Here's another cool autonomous vehicle project on Kickstarter. Pledge $400 or more and, if the project hits its funding goal, "We send you a remotely controlled 1m (3.2ft) long, articulated, inflatable Protei in KIT to assemble yourself. The…

Droidworx, maker of excellent multicopter frames, is moving from Australia to Queenstown, New Zealand. From its website:

"Droidworx has moved it operation to New Zealand; we are now established here and have been focusing on some new manufacturing processes as well as working

on some current projects with Kimberly from…

Kids, be careful out there. Full waypoint-capable UAVs are illegal to sell in the US without Export Control documentation and other safeguards.  Don't be this guy:

From…

Another great demo from the ETH team, proving that if you have a Vicon motion capture system you can do anything! From Robots.net

" The video is made by the Control of Distributed, Autonomous Systems…

As you all know, the Tunigy 9X is very hackable and there are all sorts of open source firmware versions out there (such as RadioClone or ER9X). But it all starts with a little hardware hacking so you can get to the onboard ATmega chip in the…

This is pretty speculative, but creative all the same: autonomous blimps as robo-shade.  From Fast Company:…

Apologies for the late notice, but we're having a Maker meetup at the Wired Offices at 3rd and Bryant tonight at 7:00 pm. It's free, and I'll be demoing ArduCopter and APM hardware-in-the-loop simulation with Xplane. Lots of other Makers will be showing off their cool projects too. Food and drink provided. Come by and say hi!

Sign up…

As part of the continuing APM 2.0 beta test program, we've released another package of updated APM software: New versions of the APM 2.0 beta code (2.01),…

IMAV 2011 is May 23-27 in Huntsville, Alabama. There are two autonomous competitions--Indoor and Outdoor.

 …

This $200 radio replaces your RC receiver and connects to your RC transmitter. Using the UHF band and higher power than regular RC gear, it's supposed to extend your range to miles. Mostly intended for FPV flying, but has clear application for UAV use, too. 

The manual explains how…

SSM has a fun physics questions over at RCG: why doesn't a tennis ball fall off his KK quad when he's flying?

Well, I wanted to return a stray tennis ball to some kids playing in the tennis courts at the local park.



So I pick up the ball and place it on top of my Quad. The ball is on an upside down plastic sandwich box (to protect the…

More pictures from the DIY Drones factory in San Diego. I mentioned before how important testing and QA is. The above picture shows how it's done: each product has a dedicated test jig, with spring-mounted pogo pins and a special version of the product board running test…

Good article from O'Reilly Radar. It's worth reading it all, but here's the nut:

The core issue is that GPS technology has been built into many crucial infrastructure applications, from transportation systems to power grids, and in many cases there is no fallback option should…

The heart of the operation: the pick and place machine

A lot has changed since my last photo tour of the DIY Drones San Diego factory. We've moved next door to space more than twice as large and added all sort of new pro equipment including everything…

By popular demand, ArduPilot Mega is now available as an all-in-one kit for $250. It includes everything you need for a functioning autopilot with GPS, even including RC cables.

We'll soon be offering wireless telemetry options for this, too, along with a ArduCopter…

Finally, you can now use ArduPilot Mega without ever having to touch Arduino! Michael Oborne's terrific Mission Planner will now check for the latest code online and load the firmware directly, with no Arduino compilation process required.…

I'm delighted to announce the release of the first public beta of ArduPilot Mega 2.0. This is a significant upgrade to APM 1.02, and now delivers on full 2-way in-air communications, including real-time mission planning and autopilot…

From the video description:  "Northrop Grumman video showing its Proteus manned test aircraft (left) and a NASA Global Hawk unmanned aircraft (right) conducting the first simulated autonomous aerial refueling at high altitude. Proteus (acting the the tanker) and the Global Hawk (as the receiver - its the reverse of the normal way) flew as close as 40ft apart at an altitude of 45,000ft in a risk-reduction flight for the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's…

Here's a cool new product from the Maker Shed: Blink RC. It's a wifi-to-RC board, which can let you replace your RC gear with a smartphone or other wifi-enabled computer. From the announcement:

The …