From the excellent Center of the Study of the Drone, a searchable spreadsheet with all the current FAA Section 333 exemptions for commercial use:

By Arthur Holland Michel and Dan Gettinger

Until the Federal Aviation Administration implements comprehensive regulations for the use of unmanned aircraft within the U.S. sometime in 2016, only those companies in possession of a Section 333 exemption are permitted to operate drones commercially. The FAA began issuing 333 exemptions in September of 2014 as a stopgap measure to allow certain low-risk commercial drone operations while the industry waits for the full regulations. (All non-exempted, non-recreational drone operations are currently illegal). In order to receive an exemption, companies and individuals must describe, among other details, exactly what kind of drone they will be using and how they will be using it. Here, we have compiled data from all the Section 333 exemptions to date. This database, which includes, in addition to this information, the location of the exempted enterprise, the category of the application, and a description of the intended drone use, will be updated regularly as the FAA continues to issue new exemptions. The database allows you to track the commercial drone industry during this interim period. It affords us a view of the contours of commercial drone proliferation in its infancy, and provides a preview of what the industry will look like once those regulations are finally implemented.

Download (PDF, 495KB)

We found that while many exempted individuals and companies will be working in a single field like agriculture or film, a large number of the exemptions went to companies that seek to provide aerial imagery and services to a range of industries. In the agriculture category for example, a little under half of the companies that received an exemption intend to use drones specifically for farming while the rest of the companies intend to also work in other industries. In order to accurately account for the number of companies working in each industry or field, we have devised our own system of categories in which one exemption can count under more than one type of drone application.

When we initially wrote about the FAA’s exemptions in April, only one hundred companies were permitted to fly drones commercially. Today, there are over 700 companies and that number is rising by as many as 50 new exemptions per week. Since April, we’ve seen a relatively consistent spread of companies per industry as well as a growth in exemptions for some fields like real estate. As the number of exempted companies continues to increase, we expect to see drones used in a growing number of ways and industries.

From Hackaday:

A while back, we wrote about the ducted fan, single rotor, VTOL drone that [Armin Strobel] was working on. It wasn’t quite finished then, and hadn’t got off the ground yet. He’s posted an update, and from the looks of it, he’s made tons of progress, including a first flight with successful take-off and landing.

The successful flight was no coincidence. Tuning any kind of ‘copter is a tricky business. Handling them manually during testing could be outright dangerous. So he built two different test-beds from pieces of wood, some 3D printed parts and bearings. One lets him mount the drone and tune its pitch (and roll), while the other lets him tune the yaw parameters. And just like they do in wind tunnel testing, he fixed short pieces of yarn at various points on the air frame to check for turbulence. Doing this also gave him some insight into how he could improve the 3D printed air-frame in the next iteration. He repeated the tests on the two test beds, going back and forth to make sure the tuning parameters were not interfering with each other. He also modified the landing gear to improve stability during take-off and landing and to prevent tipping. [Armin] is using the PixHawk PX4 for flight control and a BeagleBone Black for higher level functions and control.

Once the first flight showed that the drone could do stable flight, he attached a Go-Pro and recorded some nice video on subsequent flights. The next steps are to fine tune the flight control parameters to ensure stable hovering with position hold and way point following. He may also 3D print an improved air-frame. For details about the build, check out our earlier blog post on the Ducted Fan Drone. Check out the two videos below – one showing the first flight of the Drone, and the other one about the test beds being used for tuning.

From Hackaday:

Have a project that moves? Then get it entered this week for your chance at one of 15 quadcopters. We’ll award a Crazyflie 2.0 to each of 15 fantastic examples of projects that move with wings, wheels, or propellers (the kind on boats or on flying things). Here’s what you need to do before Thursday, 7/9/15:

• Officially enter your project in the 2015 Hackaday Prize
• Go to this discussion and leave a comment requesting that your project to be added to the list

That’s all you need to do to be considered. But there’s a lot you can do to help improve your chances of winning. We love to see images, so make sure you have a least one picture in the main gallery. Start your project documentation with a clear and concise description of what you’re doing with the project and how you plan to accomplish that. And a components lists is always helpful!

