My name is Tom Yochum and my neighbor (Brian Hudson) and I are starting a project to create our own UAV from an RC aircraft. This blog will be used to help document our trials and tribulations.About us.Brian is a Microsoft guy, which makes him really smart. He has a computer engineering degree from USC, and he knows everything we will need to know about embedded computing, board design, and coding. Well, at least I think he knows everything.I graduated with an aeronautical engineering degree from the University of Washington with an emphasis on control system design. I now work for the avionics manufacturer Universal Avionics as a system engineer. I primarily work on navigation and guidance for the Universal Flight Management System (FMS). I have experience with aircraft modeling and simulation, aircraft navigation, Kalman filter development, and control law development.Between the two of us we think we have all the tools we need to convert an RC aircraft into a fully-autonomous UAV. We are still determining the full scope of our project, but we have some ideas about our final product. These include:Autonomous takeoffs and landingsPre-programmed aerobatic manouvers (loops, rolls, tailstands, etc.)Payload capability (a camera, perhaps?)Bi-directional datalink to a ground stationAs a first step, we are likely going to follow in the footsteps of the efforts outlined here in this excellent website. We are making plans to purchase aircraft and processors now. Our first aircraft will do basic waypoint navigation only. More advanced features will be added incrementally.We look forward to sharing our triumphs and failures with all of you.Tom
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