I bought a PhoneDrone board a couple of months ago, hoping to use the board in order to build some sort of autopilot or plane stabilization in conjunction with any standard Android phone that supports Android 2.3.5+.
My idea is to use the sensors in the phone to stabilize a plane. Initially I thought about stabilizing even a multirotor, but I soon figured out, that would be way to complicated. So I´m starting with a plane. In my case I´m using the EPP-FPV from hobbyking since it has plenty of space to hold all the electronics and flies very docile.
After getting in contact with the nice folks at the 3drobotics support I was able to get some code samples and build a basic prototype connecting all the pieces. A Samsung Galaxy Nexus, the PhoneDrone board, a Turnigy9x receiver and some servos which you can see in the embedded video at the top.
The next step is involving the onboard gyro and accelerometer to stabilize one axis of the plane. The code is allready in the repository and I tested it very briefly but I wanted to see first how an APM2.0 stabilizes my plane. Also I´m thinking very hard about backup solutions in case my PhoneDrone-Android setups fails in the air. I´ve studied the failsafe of the APM1 and APM2 and decided to get a
"Wireless Buddy Box System" with
4 or
8 channels from Hobbyking. Dedicated hardware failsafe seems like a good idea to me.
Next steps are actually getting experience with the APM2.0 to get a real feeling what to expect from a plane autopilot since I´ve only used this kind of hardware on multirotors so far. Then I will see how much of the functionality I can cover with the "IMU" that is in my phone. It´s really cool if you think about it, my Galxy Nexus Phone has all the sensors of the APM2.0 (gyro, ass, compass, gps, baro) plus a "modem" and a very handy input device called a touch screen to configure the software :) Plus it has tons of memory, dual core ARM processors and it´s own backup battery.
I´ll keep you guys up to date with my progress here on diydrones. You can also look directly at my github for changes in the code, my youtube channel or twitter.
I´ve also created a google group to exchange ideas and experiences with other people who bought a PhoneDrone board.
Comments
Looks like your servo code is not quite right. The servos move much smoother with the rc control than with your phone. Looks like there is a timing issue, had that with my DIY headtracker too. Do you use ~50hz as frequency for PWM calculations? I had more than 50hz in the beginning and the servos moved like in the video where you move them with your phone.
But good job so far. If you need help with ppm/pwm calculations you can contact me, then i might help you a bit.
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