Jordi has opened my eyes to the Arduino platform, which is being described as a "Basic Stamp killer". Is it a good candidate for autopilots? Well, let's look closer.
Arduino is an open source embedded processor platform, based on the ATMega168 CPU, which has more memory than the Stamp and is a lot cheaper. There's proper development software available and SparkFun has a full line of dev boards and other accessories. Its programming language looks like C but should be easy enough to learn for people who know Basic.
It started as an Italian project (it's named after an Italian king) and still has a European flavor, so that may explain why we in the US don't know it well. But Jordi, in Mexico, had done some very interesting work in exploring its potential as an autopilot platform.
His main project is the "Arducopter" (shown at right), which has resulted in some very nice code, such as this navigation routine.
In his comments, Jordi (BTW, he's just 21) described some of the cool things he's doing with it, which I'll simply quote with links here:
"This is my first test with Boarduino (a breadboardable version of Arduino) controlling servos and using an accelerometer from a Nintendo Wii. Right now I'm using Gyros and Kalman filters. I even wrote code to read PMM signals, the GPS is finished and working pretty well, the IMU is in beta, and I'm developing an altimeter using I2C technology and high quality pressure sensors."
Here are some links he provided:
I'm intrigued. I don't see anything here we can't do with Basic Stamps with a little fiddling, but I have to admit that certain projects look like they would be easier with the Arduino, mostly thanks to its greater memory and full range of variable types, including floating point. Anybody else looking seriously at Arduino?
I've made a GPS waypoint guided RC car in the past with a BS2 and I recall having to really whittle things down in order to get the code to fit in the Stamp's memory footprint. Depending on what other routines I had running in the service loop, I also remember higher baud rates on the incoming NMEA data were sometimes unreliable.
2400 was most reliable, but just slow enough that it took the Garmin more than a second to split out all of the data. This meant that it was 2 seconds between data points, which is an awfully long time. I think I ended up running things at 4800 and just dealing with the occasional error. The vehicle had to wait half of the data transmission time, on average, waiting for NMEA data instead of monitoring other sensors or steering the vehicle, so getting things under a second helped a lot.
I haven't tried the Arduino hardware yet (a device is in the mail), but I figure a little more speed and additional memory space for reading and processing more sensor data would really make all the difference, especially for more complicated vehicles like a helicopter.
Yes, I just became aware of the Arduino and am evaluating this. My review is based on the book "making things talk" by Tom Igoe. Not conviced the programming environment of Processing will do but I do like the fact that java code can be inserted directly. My development is in PIC's with MPLab and the ICD2 programmer / debugger. However to see a book show how to do big things (ZigBee) with an Arduino I get excited. Anytime development can be sped up its worth a look.
WOW. You took me by surprise, I have the second and final version of the GPS, with ground station, using labview: http://arduino.cc/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1199022761
And you can make your own arduino: http://arduino.cc/en/Main/StandaloneAssembly
The programing language is super easy, actually was develop by UCLA, called Wiring, the big brother of Arduino, and is open source too. The good thing about arduino, is that your able to use complex library's, like AVR libc, for complex math formulas, TWI, interrupts, etc: http://nongnu.org/avr-libc/
Good luck!!! and thanks!!!
Comments
2400 was most reliable, but just slow enough that it took the Garmin more than a second to split out all of the data. This meant that it was 2 seconds between data points, which is an awfully long time. I think I ended up running things at 4800 and just dealing with the occasional error. The vehicle had to wait half of the data transmission time, on average, waiting for NMEA data instead of monitoring other sensors or steering the vehicle, so getting things under a second helped a lot.
I haven't tried the Arduino hardware yet (a device is in the mail), but I figure a little more speed and additional memory space for reading and processing more sensor data would really make all the difference, especially for more complicated vehicles like a helicopter.
http://arduino.cc/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1199022761
And you can make your own arduino:
http://arduino.cc/en/Main/StandaloneAssembly
The programing language is super easy, actually was develop by UCLA, called Wiring, the big brother of Arduino, and is open source too. The good thing about arduino, is that your able to use complex library's, like AVR libc, for complex math formulas, TWI, interrupts, etc:
http://nongnu.org/avr-libc/
Good luck!!! and thanks!!!
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