Hi Everyone,
I made a new video describing the details of the Elle0 Paparazzi UAV autopilot. Elle0 is now available for purchase in the 1BitSquared store together with the G0 companion GPS receiver. In the video I go through and describe every IO pin as well as some of the design differences to the Lisa/MX Autopilot that I designed before the Elle0. Additionally, I describe how you can add a battery voltage monitor to your Elle0 using a voltage divider circuit, and how it fits together with the new G0 GPS receiver.
I hope this video is helpful. If you think so too please let me know in the YouTube comments. I am planning to make many more videos describing different aspects of Paparazzi UAV, not only hardware but also flight videos and Paparazzi software tutorials and tips. If you think it will be useful for you make sure to subscribe and tell me in the comments what you would like to see.
Also, check out the Elle0 paparazzi wiki page for more information about the autopilot itself and diagrams of the system. Additionally to the Elle0 and G0 boards we have also released a matching R0 radio board and UU0 UART to USB adapter boards. We will be making videos describing more parts of the modular system we are working on soon. Whereas the Elle0 and G0 are already in stock, the R0 & UU0 are available for Pre-Order in our US store.
Cheers, and successful flights,
Esden and the 1BitSquared team
Comments
@titieuf007 First of all. Your comment is not very clear. You might want to read over what you write, before you post, and try to follow the rules of the English grammar and spelling. English is not my first language either, so I understand it is not easy, but you should try it. Otherwise it is really hard for others to understand what you are trying to say or ask. Also usually you add spaces after punctuation. But the last thing is definitely me being picky. :)
Now, regarding your questions, as far as I understand them. (1) Telemetry: Paparazzi does provide telemetry. It is quite a powerful system with message sets that you can switch between. Lorenz Meier designed his MavLink V1 protocol based on some of the ideas introduced in the Paparazzi airborne protocol. Including message type generation from XML files. And the lightweight struct transfer functions. Additionally Paparazzi provides support for redundant telemetry links, which is very useful if you are flying in harsh environments or over really large areas and want to keep communication to your aircraft constant. You can watch a video demonstrating that feature here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=shCtz7MUaWE and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGkRu0BylKM
(2) Android APK: Not sure if having an android app defines the whole UAV framework. But, yes there is an android app: https://wiki.paparazziuav.org/wiki/PPRZonDroid with which you can control your aircraft. You can use the MavLink agent to connect most of the available Android or iOS apps to the paparazzi ground segment. As explained in my previous post. Paparazzi is based on mission blocks not just waypoints. You can edit the waypoints using a MavLink app but this is only half of the deal, you want to be able to also control the mission block execution. As a result all of the MavLink based apps lack the necessary features to be able to provide all the control necessary.
(3) Wiki: I genuinely do not understand your last question.
http://wiki.paparazziuav.org/wiki/Main_Page is not my wiki, it is the Paparazzi UAV project wiki.
http://wiki.paparazziuav.org/wiki/Elle0 <- describes some basics about Elle0, we are continuing to document it.
http://wiki.paparazziuav.org/wiki/Elle <- here is the start page linking to more parts of the Elle avionics system
(4) Peer reviews: I am not sure how you define a "real hobbyist". Paparazzi UAV is comprised of hobbyists if you ask me. Most of the Paparazzi UAV users and developers would rather spend their time building and flying their aircraft instead of writing or making youtube videos. This is why I started to record videos like the one above. Autonomous robotic UAV is my passion. I hope this clarifies things for you @titeuf007 and maybe others that are reading through here. :)
@Tony_K Thank you very much for your comment. I am glad I was able to answer some of your questions. This is why I am here. :)
@titeuf007, if you are familiar with ENAC in Toulouse, that is where Paparzzi UAV started back in 2003. It's very advanced and yes, you can use GPS as well as variant kinds of telemetry radios, different autopilots are supported, etc.... It's quiet robust and you have the ability to have to manage multi-MAV flights; meaning monitoring and managing the safe flight of a fleet of flying robots.
Here's a list of autopilots that support Paparazzi, soon to include Pixhawk:
http://wiki.paparazziuav.org/wiki/Autopilots
Also, @esden from 1bitsquared has a German store front for his Paparazzi parts if that is more convenient for you. Here's a link to the store:
http://1bitsquared.de/
Hope that helps a bit. Also, you can plow through the wiki to get more info. Here's the link:
http://wiki.paparazziuav.org/wiki/Main_Page
Cheers
does it have a telemetrie option?does it have android apk for waypoint?if it s not the case,it s not the most advance plateform if we compare with arducopter or multiwii
i would like to buy one but there are almost nothing about this platefrom despite on you wiki!!!no real hobbyiest feedback
Thank You for talking the time to explain. This means alot to the community. I have a much better picture now. And the price for elle0 is lower than competition. Thats a plus. Great work guys. !
