3D Robotics

How to make a sub-$100 gyro-stabilized camera

IMG_4254
[UPDATE: I've found an even better way that costs $25, is simpler and works perfectly. It's here]

Once again I started a weekend with a crazy idea and once again I had it working by Sunday evening. (Needless to say I'm not going to win any parenting award until this particular obsession runs its course). This time it was trying to resolve a problem that cropped up in our Googleplex UAV mission. Many of the photos from that series are from angles, rather than straight down as you'd want for Google Maps imagery, because the airplane was banking quite a lot to keep within the boundaries of the Google campus.

The aerial photography pros solve this problem with expensive gyro-stabilized camera platforms. But to keep to our credo of making UAVs as cheap and easy as possible, I used stuff lying around the house to make a totally functional gyro-stabilized camera mount for less than $100.

The secret ingredient is an off-the-shelf "heading hold" gyro made for a R/C helicopter. These can be found for as little as $40, but after some experimentation I found that you need one that has special circuitry to resist gyro drift (there are several of them here, ranging from $74 to $199. I'm going to test several of them to find the cheapest one that works; right now I'm using one I had that doesn't have drift cancellation and it won't work for anything but benchtop tests).

UPDATE: the test is here.

IMG_4258 For the tilting camera mount and base, you'll need a sheet of relatively thin aluminum. I used a .032 X 6 X 12 sheet. Anything thicker won't bend properly. I cut out several prototypes from cardboard before committing to metal (and still had to do the metal twice, when the first sheet proved to be too thick). I've made a pdf that you can print out and use as a template (when printing, set "page scaling" to "none" so it prints full-size). This one was designed for a Canon Digital Elph camera (all the recent vintages, from the 500 to 900 series, are about the same size); if you're using a different camera you may need to modify some dimensions slightly to fit. More pictures to help you with bending are here.

One of the other problems that cropped up on the Googleplex mission was that we needed to take pictures much faster--at least twice a second. That means putting the camera in "continuous shooting" mode, which unfortunately can't be triggered with the computer-controlled IR trigger we used on the Pentax. So I also included a mechanical shutter switch, which is the blue servo in the top picture. It just holds the shutter down when activated, either by the on-board computer or manually with a switch on the R/C transmitter.

Here's a video of the whole thing at work, strapped to the bottom of our Predator UAV:

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Comments

  • I like the concept of the newest design using existing link to Axis servo outputs.  So you orientate the servo centerline and set the range so the servo range doesn't exceed the range of the camera mount? 

  • Thanks!

  • This thread is a zombie. ;)

  • "The secret ingredient is an off-the-shelf "heading hold" gyro made for a R/C helicopter"

  • Did you use a micro-controller for this gyro-stabilized camera mount? I am working on the same thing and just wonder how the camera mount actually works. 

    Thanks.

  • Moderator
    Guys check how old this thread is, its from back in the day!
  • IMHO I think the solution to creating a simple three axis camera mount for a fixed wing aircraft needs to have a very simple gyro module for each separate axis. with one acc. Chris may have been seeing a cross axis input coming from a yaw gyro installed in roll axis. They have different acc. alignment. See invensense X,W and Z gyros solutions.

    For z axis (yaw) it needs also to have Mag.

    My next project is to build a purpose 3 axis mount for a fixed wing aircraft . I checked out a famous supplier of UAV boards in Canada. Seems like they are a real snip at around 8 K. I was totally amazed at how bad the footage was from their dedicated 3 axis gyro ball. I think we can show them how to do this.

  • Hi Chris, I read through both of your cost effective methods on camera stabilization. Can't you just buy a second heading hold module or a 2nd co pilot IR sensor?

    Also is the Co-pilot just a preprogrammed Horizon XY horizon sensor like the one that is sold in the DIYDrone store?
  • Yah, I think you're right about the forces in the turn. I didn't think it through. I just talked to a Mech.E, who said it wasn't going to work in any significant turn. Your solution looks good.
  • 3D Robotics
    Ivan,

    It's certainly worth an experiment to see if simple gravity can solve this problem. Usually the inertial forces of a turn screw that up, but it may be that a camera is heavy enough and the turns gradual enough that I can just let it pivot free. The good news is that existing camera mount allows for this; I just disengage the tilt servo and the camera will hang down and tilt on its own. I'll do two runs this weekend and compare the results. Thanks for the suggestion!
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