The 3D Robotics PhoneDrone Android/RC interface board is finally in production! Pre-orders are starting now and it will ship on Oct 17th. From the product listing:
It's a way to connect any Android device (2.3.4 or higher) to the world of RC and UAVs.The board has 8 channels of RC in and out, with PWM-to-PPM conversion and multiplexing between RC and Android control. You just plug the Android's phone USB connector into the board and you have two-way communications with RC gear and any other board, such as APM.
That means that you can switch between RC control and Android control or mix the two. An example would be "fly/drive by wire". You steer your vehicle via RC, but an Android phone does the actual control using its onboard IMU. On a car, that would allow every turn to be a high-speed controlled drift, for instance (we may show something like that at Maker Faire).
Or, with a UAV, you might have the Android phone doing high-level image processing and object tracking, sending mission commands to an autopilot board such as APM. You might also want to use the phone's long-distance wireless instead of an Xbee for two-way telemetry.
This can either replace APM if you've got equivalent code running on Android, or compliment it with the Android device doing image processing or long-distance wireless comms.
It took a while to get a pick-and-place smart feeder for one of the components on this board, so apols for the delay. We're good now ;-)
Comments
When would this available to buy again please?
Enrico: The files are on the product page now:
http://store.diydrones.com/PhoneDrone_Board_p/br-phonedrone.htm
would this run on any chinese knockoffs android tablet? :) just wondering it would be great to have a gcs on a tablet
Dear Chris Anderson, Thank You for your quick reply. Where can I find additional information about how to make two-sided link with DroneCell? Anybody may already have working examples (compatibility code is written or not) ?
CleverR: We already offer a GPRS/3G wireless module called the DroneCell that will be easier to integrate.
I have long been seeking a decision on the APM two-way communication using GPRS or 3G network. Is it possible to use this product for a two-way communication (telemetry)?
Can anybody give me examples of how things should work and where to start ?
Thanks !
Thanks, John Arne. Updated!
Chris: You PPM encoder link is the old ppm encoder. I pushed the new one just now (New PPM encoder).
Ahmed, see copter-gcs for example.
Ahmed: no, but there are other APM-compatible GCSs that do run on Android. Search the site
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