Hi!
My name's Gabriel.
Basically I am a software developer. My previous work was in the avionics field as a s/w developer. But that was several years ago. Since then I did web dev (Django) and a little bit of native iOS development.
For several years I've been looking on many DIY and commercial UAV projects. And I find the whole thing very interesting and fascinating.
So I finally started my own project.
It will be a DIY quadcopter. I think that the emphasis will be in video capture and transmission to base during the flight.
Since I'm not experienced in navigation and stabilization software (in terms of math) nor am I experienced in microelectronics I thought that Arduino is a good place to start. Besides it's well crafted.
Buying a ready kit that need only to be assembled is not my way, so I decided to make the task a little bit more creative.
So I ordered some pieces from several shops and got some parts shipped already.
That's the PDB and the propellers. And I'm waiting for the motors, the frame, battery pack, screws and other necessary parts. I haven't ordered yet the main electronics. Will do it during the week or two mainly due to budget issues.
By the way, I started this blog to stay fit in terms of the project and to continuously integrate the MyUAV.
Thanks.
Comments
Thanks for kind greetings!
Yes, I'm a software guy, but I was a developer for embedded devices. So I am aware of static electricity and current issues. But there are many things that I have not experienced yet.
I am not going to build everything from scratch. It would be very silly to do so. I just don't want to use a ready kit that just need to be assembled. So my project is fully relying on the Arduino hardware and flight software. I consider this as a module architecture. So use ready modules and stick them together the right way. And if no big mistakes made and healthy general view on the project (with familiarity of law of gravity, etc), I suppose that there is a great chance to succeed.
I was thinking about iOS and Android platforms as a ground station. Sounds great. I will familiarize myself with the ongoing status of the project. Thanks for the link.
For now I want to concentrate on the build process based on already developed modules.
Welcome to the forum! I definitely understand your perspective about starting from scratch, but it is a huge undertaking! For me, there is much value in building on the work of others, as there are plenty of improvements and upgrades that could be worked into the ArduPilot platform. In fact, there are some (older) posts by Chris Anderson (the founder of DIYDrones) about just how much work is involved in autonomous flight.
One possible idea would be an iPhone-based ground station integrated with APM2. There's already work in progress with Android...
Welcome Gabriel!
There are others here who are more software than hardware. You can tell us from the hysterical rants we post when we blow up another board, and discover once again why we like the no-harm-no-foul world of software where you reboot and start again. In hardware, you reboot and then wait a week for delivery of replacement parts ;-)
But seriously, welcome and good luck!