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Free autopilot code for the Propeller chip

Posted by Chris Anderson on January 1, 2008 at 9:00pm
If you're interested in Parallax's powerful 8-core Propeller chips, which are a huge step up from the Basic Stamps, here's some good news: a kind soul named Jason Wood has uploaded to the Parallax site a very complete Kalman-filtered IMU code object that uses the SparkFun IMU sensor head and this ADC. You plug the three components together, and the code gives you true Angle, Rate and q_bias. For those who have tried to write their own IMU, this is a Very Big Deal.

Basically, if you want to make a Propeller-based autopilot, Jason's done most of your work. No excuses now!

BTW, there are lots of other goodies in the Parallax object library, such as math libraries, floating point subroutines and PID routines.
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Comments

  • bGatti December 13, 2008 at 9:17pm
    I suspect the problem with Propeller is that the language is unique to one expensive chip. There are no lesser chips or more advanced chips, and as a consequence, the overhead of learning the language is high relative to the potential applications. This in turn limits adoption which explains why is you want to hook up a wii-mote to propeller chip, you first connect it to an arduino board. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jk5M0YjJ0kA
  • bGatti December 13, 2008 at 8:37pm
    The real benefit of using the propeller chip for a UAV is the obvious spinny thing logo.
  • W. Joe Taylor December 13, 2008 at 8:32am
    Jason,
    I know this comes many months after your posting and Propeller / autopilot work. Also I don't know if Wolf is the same as Wolfer (Wolfgang Mehringer of UAVP fame), he was right about Mikrocopter. A fine quadrotor. Also, check out the UAVP web site and www.quadrocopter.us if you haven't done so already. There are plenty of four rotor helicopter resources out there. It is a little tricky to implement the control theory for them though. A good start would be some articles written by Pedro Castillo and a book by Valavanis (Spinger Verlag) called Advances in Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, (State of the Art and the Road to Autonomy, 2007 ISBN 978-1-4020-6114-1 (ebook), which gives a good overview for the various control theories for quadrocopters and other VSTOL flight. Let me know how it goes (or went).

    Best regards,

    Joe
  • Wolf-R. Otto February 15, 2008 at 3:49pm
    Jason,

    try google and use "Quadrotor" as topic.

    A really active community is found at

    http://forum.mikrokopter.de/

    Use "English translation" to get you going.
    If you would like to participate, please use the
    "International area".
    You get everything you need to build your own
    system: Schematics, pcb´s and sources.
    A repository is provided at

    http://www.mikrokopter.de/ucwiki/MikroKopterRepository

    regards

    wolf
  • Jason Wood January 8, 2008 at 3:11pm
    What a great resource I just found here. I've been making robotics for ground based stuff up till now. I've been really thinking about making a UAV something. My IMU was designed for balancing applications but I plan on adding roll and yawn. Two things not really needed in balancing.

    I appreciate all of your comments. It took me about 2 months to get that filter working 100%. My day job was getting in the way.

    I want to do something with 4 rotor Helicopter.

    Any one have a good direction to point me in?

    Thanks!
  • 100KM
    crystal garris January 3, 2008 at 4:17pm
    been playing with prop for a few months . this code looks awsome at first glance . was going to order that same imu in a few days lol looks like he did some major work i was dreading .
  • problah January 3, 2008 at 2:59pm
    Paul,
    That's a pretty strong case you made there. 0] Man this is going to be a tough decision, allthough both items are cheap enough, I could do both, and compare. Heheheh.
    Is your code available for the overlay, or are you making it proprietary? I would love to take a look at it.

    PS: Nice Cockatiel (cockatoo?) going on back there. I have two kids and a dog that try to make noises like that all the time.
  • paul hubner January 3, 2008 at 2:50pm
    Problah,
    Take a look at my demo video. I don't use the Kalman code or sensors yet, but to my taste, the Parallax guy have it nailed. Video, sensors, telemetry and C&C all in one programming environment. I'm adding the overlay circuit now for my First person flight view.

    http://diydrones.com/video/video/show?id=705844:Video:6610

    Paul
  • problah January 3, 2008 at 10:19am
    Chris,
    True, but at the same time, one OSD chip is only about 10 dollars, and if adding that extra chip, and some appendages overweights my UAV, then my UAV may be too small. 0]

    http://www.maxim-ic.com/quick_view2.cfm/qv_pk/5516

    But that is a very solid point, and I was thinking of that as well. But the problem is, does that alone justify switching to a different code development?
  • 3D Robotics
    Chris Anderson January 3, 2008 at 9:37am
    Problah,

    The only other thing I'd say in the Propeller's favor is that if you're intending to overlay telemetry in your video stream (known as OSD--On-Screen Display), the Propeller was designed to drive video with a single core and the video objects are already written and ready to use. This can save you the expense, weight and complexity of a stand-alone OSD board.
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