First of all I got to thank the whole "DIYDrones" community that gave me a lot of informations and ideas in the past. And continues but... now I think it's my time to share my findings while developing my "ideas".
I usually work with the Arduino open platform but lately I've been working with Gumstix hardware and I have to say that they are both great "technologies" to start you project with.
My actual project is to develop and autopilot for my Omei 2000 motor glider. That's part of a series of projects, all related.
In my project the authopilot module will: stabilize the flight, follow a GPS programmed path and come back home, send informations to the base station, etc. Nothing particular, nothing that you guy haven't done already. And what about sensing thermal and trying to "follow" them authomatically to increase authonomy and flight times? I've been thinking about putting very light solar panels on the wings to "recharge" batteries while flying. But I'll write more on next posts.
I'd like to add something more like a pan&tilt camera, radio linked to virtual glasses with head tracking, so that has you move your head the camera moves accordingly. About that I've already made some test a few months and probably my next post will be about that. I got a video and Arduino code to share.
Personally I flew with paraglider, and now I fly small and light airplanes and motor hang glider. Can't stay too much away from it. But lately (let's say one year) I don't have much time for flying and that's where it came the idea of starting with RC flight.
That's all for now. I only forgot to say... forgive me for my mistakes in english as it's not my mother language. I'm italian. Thanks.
Thanks. A presto,
Andrea
Comments
Me too. http://www.diydrones.com/forum/topics/atv-autonomous-thermalling
Any updates?
I've posted the how-to of the pan and tilt camera with the Nunchuck and Arduino. You already got and I'm happy it works for you as well.
Thanks for your suggestions. I was already thinking about that but for now I'll concentrate on the autopilot module and the Omei 2000 is good enough for that.
Let me know what you think of my new post and if you have any suggestion from your experience with the code ;)
Andrea
Nice to see you here posting about your work... :) Following thermals will be a challenge for you, solar charging will also be interesting but you must consider powering only some portion of your electronics with it. Another thing is that the glider in the picture does not seem to lift your equipment. maybe you must consider a plane with larger wing area. A Telemaster perhaps...
dincer
p.s. i tried your Arduino code with Nunchuck and works fine thx again... :)
thanks for the info. For those interested here's the link to CRRCSim.
I've also found a very good soaring simulator, named Silent Wings that seems to have all I need for my simutations as it also has an output interface that I can use with the software I'll write to develop the soaring "AI".
Chris,
I just added a picture of the Omei 2000 to the post as you suggested. For now it's a "bare" one but it gives an idea of the model.
I'll surely develop the project by steps and probably not all my "dreams" will come true, but it's a try.
For me now it's a long way to the autopilot right now :)
Neal,
Thanks a lot for the links! Probably I'll develop the algorith for "thermal search" using some kind of simulator. Do you know of a simulator that implements thermals?
In the past I've been using a TPA81 thermal array infrared sensor. Maybe it can be usefull in detecting the change of temperature related to thermal. But it's just an idea. And it works exactly as you said. It compares temperature to surrounding air.
I'll do more tests with that. I only had the time to work with it for a couple of days and then left it apart.
Searching for specific areas with the camera seems difficult to me now, but maybe we can implement some algorithm for specific area recognition based on colours for example. A nice camera to do that is probably the CmuCam3.
Regarding the solar panels, I done some calculation in the past and for about 1 hour flight I can gain another 10 minutes more. Not much but it's a beginning. I'll write a post about that soon.
Lots of ideas and lot's of things to do.
Thanks again,
Andrea
I believe that this http://soaring.goosetechnologies.com/ project managed to measure thermals. You may also be able to use an accelerometer, altimeter, gps combination to detect when you are rising. Actually i just had an idea but have how idea weather it would work. Do you think it would be possible to detect thermals using a sensitive thermometer. What we would really need to do is send a digital thermometer on a glider and measure the temperature profile.
There are a number of factors which I think need to be considered:
1) temperature gradient compared to surrounding air
2) rate of cooling or rising air (will it still be warm at flight altitude)
3) sensitivity of sensors
4) is there a correlation between temperature and thermals at flight altitude
The following page seems like it will be a great resource:
http://www.apogeerockets.com/education/detecting_thermals.asp
An alternate method may be to map accent and decent rates to determine areas of greatest lift. Such an approach would work for areas of rising air caused by ridges. You may be able to use a camera to search for areas likely to produce thermals (dark rooftops, parking lots, freshly plowed fields).
Keep me posted as I have been researching this topic myself. I am also interesting in collaborating on a design.
Thanks,
Neal.
Thanks for the post and news on your project. Can you add a picture of your glider to the post?
As for the idea of sensing thermals, it's a great ambition but VERY hard. Many have tried but few have succeeded;-) Solar panels are also a cool idea, but the ones that are high effeciency and light aren't cheap (that will improve over time). I'd start with a basic autopilot and then add FPV--so it can come back on its own if you lose video contact.