Moderator

 

Dear Friends,

VR Lab is happy to present our last updates in the project  in last week we doing a great upgrades :

The entry level mechanical GoPro Fiber Carbon Gimbal is ready only 158 gr with motors, in the video you can see the first test, It's very simple to balance the camera to obtain better result.

The VR Gimbal is ready for developer we put online the opensource repository , in the next days will be update with recent workspace : library and code the code is compatible wit VR Universal IDE .

https://code.google.com/p/vrgimbal/

Today we finish to implement the first version of code that manage motors on pitch , roll and yaw . In the first test we are using only P not yet ID for improve corretion but  the result is yet very good , in the nexts days put online new video:)

Now is possible to setting the parameter with a serial port interface : sensor calibration , PID , on and off of motors , power for control the motors , step / degree ecc ecc . We start to develop a console for end user. We would use mavlink for interconnect the Gimbal to Console application ... in our test we are yet using also 3DR Radio and it work fine !

For more info and live update check here :

http://www.virtualrobotix.com/group/vr-gimbal-user-group?xg_source=activity

Best

Roberto

 

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  • Moderator

    Dear Friends,

    some news about status of hardware  : http://www.virtualrobotix.com/group/vr-gimbal-user-group/forum/topi...

  • Moderator

    Hi James ,

    we are using same approach also in our ahrs in Arducopter project ...

  • INS = inertial navigation system.  Specifically what I meant was using the acceleration from the GPS measurements to correct your attitude estimate so you don't get tilt when you pull higher G's.

  • Moderator

    Hi Chester, 

    sorry the store  is not yet available is coming soon... check here for more info : 

    http://www.virtualrobotix.com/profiles/blogs/virtual-robotix-italia...

    will be in 1 or 2 week ... for more info about the products write an email to info@virtualrobotix.com

    I check the link was a problem in landing page of store for mantainance reason we are updating it.

  • Moderator

    James, what's an INS algorithm?

  • Very NICE!!!! I like it. Is there any way to purchase it? I tried to folow store link on http://www.virtualrobotix.com/ but look like some tech problems on site it shows error: jtablesession::Store Failed
    DB function failed with error number 145
    Table '.\lasershop\jos_session' is marked as crashed and should be repaired SQL=INSERT INTO `jos_session` ( `session_id`,`time`,`username`,`gid`,`guest`,`client_id` ) VALUES ( 'kkhs4lcgsjcbvp179807o6g7t1','1369792470','','0','1','0' )

  • I also think the gimbal controller will benefit from a closer relationship with the flight controller.

    Yeah, I totally agree there.  At a minimum that it is useful for relaying things like user pitch commands or for object tracking.  However, you can also:

      1) pass GPS signals so you can run an INS algorithm on the gimbal and have it less biased by aggressive flight (in my above video that was quite noticeable, although I haven't attempted to tune it out),

      2) use their relative attitudes to know the gimbal angles and account for things like larger pitch angles switching yaw and roll (like that video from Jack Crossfire) and

      3) try and proactively compensate for the UAV attitude movements.

    I keep meaning to pull my finger out and finish the CAN interface between my FC and BGC

  • Roberto, good work.  I'm looking forward to trying your system.  The AlexMos is getting a bit annoying.  They are closed source, and aren't doing a good job keeping up with documentation or solving problems, and there's nothing you can do but complain because it's closed source.

    I also think the gimbal controller will benefit from a closer relationship with the flight controller.

  • Moderator

    Hi James i like a lot going with sailboat ;) 

    This was some years ago before to have 3 kids ;) I'll check your doscs ... i hope in the next days to have some times to improve the control routines ...

    224261_1054233360068_1475_n.jpg

    The idea to use gyro to create a phase lag/lead in the output i yet consider during my first test ... but i think that could be improve a lot our code in the next weeks .

    Best

    Roberto

  • Yeah, it's an add-on board for Sparky with the drivers, but retasks the PWM outputs.  I went ahead and pushed the code here https://github.com/peabody124/TauLabs/tree/sparky_bgc . There are still some hacks in how it's implemented which break the normal sparky functionality, which is why I haven't created a PR yet.

    It's working pretty well

    Texas City Dike Yacht Club from James Cotton on Vimeo.

    The main trick, which I actually picked up from here https://code.google.com/p/brushless-gimbal/ and describe in that block diagram at the bottom was how to use the gyro to create a phase lag/lead in the output (although I have realized one should probably add a saturation term to stop that exceeding 180 deg)

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