This is great! We've been wanting a smaller quad type vehicle for our indoor flight experiments.
As for hackability- we've been hacking their 'mCX platforms for almost three years now. Essentially we designed our own controller board to replace that green board. That basically included an ATmega 8-bit (cannot remember which one but similar to the ones on an Arduino), a Cypress Semi wireless chip, a piezo gyro, motor drivers, and carbon resist strips for the mount-on servos. We were able to replicate all of that, including the carbon resist strips, but those strips were a bit problematic- the PCB house took several tries to get them right, and our implementation does not last as long as the out-of-box one, but it was good enough to do work. So I would expect the mQX to be hackable as well, even more so since we don't have to deal with those carbon resist strips! I would expect, actually, that one could build a smaller Ardupilot specifically for the mQX and get it down to a couple grams.
@Robert -- Thanks for the additional info. I appreciate it.
@Mike -- I guess I'm guilty of perpetuating off-topic posts by responding to some, but I also commented recently to the web master (a.k.a. Chris) that I was seeing a lot of posts on quads as RC aircraft only and, particularly, FPV, all getting away from the core topic of autonomous flight. However, I can see that there's a fine line sometimes on which posts to allow and which to disapprove. This is one of those cases, I'm sure, in that a new platform became available that could, perhaps, be made autonomous.
@Paul, quads don't have any inherent mechanical stability. There are no aerodynamics, none at all. Even helis have aerodynamic stability. And other than rudder control, they can almost fly by themselves.
When quads were first invented, they absolutely required gyro control on all axes. They used to use several heli tail gyros tilted on edge. IMU's developed out of a desire to minimize the installation.
It's the first time a major RC vendor has released a quadcopter, at least to my knowledge. Whilst that isn't specifically connected to autopilots, it's an interesting sign of wider scale adoption.
The difference between a multicopter and a traditional heli or plane is that the controller's software is flying the bird, we simple have an input into it and essentially ask it to do things (go up, down, left etc). As a result, how "good" and well configured the software is, is the biggest deciding factor on the ease with which it can be flown. A well configured multicopter is actually a very easy, forgiving thing to fly, a poorly setup multicopter is a b@?!h to fly!
Comments
PS. The Youtube video is private, but eFlite has this WMV on their web site: http://www.bladehelis.com/ProdInfo/Files/BLH7500-HI.wmv
This is great! We've been wanting a smaller quad type vehicle for our indoor flight experiments.
As for hackability- we've been hacking their 'mCX platforms for almost three years now. Essentially we designed our own controller board to replace that green board. That basically included an ATmega 8-bit (cannot remember which one but similar to the ones on an Arduino), a Cypress Semi wireless chip, a piezo gyro, motor drivers, and carbon resist strips for the mount-on servos. We were able to replicate all of that, including the carbon resist strips, but those strips were a bit problematic- the PCB house took several tries to get them right, and our implementation does not last as long as the out-of-box one, but it was good enough to do work. So I would expect the mQX to be hackable as well, even more so since we don't have to deal with those carbon resist strips! I would expect, actually, that one could build a smaller Ardupilot specifically for the mQX and get it down to a couple grams.
I have a few Blade products and they're are fairly resistant and inexpensive to fix and fun to play with.
@Robert -- Thanks for the additional info. I appreciate it.
@Mike -- I guess I'm guilty of perpetuating off-topic posts by responding to some, but I also commented recently to the web master (a.k.a. Chris) that I was seeing a lot of posts on quads as RC aircraft only and, particularly, FPV, all getting away from the core topic of autonomous flight. However, I can see that there's a fine line sometimes on which posts to allow and which to disapprove. This is one of those cases, I'm sure, in that a new platform became available that could, perhaps, be made autonomous.
@Paul, quads don't have any inherent mechanical stability. There are no aerodynamics, none at all. Even helis have aerodynamic stability. And other than rudder control, they can almost fly by themselves.
When quads were first invented, they absolutely required gyro control on all axes. They used to use several heli tail gyros tilted on edge. IMU's developed out of a desire to minimize the installation.
Never seen one! Are they popular??
I believe walkera has sold basic quadcopters for quite some time (walkera UFO series)
It's the first time a major RC vendor has released a quadcopter, at least to my knowledge. Whilst that isn't specifically connected to autopilots, it's an interesting sign of wider scale adoption.
@Davey -- Thanks for the info. That would explain a lot. I think I'll stick with traditional aircraft, at least in RealFlight! :)
The difference between a multicopter and a traditional heli or plane is that the controller's software is flying the bird, we simple have an input into it and essentially ask it to do things (go up, down, left etc). As a result, how "good" and well configured the software is, is the biggest deciding factor on the ease with which it can be flown. A well configured multicopter is actually a very easy, forgiving thing to fly, a poorly setup multicopter is a b@?!h to fly!
-
1
-
2
of 2 Next