Jordi and I have been hard at work at some projects over the past couple weeks, which has led to some light posting. My project is my book launch (FREE: The Future of a Radical Price), for which I've been on book tour for the past two weeks and will be for the next two weeks, too. Press stops have included NPR's Fresh Air show with Terry Gross and CNN, and will take me to The Colbert Report (yikes) and the Charlie Rose show over the next two weeks.
Jordi's project is still secret (and awesome! announcement in a few weeks, I hope) but in the meantime the good news is that he's now started making the XY and Z sensors and should have them for sale in the DIY Drones store in the next day or two.
Impressive critical reviews and comments on your previous book, "The Long Tail". I wish the best for your latest book.
Both you and Jordi are doing a great job in providing the lead and avenues for developing a UAV, or actually, just a cool autopilot capable plane, or airframe. Of course, lot of room for improvement, but everybody has the opportunity to pitch in, suggest, share, and learn.
This forum is also available for posting, introducing other ideas, solutions, plattforms, etc. That helps make this community as full-featured as it potentially may become.
Building, probing, testing, experimenting, improving are all part fo the fun and the hobby. Instant gratification could come from small and incremental successes versus quick and monumentous builds. So far ArduPilot is not off-the-shelf, and it may never be as long as it keeps evolving. AttoPilot seems to be a better option for those who want a system ready to be placed inside an airframe and fly soon after.
Whatever the new addition soon to be introduced may be, should be looked at as another opportunity for building, probing, testing, experimenting, improving...and so on... :)
Nick, it's not either/or--it's both. Whatever we do next will not disrupt from the continued development and adoption of the current ArduPilot. I understand your concerns about constant change, but surely you don't want us to stop innovating, either, do you?
Thanks for clarifying Chris but I still think releasing an IMU version would be premature. Before I go further will take the opportunity to re-thank Jordi and Chirs for all their hard work. -Thanks very much.
As it stands, Jordi is the only person that has been developing the Ardupilot (the community is playing catchup and/or waiting on components.)
Also, to my knowledge, no one (other than Jordi) has successfully tested Ardupilot 2.2 in the air with an EZ* let alone in different types of airframes.
I'm sure there are people out there who have bought the 168 board and an em406, then the 328 board, then the Ardushield, cables and pitot tube, maybe the ublox GPS and are waiting on thermopile sensors (which, just today, are available) -Yet to have anything flying in the air.
I understand that the Ardupilot was never sold with the guarantee of it being an out of the box, 100% working solution.
However, going from thermopile to IMU (even if it will result in more versatile autopilot), before the current iteration has had enough time to be tested, adopted and developed by the community seems a bad choice.
While thermopiles have limits, their abilities have been proven by both the Paparazzi project and the Attopilot.
Just FYI, Sparkfun has sold nearly 1,000 ArduPilots since it was released six months ago and it's still selling 30-40 a week. It's a great multi-purpose Arduino board for GPS and RC applications, not just as an autopilot. The aim was not to gain market share in the (small) amateur UAV market, but to introduce many other robotics and electronics hobbyists to UAVs. That's why we based it on Arduino, which is the easiest open source hardware development platform.
Whatever we release next will not replace ArduPilot but will offer another solution, both more sophisticated and more plug-and-play (but also more expensive).
One thing not to forget is that the ardupilot minimizes cost. It's super cheap for what it does. I'm sure there will be new revisions and new things with more power that do cooler stuff, but I suspect the ardupilot may always have a place in the world for people who want to get up and flying with a reasonable set of features and the lowest possible cost. Don't underestimate people's willingness to save a buck! McDonalds and Walmart aren't huge companies because they sell the most expensive stuff with the most whizbang features and the best taste.
Or perhaps another way to look at it is that the ardupilot is relatively simple so it may always be an attractive starter system for hobbiests or students who want the easiest possible entry into the world of do it yourself UAS's.
I hope its a fully integrated IMU based Ardupilot, although to be honest Williams UAV Devboard solutions rocks. I think as thomas indicated, the ardupilot has sold as much as it can, the next evolution is coming. I hope :)
TCIII: even with a full IMU, poking a pitot tube out somewhere still provides some useful data. It allows you to know your actual airspeed (which is good for staying in a safe flight regime) and it can even allow you to estimate the local wind vector. A nice trick is to use a carbon fiber tube for the pitot tube rather than brass or aluminum. This makes the installation much more rigid and no matter how careful I am I still bump the pitot tube or catch it on things during transport. But other than that, yes, you can conceal an IMU and a gps antenna inside your aircraft and have a very clean looking uas.
This one can fly totally autonomous and all you see externally (and just barely) is my carbon fiber pitot tube:
Comments
Impressive critical reviews and comments on your previous book, "The Long Tail". I wish the best for your latest book.
Both you and Jordi are doing a great job in providing the lead and avenues for developing a UAV, or actually, just a cool autopilot capable plane, or airframe. Of course, lot of room for improvement, but everybody has the opportunity to pitch in, suggest, share, and learn.
This forum is also available for posting, introducing other ideas, solutions, plattforms, etc. That helps make this community as full-featured as it potentially may become.
Building, probing, testing, experimenting, improving are all part fo the fun and the hobby. Instant gratification could come from small and incremental successes versus quick and monumentous builds. So far ArduPilot is not off-the-shelf, and it may never be as long as it keeps evolving. AttoPilot seems to be a better option for those who want a system ready to be placed inside an airframe and fly soon after.
Whatever the new addition soon to be introduced may be, should be looked at as another opportunity for building, probing, testing, experimenting, improving...and so on... :)
Thanks to all participating...
As it stands, Jordi is the only person that has been developing the Ardupilot (the community is playing catchup and/or waiting on components.)
Also, to my knowledge, no one (other than Jordi) has successfully tested Ardupilot 2.2 in the air with an EZ* let alone in different types of airframes.
I'm sure there are people out there who have bought the 168 board and an em406, then the 328 board, then the Ardushield, cables and pitot tube, maybe the ublox GPS and are waiting on thermopile sensors (which, just today, are available) -Yet to have anything flying in the air.
I understand that the Ardupilot was never sold with the guarantee of it being an out of the box, 100% working solution.
However, going from thermopile to IMU (even if it will result in more versatile autopilot), before the current iteration has had enough time to be tested, adopted and developed by the community seems a bad choice.
While thermopiles have limits, their abilities have been proven by both the Paparazzi project and the Attopilot.
Whatever we release next will not replace ArduPilot but will offer another solution, both more sophisticated and more plug-and-play (but also more expensive).
Or perhaps another way to look at it is that the ardupilot is relatively simple so it may always be an attractive starter system for hobbiests or students who want the easiest possible entry into the world of do it yourself UAS's.
Very nice looking Telemaster! Very clean O&M.
Some day I hope to be able to build an RC model that is as nice looking.
Regards,
TCIII
This one can fly totally autonomous and all you see externally (and just barely) is my carbon fiber pitot tube:
http://baron.flightgear.org/~curt/UAS/SeniorTelemaster/Link/IMG_469...
Curt.
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