AVC Final Scores!

Congratulations to Antonio Lyska, the UAV winner of the Sparkfun Autonomous Vehicle Competition! In his final run, he did a 26 second lap and then nailed an autonomous landing in the box for a 30 second deduction, for a final score of negative 4 seconds. Even more impressive, this was totally DIY--he's been working on his Rabbit-powered IMU-based board for five years, and coded everything from scratch, including a beautiful custom ground station. He's so confident in his setup that he doesn't even watch his plane in flight--he just watches the action on his ground station. That's him above, with his flying wing crossing the start line for the victorious run. So calm!

In second place, with a time of 3 seconds (18 second run, minus 15 seconds for attempting an autonomous landing) was Doug Weibel, with ArduPilot IMU (version 2.6 code) on his SkyFun. His plane did a gorgeous run, with sharp turns and rock-solid stabilization and the fastest time of any UAV, but it got a bit lost coming in for the autonomous landing and ended up crash-landing in a nearby parking lot. But autonomous landing was attempted, and the plane gave up some foam to get those 15 points!

In third place was the University of Arizona Paparazzi team, which impressed everyone with their autonomous landings. The last one just missed the box, but otherwise it was very solid all day. Their best score was 5 seconds, after deductions.

Jordi and DIY Drones came in fourth place with 37 seconds (no deductions attemped) with our ArduPilot (2.5.4 thermopile code) and EasyStar.

The UAVDevBoard teams impressed everyone with their awesome vertical starts, acrobatic maneuvers and stunning stability. Unfortunately all that sky candy came at the cost of clipping corners (in the case of Ben Levitt's Acromaster), so he didn't get a course completion score.

Adam Barrow managed to go to a local hobby shop and get replacement parts to reubuild his T28, which was flying perfectly with the UAVDevBoard. But in the final practice flight he lost control in manual mode and piled it in again, so he wasn't able to compete in the final rounds. But based on the glimpse of autonomous performance, that plane and autopilot are going to be a serious contender next year.

For next year, we're thinking acrobatic plane and quad copters are going to win the day, given the scoring system. Can't wait!

@Daniel - I have just a bit of code I've added to 2.6 to do auto landings. It is a pretty simple scheme that I will clean up a bit and publish in a revision soon. Basically it is a little cumbersome to use right now because the configuration tool does not have a place to include the 2 needed parameters. I define two waypoint numbers. When the first is reached, the cruise airspeed is changed to a lower (user defined) value, and when the second is reached the throttle is cut. The idea is after your "mission" to hit the waypoint triggering the speed reduction, then have a series of waypoints which step down the altitude and line up for landing. Depending on your field size, etc, you might have thelast waypoint before throttle cutoff set up so you are 10 meters high and lined up for landing. Then the throttle is cut, the AP holds attitude of wings level and pitch to maintain the airspeed and you settle to a landing. There is no flare. It works pretty well for grass field type landings.

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3D Robotics

Chris Anderson April 20, 2010 at 10:17pm

Here's a picture of Billu (Bill Premerlani, on left, with Pete Holland)
Jack Crossfire April 19, 2010 at 2:34pm

A lot easier to make something specifically to win a contest & focus on it than to adapt a general purpose autopilot, keep up on all the community needs, promotion.
3D Robotics

Chris Anderson April 18, 2010 at 3:31pm

Yes, he had a lovely little board, with a small Rabbit dev board on top of his custom IMU board and a custom uBlox GPS board. Not much bigger than ArduPilot Mega, and the wiring and connectors were the neatest I've ever seen. Incredible that he did it all himself.
3D Robotics

Chris Anderson April 18, 2010 at 2:24pm

Needless to say, you'll be hearing more about Antonio and his autopilot here. We hung around with him at lot at AVC and he's a supernice guy. Says he's too shy for a podcast, so we'll ease him in gently ;-)
Moderator

Gary Mortimer April 18, 2010 at 1:14pm

Well done Doug
Developer

Doug Weibel April 18, 2010 at 11:54am

@Daniel - I have just a bit of code I've added to 2.6 to do auto landings. It is a pretty simple scheme that I will clean up a bit and publish in a revision soon. Basically it is a little cumbersome to use right now because the configuration tool does not have a place to include the 2 needed parameters. I define two waypoint numbers. When the first is reached, the cruise airspeed is changed to a lower (user defined) value, and when the second is reached the throttle is cut. The idea is after your "mission" to hit the waypoint triggering the speed reduction, then have a series of waypoints which step down the altitude and line up for landing. Depending on your field size, etc, you might have thelast waypoint before throttle cutoff set up so you are 10 meters high and lined up for landing. Then the throttle is cut, the AP holds attitude of wings level and pitch to maintain the airspeed and you settle to a landing. There is no flare. It works pretty well for grass field type landings.
Rana April 18, 2010 at 10:22am

:D, Sure Morli ! Jo hukam mera huzoor !
Rana April 18, 2010 at 10:05am

:D Morli, Big B to ek hi hai aur wo hai Amitab Bachhan the most renound actor of Indian Cinema.
Since he was very tall so people renamed him Big = Tall & B = Bachhan, Big B for Billu Bhaiya may not be relevent.
Rana April 18, 2010 at 12:47am

Very nice coverage ! Pl. share videos if possible.

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