Introduction
In the last 3 months I have done a bit of thinking about an as-simple-as-possible and as-small-as-possible "follow-me"-box. The design goal is to have something so small that it can be e.g. attached to clothing by velcro and so simple that it's just switch on and go. After some googling, I stumbled upon the Arduino Fio which seems ideal for this kind of thing. I am primarily maintaining the information on this project on my personal website.
Unfortunately, I haven't had time to build one yet plus I'm lacking a functional APM-based drone at the moment, but here is my preliminary design:
Synopsis
ArduBeacon is a simple GPS beacon that locates it's current position via a GPS module and sends MAVlink waypoint messages to an ArduPilot-equipped UAV.
Status
Draft
Components
- Arduino Fio
- Mediatek GPS module
- XBee pro module
- LiPo battery
Comments
Any news about this?
Pat, I just realized that we could add a FollowMe mode to mavelous very easily.
Take a battery-powered wifi AP like the 3.4 ounceTL-MR3040, put DD-WRT or OpenWrt on it and then use your iPhone or Android phone as the GPS source using the HTML5 geolocation API.
It might be tight getting Python running, but if that was too much of an obstacle I think we could do a C/C++ version of the mavelous server in about a week (I've written web apps in C++ before).
It doesn't say the RF output power. There should be a good power reserve to overcome potential interference (powerlines...) or unintended "losing" of the UAV, e.g. if for some reason the beacon moves faster than the UAV. 100m LoS range is not awfully much for an object that's moving in the air.
For the same reason I would definitely forget the chip antenna because if you put the board into a box and velcro it to your sleeve, your body will already absorb a good part of the - already weak - RF output.
I am personally more a fan of a reasonably universal solution as opposed to modular, at least in these areas we are talking about at the moment. Having one more or less universal board keeps production and development costs low and is easier for the user.
If you add the connector for the 1S LiPo and the USB-charging circuit plus another connector for a (3dr?) GPS-modules and stay in the $20-25 range for the ready board, that would be some serious followme-box!
I would also consider an U.Fl connector or even RP-SMA instead of the chip-antenna.
The XBee-socket of the Fio has so far the advantage that it could also take WiFly or BlueBee modules, which gives more options in regard to programming. Another advantage is the possibility to use 63mW Xbees with RP-SMA connector which give some serious range with a nice antenna.
How much RF output power does the ATMega128RFA1 produce?
@sergei
by now i try to simply use MP (only supports NMEA) to send the waypoint to my rover or quad but i have to dig in little deeper i think to get a idea about other possible options.
got an old apm laying around and was already thinking what to do with it :)
Linus: use the ublox binary format. NMEA is crap to parse (and crap resolution too)
Why not connect the GPS serial port directly to a Laird bridge and do the parsing onboard? No MCU on beacon, just battery + laird (or similar) + gps. The onboard MCU is just as capable of parsing GPS messages as it is MAVlink.
Hi,
im subscribing.
had tinkered with arduino mega, ublox gps and apc220 modem to get this functionality but im stuck because the wireless links scrambles the nmea output until now.
would be very nice if one can pickup a old apm to get this working!
Regards,
Linus
Hi Pat,
I would be interested but I'm lacking spare time and a working APM-driven vehicle at the moment.
I'd also like to stay with the Fio because it's specifically designed for mobile applications, with an integrated 1S LiPo-charger and XBee-socket as well as extremely small form factor. It's also dirt-cheap (clones available around $15), so the beacon could even be disposable.
@all:
I still have a bunch of postits with ideas flying around, but one of my main points is to not only transmit the position to the APM. The idea is to transmit a position a bit off the position of the beacon and include an "area of interest" directive in the mavlink message, so e.g. a UAV would not fly directly above the beacon but e.g. 25 meters off and turn a camera towards it. The next point is different behavior, depending on if the drone is a plane or a copter. While a copter can hover a plane should start circling when the beacon's speed is below a certain value.
Hi Stefan,
I made a working prototype of this basic idea a few months ago, but I haven't had the time to maintain the code, and nobody else has picked it up. Are you interested in picking up where I left off?
http://code.google.com/p/ardupilot-mega/wiki/FollowMeHardware
http://code.google.com/p/ardupilot-mega/wiki/FollowMe
At the moment the code will need some changes to get working with the ardupilot-mega trunk (complicated story, we've undergone a ton of changes) but I will get that fixed up for you if you're interested in developing this further.
One note - I didn't try to use an Arduino Fio because some of our core ArduPilot Mega libraries won't be comptible with that microcontroller. Instead I used a spare APM2.5. You'll need something with an ATMega2560 chip- an APM1 2560, APM2, or standalone Arduino Mega board.
Best
Pat
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