New IMU board for Paparazzi--but is it open source?

The Paparazzi team have released a new IMU board called Asprin. It's just the accelerometers, gyros and magnetometer sensors (no processor) and is available for $110 at Joby Robotics.

Strangely, I can't find any mention of it being open source. Is it actually possible that Paparazzi is no longer supporting open source hardware? That would be sad if true. They seem to have deleted the Hardware folder from their repository. [Correction: the hardware repository is here. It only has the schematic of Lisa (no board file) and no files at all for Asprin]. I've asked for clarification, but haven't heard back yet.

Remember that Paparazzi's tagline is "Bringing freedom to UAV since 2003". Maybe it should be "Bringing freedom to UAVs, 2003-2010" ;-)

[UPDATE: The official statement: "For the time being the Eagle files for Aspirin are not released in a OSHW definition compatible way. We at Joby Robotics would love to be able to release the files. But we don’t feel comfortable with that at the moment. It is a continuing discussion here at Joby Robotics, so let’s hope for the best!

P.S. Aspirin is not a “Paparazzi” design as such, it was developed at Joby Robotics with close collaboration with Paparazzi community. It may have not been reflected by the article properly for some readers."]

[UPDATE2: On March 3rd, the Joby team did decide to release the files and open source the boards. Lisa is here and Asprin is here. Good news!]

]

Oh, I guess that was too long for one post, here we go:

It is just way cheaper and less error prone for everyone than if lots of people make them in small batches and probably resulting in boards with small differences and bugs that get harder to support. As a lot of people probably know, manufacturing hw is something you want to get right!

While I can't really speak for JobyRobotics, I know some of the guys there are big proponents of Open Hardware in general and have released quite a few Open Hardware designs themselves.
Personally I hope that they will do so in the future, but that is their decision and should be respected!

But right now I really see this from a practical standpoint:
* I don't need to make any changes to the boards.
* It's to expensive for me to manufacture two or three boards for myself anyway.
* All the software is open and I have everything I need to work with it (schematics)!
* Better documentation, etc. for this is on the way, but there are only so many hours in a day...

If you are unhappy with that you can always start designing and contributing boards under an open license.

You need to be a member of diydrones to add comments!

Join diydrones

Comments

Fatih Senkul April 1, 2011 at 7:11am

So, can someone please lead me to a link so that i can reach to the control algorithm of Lisa (especially for adaptive control) ? I am building a quadrotor and want to work on a working code for adaptive control.

Thank you.
Fabio Varesano March 5, 2011 at 12:56am

Thanks guys for mentioning my FreeIMU project. FreeIMU is a truly libre hardware project, released under CC-BY-SA and even developed with KiCAD, a libre PCB editing software, so that you don't have to rely on proprietary software to study or modify its designs.

For all the informations about FreeIMU, its design sources, Gerbers and BOM see the project page at
http://www.varesano.net/projects/hardware/FreeIMU

Thank you.

FreeIMU: an Open Hardware Framework for Orientation and Motion Sensing | Varesano.net
3D Robotics

Chris Anderson March 2, 2011 at 11:29pm

Chris--that's great news! Many thanks for the news.

For those confused by the above, it looks like the Paparazzi team has now open sourced the Lisa and Asprin hardware.
Chris Gough March 2, 2011 at 9:59pm

The final word?

http://svn.sv.gnu.org/viewvc/?view=rev&root=paparazzi&revis...

http://svn.sv.gnu.org/viewvc/?view=rev&root=paparazzi&revis...

Thanks a lot :)
Eric Parsonage February 28, 2011 at 3:35pm

Chris,

I am happy to go with the summary Felix has posted. However please correct this factual inaccuracy:

Eric, that wrong link I originally posted was the one that YOU gave me! I asked you for comment and you pointed me to that repository. You may now apologize.

The post you point to was not made by me.
Paolo February 28, 2011 at 2:47pm

You did a wonderful job, congratulations! but … IMU3000 you used as a simple gyroscope. In truth IMU3000 is a sensor fusion and contains a DMP Digital Motion Processor can calculate quaternion, rotation matrix and other complex functions independently. Unfortunately it is very complex because you use it INVENSENSE does not release specific information. Thanks to some “knowledge” I managed to get the Motion Processing Library for XMEGA (INVENSENSE original) but I need help to use them on Arduino system. Can you help me? Thanks……. Paul
Roman Krashanitsa February 28, 2011 at 12:19pm

I would like to add that I understand the confusion.

Over time, various people were contributing to the project, some of them stayed longer that others. And that is many people since 2003. I don't quite know the new people. Also, there were some companies that tried to make money on the hardware. Again, some of them succeeded, some didn't. Most of the people who worked in these companies tried to honestly contribute to the project. Quite naturally, term "Paparazzi project" is sometimes used for marketing.

Now, we just need to carefully separate those. Hehe, I guess DIYDrones will be there too. And yes, Paparazzi project is open soft-hardware.

To me, Paparazzi project is always Antoine Drouin and Pascal Brisset.
3D Robotics

Chris Anderson February 28, 2011 at 9:03am

Nicely summarized, Felix, and thanks for chiming in with a reasoned, level-headed response. I'm happy to give you the last word!
Felix Ruess February 28, 2011 at 8:39am

So to sum up:
Chris, I think it was not a nice gesture to imply that Paparazzi is going closed source and it is simply not true.
But Chris has a valid point: Unfortunately Lisa and Aspirin hw files are currently not available under an open license.

Maybe some of the confusion is coming from the Paparazzi blog where some of us Paparazzi developers try to inform about ongoing work. This includes Piotr who is currently working at JobyRobotics. I guess it should have been made more clear!

So please stop knocking each others heads in and let's not spill any bad blood over this! It is totally unnecessary and doesn't do any good for anyone.

I strongly believe in openness and I'm convinced that we can all work together to do fun and amazing things!
Felix Ruess February 28, 2011 at 8:38am

Oh, I guess that was too long for one post, here we go:

It is just way cheaper and less error prone for everyone than if lots of people make them in small batches and probably resulting in boards with small differences and bugs that get harder to support. As a lot of people probably know, manufacturing hw is something you want to get right!

While I can't really speak for JobyRobotics, I know some of the guys there are big proponents of Open Hardware in general and have released quite a few Open Hardware designs themselves.
Personally I hope that they will do so in the future, but that is their decision and should be respected!

But right now I really see this from a practical standpoint:
* I don't need to make any changes to the boards.
* It's to expensive for me to manufacture two or three boards for myself anyway.
* All the software is open and I have everything I need to work with it (schematics)!
* Better documentation, etc. for this is on the way, but there are only so many hours in a day...

If you are unhappy with that you can always start designing and contributing boards under an open license.

of 5

This reply was deleted.