Jordi and I are planning to use LabView to create the open source ground station software for ArduPilot (National Instruments has kindly donated a professional edition licence to DIY Drones). We saw a lot of UAV teams, especially academic and research groups, using LabView at the AUVSI annual meeting in San Diego, and we're starting to see more interest in the open source side of it, including the OpenG community.
For those in the San Diego area who are interested in learning more about LabView for UAVs, you may be interested in this upcoming AUVSI local chapter meeting:
San Diego Chapter Meeting
May 21, 2008
11:30 am -1:00 pm
Southwestern Yacht Club, Point Loma, California
Program: National Instruments software and I/O tools for autonomous platforms and payloads. Brief overview of
National Instruments Case studies: Virginia Tech/TORC
2007 DARPA Urban Challenge Vehicle, Nexans Spider underwater dredging vehicle, Software and I/O tools overview, and Additional Application Examples
Presented by: Charlie Knapp, US Unmanned Systems BDM, National Instruments
Please visit our website for pre-registration.
Hey, thanks for the details Chris. I guess option 1 is a good start!
I can't see anything on the LabVIEW site (which is really sloooow) that says I can get a student edition though - best I can find is an academic version, but that can only be bought by an educational establishment...
Many people are confused by LabView pricing. Here are the three main ways to use it.
1) We'll be distributing executables, which only require the free LabView runtime engine. Most people will choose this option, which costs nothing.
2) If you want to modify the code (which we'll also distribute), you just need the $100 LabView student edition to generate code you can run on your own machines.
3) The only reason you'd need the full pro version is if you want to modify the code and distribute executables or DLLs, which we don't expect many people to need. For anyone who does need that, we'll be happy to create the executables for them ourselves, for free.
That sounds like a great idea. I've been lurking around and would like to get more into the UAV aspect of model airplanes. Right now I'm trying out FPV flying. I already have some ideas on how to use LabVIEW myself for implementing a tracking antenna using LabVIEW FPGA. Of course, it helps that I have access inside information and equipment as a developer on the LabVIEW team....
I guess this post finally got me out of the lurking mode. I am contemplating my first (hobby) drone and am thinking of using LabVIEW for some stuff. In my day job I deal with robotics automaton, just not the flying kind, and have been using LabVIEW since mid nineties.
I wish meet in San Diego had webcast or at least be video taped...
Comments
I can't see anything on the LabVIEW site (which is really sloooow) that says I can get a student edition though - best I can find is an academic version, but that can only be bought by an educational establishment...
1) We'll be distributing executables, which only require the free LabView runtime engine. Most people will choose this option, which costs nothing.
2) If you want to modify the code (which we'll also distribute), you just need the $100 LabView student edition to generate code you can run on your own machines.
3) The only reason you'd need the full pro version is if you want to modify the code and distribute executables or DLLs, which we don't expect many people to need. For anyone who does need that, we'll be happy to create the executables for them ourselves, for free.
-tychoc
-tychoc
@Chris: Using LabVIEW seems to fly in the face (pun intended!) of what DIYDrones stands for - that software would set me back 799GBP!
BTW: Been lurking here for several months; I keep comin' back - it's a great site; well done :-)
I wish meet in San Diego had webcast or at least be video taped...