Blogs

TiltyIMU:

I was digging around Kickstarter and found this pretty slick project - I hope to help this guy get funded because I want one, he's only about $1,600 shy.  I just backed the $100 for a unit.  If he gets close I was considering doing the $400 or $650 backing to put him over the top, I will keep an eye out.  Anyway I was looking at working out using this in conjunction with the UDOO board to come up with something like the AutoPilot boards with the addition of computer vision features.  I want autopilot features plus object tracking.  I would like to setup a camera on the base of my quadcopter to perform precision landing.  Anyway here is the project - TiltyIMU - Kickstarter Pojrect.  Spread the word, he only has 27 days to go and he's getting close.  He used this to create his own version of the Segway - check out his video.

My first backing was of the UDOO board: UDOO - Kickstarter.  They have killed it with 2,376% funded - they have achieved all their added goals.  Anyway I backed one of the UDOO Quad starter kits.  I have been working with the BeagleBone and the Raspberry PI - my main objective is to bring in computer vision - both are okay, but honestly even with the lower level C libraries on OpenCV I am finding the framerate is a bit slower than I want, I tried SimpleCV Python bindings, wow I got 1 - 2 for framerate - I have not tried the direct Camera unit for the Raspberry PI but it's cheap enough I will likely order one.

Anyway check out the UDOO, it's pretty impressive and I think based on the specs I found a board that will actually work for decent computer vision projects - without going to a FitPC like they use in the Darwin-OP platform.  Matt Trossen has the option to buy the electronics only for the Darwin-OP for a cool $1,100 USD.  You can find that: Trossen Robotics - Darwin Electronics Kit.  Matt and Andrew are awesome guys, a majority of my robotic hardware has come from Trossen.  I have a followup blog post I am going to do about a Robotic project years back from Japan that I was involved with and working together with Matt - It was a shame that it didn't take - Story for another time.

The end game is to have Autopilot features combined with computer vision.  Object tracking, so I can have the quadcopter basically run in a follow mode where it tracks something on the ground or in the air.  I would love to have CDAutoRover lead around the quadcopter.  Also for precision landing - I am waiting for the day we have wireless LiPo charging, you can land on a base station, power up and the take off once it is fully charged.