For some time, my brother Damen and I have been silent admirers of the awesome stuff that is being done by Chris, Jordi, and many others here on DIYDrones. Finally, about a month ago, inspired by the cool community, we decided to jump into the air with our own project, which we call flying_robot.The flying_robot project is indeed Arduino-based, but we are basing our work on the Ruby Arduino Development (RAD) programming tool. RAD allows you to use the Ruby programming language as sort of specialized language for Arduino development. Along with a bunch of plugins for a bunch of the hardware you might want to connect to the Arduino, RAD is a really easy way to dive into Arduino development.Our project, flying_robot, is intended to take this same approach towards creating UAV's that are based on the Arduino. We have created a bunch of plugins for RAD for various hardware like the Honeywell digital compass, Pololu Serial Motor Controllers and IR Receiver, and other things that you might want to include when putting together your own Arduino-based UAV.Another thing that we have been working on is a simple, but effective standard digital protocol for "fly-by-wire" remote control. We have been using linked XBee modems, and have been very happy with the results so far.Our first implementation is a Blimpduino clone that we call "Rogue 1". We just had a successful mini-test of the engines and vectoring controllers. I have been blogging about it at http://deadprogrammersociety.com and my brother has been posting to his blog at http://myfirstairship.blogspot.comWe are going to be demonstrating the software and hardware at the Los Angeles Ruby Conference (LARubyConf) coming up on April 4. If all goes well, there will be some new converts to the way of the flying_robot.Once again, thanks to Jordi and Chris for sharing all their fine work, without which the flying_robot project would not be possible!
I have a nice flying 1m wing I am going to try an autopilot in... 98 grams rtf sans the lipo (i can use many different sizes) and thats using a brushed motor... it flys great.
Actually, we were not able to find anything that did exactly what we want, so we have been working on a control application called Mercury. It is written in Ruby using the Shoes library, so it will run on OSX, Windows, and Linux. Like the rest of flying_robot it is open source. It is still a ways from production use... but that should change quickly. The code repository is located here: http://github.com/deadprogrammer/mercury/tree/master but there is not yet a build package.
We would of course love any feedback and ideas about how the "ideal" ground control software should work.
PS--I like the idea of switching to Xbee for RC mode (and telemetry). We're thinking of doing the same, but haven't got around to writing a PC app to send gamepad commands out the serial port. No doubt there are dozens of apps that do that already out there. Have you found one?
Well, that is one reason we went out and got a tank of our own. With all the stuff we want to pack in the thing, we will probably end up puffing up on a daily basis. Good thing the price of helium is coming down!
Yes, that's the max at full pressure. But it will leak faster all puffed out like that and you'll have to refill it every day. 120 is a good target. You can inflate to about 135 and then ballast it down to 120. Then, as it slowly leaks you just take off ballast rather than adding helium.
Given your wealth of experience on this subject, that is indeed advice we will take. We did some tests of our envelope, which I might mention is the "higher altitude" version, and it appeared to support a maximum payload of 146g.
Sweet! Good luck in keeping your weight below 120 grams....you'll find yourself thinking about your weight budget before anything else, but it's a good discipline.
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We would of course love any feedback and ideas about how the "ideal" ground control software should work.