@titeuf007 Yes we know there should be more youtube videos. There are some clips on @earthpatrol instagram: https://www.instagram.com/p/0JfUEIuiWR/ And his youtube channel showing the aircraft hold position and fly from waypoint to waypoint using GPS. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJ9rcGbeqS8 But the video you see above is the start of exactly what you are talking about. Instructional tutorial videos with in depth explanations of hardware functions and performance. There will also be some super boring and long position hold videos too. Don't worry. :)
Thank you all for your comments! :) Let me try to address them.
@Andy_Little I agree that it looks like a hack in that video but it was a very conscious decision to keep the voltage divider away from the board. From my experience with Lisa/M and Lisa/MX I know that on occasion people destroy their boards by connecting their battery power to the wrong pin on the board. Additionally we decided to use 0.1" pin headers instead of PicoBlade connectors (for price optimization and lower price for entry to the hardware, you don't need to buy special pre-crimped wires or crimp tools) because of that change it is much harder to prevent the user from plugging in their battery to an IO pin, or in reverse resulting in magic smoke. I bet it is quite a show if you plug in a 6S battery in the wrong spot. :) So on top of added flexibility and higher accuracy of voltage monitoring this is a safety and reliability feature.
Spoiler Alert: The voltage divider "issue" will be much less of a hack as soon as we release more parts for the Elle avionics system.
@Jaimie_Fryer That is a great question, and it requires a nuanced essay that I am not able to provide to you now. I will try to either write a blog post that collects my thoughts on it or maybe even make a video showing some of them. The main technical reasons for me is the modularity and flexibility of Paparazzi. (1) There are many ways of solving issues in Paparazzi. It is a modular system that gives you tools to build the solution for your specific needs. (2) The fact that you compile the firmware is a big asset. You can configure a lot of things inside the airframe xml file that then become code instead of being a fragile parameter that could change at any time. And due to code generation you only on rare occasions have to write actual low level code. Most of the adjustments can be made in the airframe xml file. This has the side effect of more efficient code execution. (3) Dynamic flight plans. This is difficult to put in just a few words but let me try: Instead of the waypoints being your first class citizen that control your mission, the waypoints are just variables of your mission blocks. Your flight plan mission is divided into action blocks that can check for any amount of variables and based on them divert to another mission block. For the mission you don't have to touch any C code either. There is a flight plan editor UI that you can use to edit your flight-plan with, before you start your mission. But if you decide to have more fine grained control over it you can edit the flight plan xml file by hand too. The resulting code is auto generated and compiled, which has the same advantages as listed before for the airframe configuration. (4) Software in the loop simulator. You can simulate your mission before you go out to the field to fly it. You can make sure you have tested for all possible eventualities decreasing the risk of crashing your aircraft. (5) Multi aircraft support. Paparazzi was designed from the beginning to be able to control more than one aircraft at the same time. So the GCS has all needed features to do that. Also there are features like xbee mesh networking support, and distributed ground segment architecture that simplify this. This is not needed by a hobbyist starting out with Paparazzi but it is definitely a huge asset later down the road. (6) Agent based ground segment architecture. We use a software bus on the ground. This means the GCS and all supporting applications talk to each other on a broadcast network. If you are on the same network as the computer controlling the aircraft, you can start another GCS on your computer and see what the other person sees immediately. This makes it very easy to have a team of ground operators to work together and make sure the mission is safe and smooth. The agent based system also makes it easier developing your own applications that connect to the ground network. You can have your special application controlling and analyzing the data coming from your UAV in real time. All you need to do is to use the https://github.com/paparazzi/pprzlink library.
I am sure there is much more that I could add to the list. But I hope this is at least a little bit interesting to you, and explains some of the unique aspects of Paparazzi. As I said I will try to elaborate on this further in the future.
@Tony_K I am glad you like it. I hope you find the answer to your question above. Just to add one thing specifically related to the "GPS modes". In the spirit of Paparazzi flexibility there is a bunch of them. Altitude hold, Altitude hold with climb speed control. But usually you have 3 modes configured in your airframe file. I usually use "Attitude_Direct" - "Hover Z Hold" - "Nav". They mean: "Attitude_Direct" I have manual attitude control of my rotorcraft, "Hover Z Hold" The rotorcraft holds position and altitude and I control the climb speed using my throttle stick, "Nav" the rotorcraft is controlled by the flight plan. We also have modes that allow you to control the horizontal control loop (position of the aircraft) directly. Meaning you can have a RaspberryPi or your laptop computer control the position of the aircraft, instead of using the built in flight plan navigation system. I hope this answers your question. :)
@John_Dennings Thank you and you are welcome! :)
good question tony k...we can t see one video about the accuracy of gps mode
@andy_little the Lisa/MX has the voltage divider circuit built into it. I use both the Elle0 and the Lisa/MX and having the divider on-board or off-board doesn't really cause me any issues. It just means I need to be more aware of how I use the voltage sensing feature on the Elle0. @esden is a thoughtful engineer and is good about weighing the pros/cons for a given feature. Maybe you could lobby him to include it on the Elle0. :)
Very nice and clear introductory video. Thanks for sharing.
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