Posted by Chris Anderson on February 15, 2008 at 11:00pm
We've forked the Blimp UAV into two projects, a minimum and a maximum one. The maximum one is the one that's using the NorthStar "synthetic GPS" directional system and all sorts of other goodies to be a real indoor UAV, with full room sense and navigation ability. That's moving ahead really well, and I hope to have PCBs and code to show you soon. But we also wanted to create a "minimum" blimp UAV that was the cheapest, simplest robotic blimp possible.
Here's what the Minimum Blimp UAV consists of:
* A BlubberBot envelope and dual thruster motors and mounts (we cannibalized a few other bits from this kit, such as the battery holder and voltage regulator).
* A pair of Pololu IR transceivers (one a beacon on the ground, the other onboard)
* A third motor for vertical control
* A Parallax Ping))) ultrasonic sensor for altitude sensing.
* A Boarduino board with ATMega168 chip (Arduino clone).
* Two Pololu twin motor driver microboards
All that this Blimp UAV is designed to do is to maintain a constant altitude and navigate around a stationary IR beacon on the ground (it just heads towards the beacon, overshoots, turns around and heads back at it). But that's the beginnings of real autonomy!
Target price: <$100 (we're not there yet).
Here's a video that shows how the Pololu IR transceivers work (and here's some BS2 code to test them):
As a beginner, you should start with our Blimpduino kit (Arduino-compatible Atmel Atmega168--see tab above). You can modify the software to interesting stuff like course following, to satisfy your thesis requirements.
Hello,
I want to build an indoor blimp as a thesis. I search from the internet and read some papers. First of all, i have to decide which microprocessor that i should use.Someone uses Atmel328 but i m not sure. Is it suitable for a blimp that weights 2 kg.
And ı dont know how many ultrasonic sensors i should use. I suppose 2 ones for side lobs and another one for the front of the indoor blimp. But i have a question: Do these sensors' signals interfere with each other? What can i do as a beginner.
Thanks for attention!
Regards,
Ozkan
that envelope can lift around 125-130 grams. Something that could carry 900 grams would be HUGE (almost 2 meters?) and take more helium than what i want to think about.
Hello,
Any chance you could tell me the volume and lifting capacity of the envelope there. I am trying to make a UAV as a university project in Dublin, Ireland, and my blimp supllier was shot down, so I am looking for a replacement. It has to carry about 900 grams, or so, but we could probably get that down a bit.
Thanks,
Dónal "Blimpin' is Living" Troddyn
You you buy and toy RC blimp (they usually cost less than $30) and either mod it (as we're doing with the next version) or cannabalize its motors, where tend to be similar to the N20s.
Looks like you have a successful design. Maybe for the max blimp project because of the increased range, but the current part has good documentation and an easy to use interface. Is there a page for the max blimp yet?
Comments
As a beginner, you should start with our Blimpduino kit (Arduino-compatible Atmel Atmega168--see tab above). You can modify the software to interesting stuff like course following, to satisfy your thesis requirements.
I want to build an indoor blimp as a thesis. I search from the internet and read some papers. First of all, i have to decide which microprocessor that i should use.Someone uses Atmel328 but i m not sure. Is it suitable for a blimp that weights 2 kg.
And ı dont know how many ultrasonic sensors i should use. I suppose 2 ones for side lobs and another one for the front of the indoor blimp. But i have a question: Do these sensors' signals interfere with each other? What can i do as a beginner.
Thanks for attention!
Regards,
Ozkan
Any chance you could tell me the volume and lifting capacity of the envelope there. I am trying to make a UAV as a university project in Dublin, Ireland, and my blimp supllier was shot down, so I am looking for a replacement. It has to carry about 900 grams, or so, but we could probably get that down a bit.
Thanks,
Dónal "Blimpin' is Living" Troddyn
You can buy it from here, they ship overseas, Good Luck!
http://www.homefly.com/products.asp?id=32&pg=2
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