Hi Jan, you know I'm stucking on Atto v1.6 due to the export probs and in the meantime I'll try to compare a bit with Ardu :-). One great thing on Chris' and Jordi's work is specially the open source and because I'm also a (AVR) firmware developer since ages I'm very interested to try some simple addons in the Ardu firmware. Perhaps a bit hardware also (display for example).
Yes, the BSL is a relatively new idea and is functioning together with Thomas' UHF receiver. When his Rx sees during frequency hopping (22 frequencies) a bad one then it outputs a single channel number via the async-serial output. My BSL checks always this output and additionally the ch8 output of the Rx (= failsafe output). So I know always during flight when there is a prob with a frequency or a failsafe occurs. In that case I take lat/lon + time from the GPS (share it with the Ardu) and store all together in the internal eeprom of the mega128. Back to ground I rebuild out of the content of the eeprom a NMEA string and output all stored bad positions plus time stamp via the serial output of the mega128. That's the idea behind. The original reason for that: around of my flight area there are five (!) transmitter towers for mobile phones in a distance from 700 - 2500 m. Due to this towers there are some really "bad spots" in the air where the R/C connection is "dead" for some seconds. Last year I lost a brandnew Funjet due to such a "bad spot". With the BSL it should be possible to produce a map of this spots (I hope so :-).
Btw. the hardware is a very cheap mega128 board, I've used several of them already for projects and it's also usable for "Wiring" with a simple hack (adding 32,768 kHz crystal). It's called AVR stamp and is from futurlec.com:
Hi Erwin, nice collection of hardware you have there. I notice the ArduPilot, not Atto? The BSL is something you are designing? What hardware are you using for it? Regards, Jan
Comments
Yes, the BSL is a relatively new idea and is functioning together with Thomas' UHF receiver. When his Rx sees during frequency hopping (22 frequencies) a bad one then it outputs a single channel number via the async-serial output. My BSL checks always this output and additionally the ch8 output of the Rx (= failsafe output). So I know always during flight when there is a prob with a frequency or a failsafe occurs. In that case I take lat/lon + time from the GPS (share it with the Ardu) and store all together in the internal eeprom of the mega128. Back to ground I rebuild out of the content of the eeprom a NMEA string and output all stored bad positions plus time stamp via the serial output of the mega128. That's the idea behind. The original reason for that: around of my flight area there are five (!) transmitter towers for mobile phones in a distance from 700 - 2500 m. Due to this towers there are some really "bad spots" in the air where the R/C connection is "dead" for some seconds. Last year I lost a brandnew Funjet due to such a "bad spot". With the BSL it should be possible to produce a map of this spots (I hope so :-).
Btw. the hardware is a very cheap mega128 board, I've used several of them already for projects and it's also usable for "Wiring" with a simple hack (adding 32,768 kHz crystal). It's called AVR stamp and is from futurlec.com:
http://www.futurlec.com/ET-AVR_Stamp.shtml
for incredibly 19,90 US$.
Cheers, Erwin