I second Torkel's request to get Jack Crossfire on the podcast. I also absolutely love the podcasts.
You could also try the founder of Sparkfun. I found one interview with him from a couple of years back but nothing more recent.
Torkel , that was very interesting read( fly-eyes) , always been fascinated with dragonfly's ability hover, fly backwards and looks, hope some day soon we can see it , C3 i another good read for me today :) thanks
Brushless motors in models are sort of different from the stepper motors in electronics, aren't they? I mean, there is no precision needed for "us" and the weight/power tradeoff is different. I agree that the battery technology is a big step forward though - lithium-ion and lipos rock.
This would be insanely interesting to hear more about too: http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/11/fly-eyes
- imagine having just some cheap cameras and an FPGA (or ARM or anything with more than eight bits) doing mapping and localization in a UAV. It would take away the need for both IMU and GPS and still enable much better precision _and_ you would get awesome map data from it too.. *dreaming*
I only know that the push for miniaturization in laptops has led a lot of the innovations in motor design, specifically for hard drive and CDROM motors.
The need for battery tech to keep up with the draw from the leading edge chips, etc. pushed the envelope in battery innovation.
Hmm, how about that Jack Crossfire? His tri-copter configuration is interesting, as is his "visually stabilized videos from multiple still images"-thing. He is blogging here though so one can take part of that there maybe.
A Swedish company doing some fascinating work is http://www.c3technologies.com/. They are selling a technology which is far ahead of even google earth in terms of model realism. They use aerial photography to automatically generate detailed 3D models almost on the fly. It opens up very interesting uses of UAVs if one could use a technology like that as a sensor.
Somebody doing MAV- and UAS-work at DARPA would be interesting, but perhaps a bit difficult to get ahold of...
A producer/designer of brushless motors would be interesting to listen to. I have the impression that the big change to electrical over the past ten years or more is due to electronics and control becoming more affordable. But is it also because of changes to manufacturability? Or because NIB or some other magnets have become more powerful?
Perhaps too many suggestions. But you asked for it :)
Torkel, thanks for the kind words! We'll be back to our regularly scheduled programming soon. ANd BTW, if you or anyone else has suggestions for people we should be interviewing, please let me know (in the comments here)!
Just to give you an impression of how much I mean that, I created a login here just so I could post and say that. The DIY Drones podcast is a true highlight of my week. Hmm. I better stop writing this now or else go post on fmylife.com instead?
Comments
You could also try the founder of Sparkfun. I found one interview with him from a couple of years back but nothing more recent.
This would be insanely interesting to hear more about too:
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/11/fly-eyes
- imagine having just some cheap cameras and an FPGA (or ARM or anything with more than eight bits) doing mapping and localization in a UAV. It would take away the need for both IMU and GPS and still enable much better precision _and_ you would get awesome map data from it too.. *dreaming*
The need for battery tech to keep up with the draw from the leading edge chips, etc. pushed the envelope in battery innovation.
I would love to listen to the folks at MIT behind their quadcopter: http://diydrones.com/profiles/blogs/mits-quadcopter-with-laser that you posted about.
A Swedish company doing some fascinating work is http://www.c3technologies.com/. They are selling a technology which is far ahead of even google earth in terms of model realism. They use aerial photography to automatically generate detailed 3D models almost on the fly. It opens up very interesting uses of UAVs if one could use a technology like that as a sensor.
Somebody doing MAV- and UAS-work at DARPA would be interesting, but perhaps a bit difficult to get ahold of...
A producer/designer of brushless motors would be interesting to listen to. I have the impression that the big change to electrical over the past ten years or more is due to electronics and control becoming more affordable. But is it also because of changes to manufacturability? Or because NIB or some other magnets have become more powerful?
Perhaps too many suggestions. But you asked for it :)
Just to give you an impression of how much I mean that, I created a login here just so I could post and say that. The DIY Drones podcast is a true highlight of my week. Hmm. I better stop writing this now or else go post on fmylife.com instead?