Above is a fullsize image of a 5MP webcam. A webcam usually has a CMOS sensor and commercial ones support up to 720p resolution. 720p is a result of the usb bus bandwidth available to stream the images and since many computers still use USB 2.0, this is the maximum resolution for reasonable framerates of 25fps or so. At USB 3.0 you can achieve 30fps with uncompressed data, or 1080p@15. With MJPEG streams this increases to 55fps/30fps respectively with "full size"  resolutions somewhere between 2-10fps.
I have a raspi and a piNoir cam and I was disappointed by the severe amount of rolling shutter. This is an industrial USB cam with an M12 lens mount.

I created this image by just waving the camera module around a lot. Notice the umbrella. A uav probably doesn't have such extreme movements, but there will be vibration involved.

The chip that's onboard is a Cypress CX3. The CX3 is an ARM processor with multi-lane image sensor readout capability, a USB 3.0 interface and a development environment that facilitates development of everything that you can stream over USB. The chip only has 512kB memory for code, memory, stack etc., yet the JPEG images (or YUV) are at least 1MB, so there's no way to buffer the image data. Uncompressed it's more than twice and for encoding you need a bit of memory too. This means that data flows through the following pipeline:

Host <--USB--> CX3 <--MIPI--> sensor

So it's probably unable to stream the data out quick enough, which means it needs to hold out on streaming more lines of data from the sensor. That's a theory, because I'm not sure how this process works in detail. It is likely though that using USB 3.0 will reduce the effect; usb-2.0 is 480 Mb/s and 3.0 is 5 Gb/s (not all of which usable for data, there's a lot of framing overhead).

These cameras also have an auto-managed shutter time. It sounds great if they claim it achieves 1/1600, but given the pipeline above, that only applies to the lines being read at the moment and since they're not read fast enough, you still have huge rolling shutter effects. Those effects are difficult to remove, because if vibration is involved or you have non-constant angular velocity, it's not a simple operation.

So why the interest in this camera?

• It's only 20g and very small, very easy to attach
• The lens is very easily replaceable; IR, IR-cut, fov, filters, gels, etc.
• It has a GPIO pin to initiate the capture and this is accurate. You literally "arm" the camera
• It has a GPIO pin that apparently indicates when a capture is taken for "strobe" use.
• It can take up to 8 frames per second.
• Two of these cameras can be hooked up, shoot together to 1ms precise.

The disadvantages:

• You need a host computer with USB 3.0 interface. Not sure if embedded systems are fast enough to process the data and this must fit on the vehicle and be light.
• It's unlikely that an embedded system exists with two independent 3.0 usb hubs.
• The shutter speed is probably not as good as a P&S camera, which impacts blur.

There's also a 13MP usb cam, but this would increase the data to be transferred by a factor of 3, increasing the rolling shutter.

Probably the better choice is just grabbing a gopro, exchange the lens and then store the images onboard. The gopro includes a processor and probably temporary memory for processing. Anything custom built is unlikely to be lighter than 90g.

The P&S cam probably reads the sensor as fast as it can with fast memory inbetween for temporary storage, which is read out and processed prior to storing on an SD card. Perhaps an expert can chime in here.

There are interesting CMOS cameras that use a mechanical shutter and special CMOS sensors that hold their charge for much longer. This means that the sensor is exposed at the same time, but the readout process (in a dark area) can then take a bit longer. There are also the global shutter CMOS sensors. However, those are $3k or so without camera body.

Hi Everyone

Last weekend I've tested Panasonic NCR18650B batteries on my maiden PolyClub EPP airplane. 
I was expecting ~40 minutes flight but I landed after 103 minutes 24 seconds! (1h43m24s)

This batteries are definitely working!
Only disadvantage of the batteries are low discharge rate. It is max. 2C.
So, discharge current should be less than 7A for 3400mA NCR18650B


You can find other photos and details in my blog: http://rcnerd.net/1-hours-43-minutes-flight-with-2s-ncr18650b-battery/

Cheers
Melih

Hi all

Do you know how many parcels were delivered last year to persons like you or me? UPS delivered last year 4.6 billion parcels worldwide, imagine the rest of companies.

Do you think the current transport model (packages and documents) is efficient and can provide services anywhere or in any circumstance?

Imagine this: What if there is a technology that make possible to carry packages through the air, in less than 1 or 2 hours and at a fraction of the current cost? Imagine a parcel transport with an unprecedented flexibility and adaptability, with minimum energetic cost and environmental impact.

