robot to charge itself, that’s a simple example of a task. This will get you there. If you want to a robot to navigate, this will get you there.”

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The camera can recognize simple items based on color, like a purple dinosaur, or a green ball. Objects are also recognized by specific color markings or codes.

For example, a power outlet can be recognized by the Pixy when specific color stickers are placed next to each other on the object. Interestingly, the color-coding mechanism is also used in Mumbai as a low-tech way for the “dabbawallas”—or people delivering lunch boxes—to figure out where food needs to be delivered.

The Pixy can also be “taught” what to recognize based on color codes, and algorithms for that can be programmed into the board. A software called PixyMon, which works on Macs and PCs, processes the algorithm and visual information received from the Pixy and reflects the image and objects on a screen.

Some work involved

“If you’re willing to color tags and objects that you’re interested in... this is a great sensor. It’ll find these objects, it’ll find hundreds of them, and it will give you the results back,” LeGrand said.

The robot can deliver the results back to a computer through multiple output mechanisms, giving hobbyists many ways to process information. Pixy has ARM-designed Cortex-M0 and Cortex-M4 cores, a 1280-by-800-pixel sensor, 264KB of cache and 1MB of flash storage. Robots based on the popular Arduino microcontroller can be hooked to the Pixy, LeGrand said.

The hardware can process images with a resolution of 640 by 480 pixels at 50 frames per second. It’s possible to track basic images in real time, and the image processing doesn’t bog down the CPU, LeGrand said.

Cameras have been a part of robotics since the 1990s, but expensive to implement, LeGrand said.

His goal with the Kickstarter project is to buy parts and make a cheap camera accessible to the wider robotics and hobbyist communities. The project will also fund the development of future versions of Pixy, and he has the backing of the respected robotics department at Carnegie Mellon.

”I thought hey, try to keep to keep the cost down, keep it robust... and people would use it for different projects,” LeGrand said.

By James Holloway

August 13, 2013

Florida Keys authorities are turning to unmanned aerial vehicles equipped with infrared cameras in their ongoing battle to control mosquitoes.

According to the Keynoter's Ryan McCarthy, The Florida Keys Mosquito Control District is to test a vehicle by Condor Aerial developed for the purposes of law enforcement. However, it's hoped that the drone's infrared camera could be used to identify pools of shallow water which can host mosquito larvae, allowing the water to be treated with larvicide on the ground. (Nano-drones will not be dogfighting mosquitos one on one just yet, it seems.)

The Keynoter reports that the UAV weighs 2.2 lb (1 kg), 2.5 ft (0.7 m) long, and capable of flying 90 minutes at a time. This, combined with District Director Michael Doyle's description of the UAV as resembling a hawk, suggests the vehicle is a version of Condor Aerial's Maveric UAV.

The Keynoter reports that a test flight will take place on August 26, with a Condor Aerial employee on hand to control the vehicle from the ground.

Condor Aerial's (rather macho) promo reel for the Maveric UAV is below.

ROBOTS.NET

In this episode, we speak with Matthew Schroyer, founder of DroneJournalism.org, co-founder of Drones for Good, and developer of the “Drones for Schools” program which teaches students to design, fabricate and program unmanned aerial systems to monitor the environment.

Matthew Schroyer has a Master’s in journalism from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign where he works on the National Science Foundation grant EnLiST, which offers entrepreneurial leadership training and professional development for K-12 STEM teachers. At EnLiST he uses drones to motivate students to pursue STEM careers.

Driven by the maker movement, safety concerns for journalists, and the promise of cutting edge information, Schroyer founded the Professional Society of Drone Journalists (PSDJ). His drones are used for the common good and a clear code of ethics was written to avoid privacy and safety concerns. Along the same lines, Schroyer cofounded Drones for Good, which aims to show the good side of drone technology through public engagement and the advancement of positive drone projects.

http://robohub.org/robots-drone-journalism/

Matthew Schroyer’s Homepage

sUAS News

One of the most exciting recent developments in agriculture is the use of small Unmanned Aircraft Systems to evaluate crop conditions.  Producers, agronomists and the public can view a demonstration of this new technology at the 2013 Agronomy Field Day on Aug. 16 at Kansas State University’s Agronomy North Farm.

The use of these unmanned aircraft systems equipped with aerial optical sensing technology has gained national press attention in recent months.  Kevin Price, K-State, professor of agronomy and geography, and Deon van der Merwe, associate professor of veterinary medicine and head of the diagnostic laboratory toxicology section, are among the leading researchers in the nation on this technology.  They are working to develop systems that can be used by the agricultural community.

“We’ve had an incredible reception among consultants, producers, plant breeders and others when we’ve shown them what this technology can do.  It has the potential to make their jobs much easier and will help them make better recommendations in a more timely manner,” Price said.

“At the field day, I will be showing some of the kinds of things we can accomplish with these small Unmanned Aircraft Systems in field demonstrations,” he added.

This is just one of several new technologies featured at the field day by agronomy researchers.  Other demonstrations will show the work of Dave Mengel, professor and soil fertility specialist on optical sensors for nutrient recommendations; Vara Prasad, associate professor and crop physiologist on stress tolerance research; and Peter Tomlinson, assistant professor and environmental quality specialist and Chuck Rice, university distinguished professor of agronomy on techniques used to measure greenhouse gases.

The field day will begin with registration at 9 a.m. and wrap up at 2 p.m.  There is no charge to attend, and a complimentary lunch will be available.  Preregistration is requested so that a lunch count can be made. Those interested in attending can preregister by calling Troy Lynn Eckart at 785-532-5776. To preregister online, see: http://kstateagron2013.eventbrite.com/.

Sessions include two concurrent one-hour tours in the morning, starting at 9:45 and 11 a.m. After lunch, there will be demonstrations on sUAS flights; analyzing and interpreting images from sUAS technology; and field checking of optical sensing readings for crop nutrient status.

In addition, there will be displays from commercial companies and K-State researchers in the shed near the registration area, along with the crop garden, forage garden, and weed garden for browsing.  Extension specialists will be available to answer questions.

For more information, interested persons can contact Dallas Peterson at 785-532-0405 or dpeterso@ksu.edu.

It's customary and a tradition that we celebrate every new 1,000 members here and share the traffic stats. This time it's 42,000!!!!

There were 1.7 million page views in the last month! (we get around 57,000 pageviews a day on average). It took us just 26 days to get this latest 1,000 members--we're averaging one new member every 37 minutes.

Thanks as always to all the community members who make this growth possible, and especially the moderators who approve blog posts and otherwise answer questions and keep things ticking here.

Regards,

TCIII Admin