3D Robotics
This awesome display of VTOL --> horizontal flight -> vertical landing is accomplished by the Booz Paparazzi-based quad project. Although many people have tried VTOL aircraft that are meant to transition to wing-based horizontal flight, it's very hard to accomplish the transition, especially the transition from horizontal flight back to vertical. This one does it very naturally. Impressive!
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  • Developer
    It's the most crazy thing that I have seen until today. Very cool!
  • @David Ankers: You wrote: "There are also some fairly bad problems with the architecture and I can see a re-write in the future for sure."

    Antoine is eagerly awaiting these sort of "bad problems" you speak of. Did you try emailing the developer list or are they things you're going to just fix on your own? Antoine nor I or AJ are aware of these "problems" so enlighten us because what we have works awesome.
  • Video info updated on YouTube. Also, to be absolutely clear that video is "Booz" but just running on a Pentium. Booz is the brainchild of Antoine who designed the boards and is the pilot of that Biplane thingy. "Lisa" is essentially the Booz boards with an Overo board attached. The cool thing really is that the future is that you can have plug-n-play type modularity for your higher level logic. Want a webcam or video ... simply plug it in. Main core logic is run on the LPC onboard. The interface will be there to optionally plug in something like an Overo computer and you can go to town with writing cool stuff that can interact with the booz in flight. Amazing stuff and way out there. But if you buy or build Booz now you are ready. Just as new development happens you can try out the code. -David
  • This video can be seen on the Joby Energy website: www.jobyenergy.com

    An absolutely *fascinating* technology they are developing there, with a very capable group of people.

    With a little luck, more on this general topic to follow.
  • @Chris: I submitted that video. At the time I thought it was Booz. It's quite old. There are other Booz videos on there and soon many many more. AJ Just flew totally hands off the controls from take-off to landing recently. The pace of Booz development now that we have working boards out there is going to take off (pun intended). I'm happy it's inspiring to others as it has been to me. I'll go update the title now in YouTube -David
  • Chris, you certainly explained it and thank you for posting it. Personally I think its an amazing video and an amazing accomplishment. While Im not allowed to discuss the end product I can say that this prototype did not use Booz hardware because of its end goal. With that in mind Poine took some liberties with the math to keep schedule. Now the floating point Kalman is a little too shall we say bloated for the Arm7 to handle. Some point here in the near future we will get to rewriting it in fixed point math, and get to testing airframes like we are currently doing with Booz equipped quadrotors.

    Good luck to all, and lets just have fun and fly!
  • David Ankers...if people want to know the price of PPZUAV items they are welcome to go find out. Will you stop already.

    Everyone, PPZUAV had 10 booz assembles made and I would not sell Mr. Ankers one at any price. Now I know why he PM'd me demanding I give him my price. Apparently he planned to advertise it for me for free around the Internet. First the Wiki then DIY Drones and on RCG.

    Why would I not sell one? The greedy bastard I am? Because PPZUAV sells nothing development until it's tested and works. It was no different with Tiny2.11 and TWOG and everything else. If I make the expensive mistake and none work that's fine. Mr. Ankers you didn't like that or understand that or something but now you've made the expensive mistake I tried to warn you about. Stop the bitterness. You can buy all you want soon. Let it go. PPZUAV unlike any other vendor out there modifies nothing about the design. No changes whatsoever so that what's sold is exactly what's designed by ENAC. Silkscreens and all completely intact. No new logos or marketing at all. Designs are given to the developers first so they can test them. They in turn give me feedback to correct anything that needs correcting. It's all very much academic and I'm very happy to have been doing this for over 2 years now for the Paparazzi community. I plan to continue to do it for a long time.

    Now, to what people really care about:
    Booz is flying and soon PPZUAV will have more made and as always lower the price because the programming costs and other up front cost are 1x costs. Just as we always have and always will. We don't make promises we can't keep. We don't alter anything and we won't sell anything we haven't flown or been given the okay by the designers is ready to go. We're pretty much there with Booz and I very much appreciate everyone's patience while we get it right.

    About that video. Yes, it's not Booz per-se but is in concept. There's no reason Booz can't get there this year. The person who made that biplane (Poine at ENAC), wrote the code and is flying it in that video also designed Booz and is very much contributing still to the Booz project. AJ's the expert on this so I'll defer to him. I just posted that video on my ppzuav YouTube account because I am certain we'll get there. It's a reminder of where we are going. Everyone is welcome. Just be considerate and respectful and have some faith that not being able to buy something sometimes is perfectly ok so don't take offense (@Mr Ankers)
  • Thanks AJ and I also want to clarify I am not knocking the project in anyway, trying to be realistic and manage expectations. I have had a lot of people asking about hardware and to be honest, I'm not sure it is suited to some of them that just want it to fly.

    I was under the impression that video was done with Booz so thank you for clarifying that as well.
  • 3D Robotics
    David and A.J, thanks for the clarifications, but I was just repeating the information in the video's own description. Apparently the person who submitted the video (PPZUAV) was mistaken?
  • Wow a lot of errors here. To clarify 100%, This video was taken in Santa Cruz California. The vehicle was developed by the originator of paparazzi and does not use Booz hardware. The software to control it does not work with the Booz hardware(yet).

    I appreciate David Ankers clarifying things. They are simply trying to provide hardware to the community. The only developmental flight testing of the booz hardware currently being does is by ENAC University, Felix Ruess(at a new Uni now), and by myself in conjuction with PPZUAVs development effort. If I left someone off the list its simply because you are news to me.

    AJ Kochevar
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