Blogs

I have worked hard in my sparse time to improve OpenFPV. I got a lot of mails from interested people around the world and can't wait to share the latest results with you. Your support is amazing, and my goal is to bring this project alive as soon as I can. Special thanks for all who donated a few bucks to the Project, every dollar helps me a lot.

A quick overview from the last month:

• MinIMU-9 v2 Gyro, Accelerometer, and Compass test integration
• Further latency optimisation
• 160° Wide Angle Fish Eye Camera
• 5 GHz transmission tests
• Oculus Rift DK2 Support (experimental)
• 720p at 40 FPS Tests
• Source code re-structure
• Optimised video rendering

Pro:

• The gyro integration works pretty good so far
• Telemetry overlay works well with the gyro
• The gyro data transmission works even if the video feed is broken (separated data channels)
• The latency is is now stable over hours and pretty promising
• The wide-angle camera does the job pretty good, nothing else to say
• The new 5 GHz (diversity) adapter gave me really good results and is affordable (20 € each)
• The Oculus Rift was mind blowing - The image is that big that I'm not able to describe
• The source code is now better structured and modularised
• 720p (1280x720) works good on the ground, not tested in the air

Con:

• The CPU Load is to high on the ground station (20% / 400%, 640x480 H264, 2.3 GHz I7, MacOS)
• No hardware decoding for the video stream
• No Telemetry data for the oculus at the moment
• No Fragment shader for Oculus Rift distortion

• Bad weather in Germany

The Roadmap for 2015:

1. Between January and February I will release a first access to the project. This version should be stable enough for testing.
2. Between May and June I will release a updated version with improvements from the community
3. I target August 2015 as a first "release*".

* what means release:

• Easy to install
• Documentation
• Download a Ready To Fly image for the raspberry
• Maybe sell a complete setup online (amazon)

(Please note that all dates are in subject to change, depending on issues, bugs, time)

Some pictures from the lab:

Me holding a prototype with 5Ghz diversity, 160° fish eye camera. I can even write messages on my phone trough the oculus live feed with this setup. Can't show you how it looks like, but all who tested it in my lab are amazed.

Screenshot from the oculus mode. *Note the missing fragment shader for the rift distortion, this is not 3D (but possible in the future, you will see a huge 2D screen in front of you)

The prototype with attached 5Ghz adapter watching birds.

I have no in flight footage yet, the main reason is the bad weather here. But I will do some recordings, pictures if the weather is a bit better and I have enough time and a working drone / plane*, you have my word.

* My last plane crashed and destroyed one OpenFPV Setup while testing

TL;DR;

- First release for developers between January and February 2015

- First "consumer" release summer 2015 (maybe later)

If you have any questions, please leave a comment below or write me: contact@openfpv.org

Regards,

Tilman