Blogs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HZLZJC6_Vfg

Last post I presented this homemade hexacopter. This is primarily a mechanical steadycam style motion compensation/smoothing system, the 2 servos (roll, pitch) engage and act as dampers to reduce oscillation and alter the "home" position to compensate for hexacopter pitch and roll. Then that whole system is rubber band isolated from the motors/airframe to reduce high frequency vibration. (Thanks George for this definition).

Main flight controller is APM2.5. Servos are controlled by other FC, CRIUS SE v1.0 running Multiwii. I did program a new FC mode named STEADYCAM which is different from GIMBAL mode. This new mode uses the PID loop + delta angle to alter the "home position" in order to compensate both non-desired gimbal movements and hexacopter pitch/roll. Note that the STEADYCAM mode is not for regular gimbals. I will upload my code to Multiwii repo soon.

There is no way I can use a bigger FC for this purpose. Why? because the FC goes attached to the Steadycam arm, not the hexaframe, so It has to be an independent FC (I recommend CRIUS Lite which is even cheaper, because no barometer is needed here) 

Here are a couple of videos (One moved up by mod.):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G6Zr1axUutk

More work has to be done. I have to play a bit more with Steadycam PID values and delta angle proportionals. But so far I have a smooth video after some post edition stab. 

The concept of this design is based on ECILOP, but with Argentinian flavour. Also this Steadycam don't have GYROs just a cheap FC with a PID loop, which is more configurable and extensible.

Next: Outdoor footage, Add Rx pitch/roll input to Steadycam, Improve stab.