Based on the data, the technology that we develop is applicable to most of the deliveries, up to  95% of them. Imagining the case in which only the 65% of the deliveries were so urgent to need to use our technology in 2014, if being applied, UPS would have saved 105 billion USD last year in deliveries. Likewise, there are some services that currently are not possible like remote zones deliveries or urgent services under 2 hours (e.g. for medicines).

Our team develop technology of unmanned vehicles for logistics purposes, focusing on those steps where we can add more value on the chain, which allow us to develop the technology that better adapts to logistics problems, making it really applicable and safe to use. Currently we are building our second prototype which will demonstrate its inherent better capabilities in comparison with Matternet or Amazon technology.

We have gone through a long journey since our beginnings in 2013 designing, developing software, testing, etc.  There will be soon news about what we have already done and we are doing.

In the meantime, if you like this: we need people passionate about this like you to spread our view and inspire the change.

DroneBoX Team

Laser range finders can be very effective in detecting even small obstacles at long distances from a moving UAV. To cover large areas the laser beam is usually scanned by direct drive or using mirrors. As an alternative to this approach, we present a multi-beam solution that has no moving parts and is therefore smaller and lighter than a scanning system. This new configuration, called the SF33, is ideal for "forward looking" obstacle detection along the flight path.

Starting with the electronics from our SF30 laser module, we added two additional laser sensors into the existing housing to create the 3-beam pattern that you can see in the picture above. These beams have 5 degrees of angular separation resulting in a fan shape that spreads out with distance. The beams can be arranged to give either a horizontal or a vertical pattern depending on how the housing is oriented, or they can be aimed 45 degrees downwards to give a "look ahead" indication of both obstacles and rising ground.

The SF33 is scorchingly fast so we are able to measure by cycling through each beam in succession to get independent distance results. In our prototype we set the cycling rate to 3000 times per second so that each beam could detect power lines from a UAV moving at 60 kph.

The "elastic band test" has become the benchmark for high speed obstacle detection, so we subjected the multi-beam laser to this indignity. We were expecting the elastic band to be detected three times as it passed through each of the three beams.

In the 'scope image below, the orange trace gives the distance as an analog voltage and the blue trace is a digital alarm signal that goes low when an obstacle gets too close. You can clearly see three sets of alarm events, one from each beam, as the elastic band shoots past.

We also need to consider that the beams are cycling 3000 times per second, so as the elastic band passes through the first beam, the second and third beams are still checking for other potential obstacles. This effect manifests as "gaps" in the alarm signal as can be seen in the zoomed-in traces of the first set of alarm events.

In this image, the three beams cycled 12 times as the elastic band traveled through the first beam. The alarm signal shows a 1:3 mark (low) space (high) ratio as beams 2 and 3 interleave their measurements with beam 1. A similar picture was produced by the elastic band as it traveled through the other beams.

The elastic band test clearly demonstrates that the SF33 multi-beam laser has adequate speed to detect obstacles with a high relative velocity and we have confirmed a useable range of around 50m when measuring to larger obstacles.

At this stage of development we can still make hardware and software changes. I know that a number of forum members have experimented with obstacle detection using lasers, so any suggestions on how to integrate multiple distance readings and alarm events into a meaningful communication message to the flight controller would be most welcome.

Special thanks to Jordi Munoz for his support and technical input on this project.

Just letting folks know what we have been up to over the last year or so.  Finally getting close to something we can release.  Essentially an all open source hardware modular robotics platform.  The short version is it's a BrainBox that can accept several different modules so it can be configured as a plane/copter/rover/whatever.

  Figured it was about time the community had a modular frame system to match the different flavors of autopilot code.  Still lots to do before we can release anything.  I have been involved with a few online communities and open source software projects and know it can turn into a big mess in a hurry.  Trying to avoid that if we can.  Also need to decide on a proper open hardware license.  Feedback welcome.

  I run a small shop and stay very busy so might be a bit slow responding. 

BoxBotix

A Pixhawk-powered hexacopter had an encounter with an overzealous and somewhat paranoid neighbor. Ars Technica tells the story:

That day, Eric Joe skipped Black Friday lines and instead went home to visit his parents. During the afternoon, Joe flew what he described to Ars as a homemade hexacopter drone. His aerial device hovered low and moved slow, logging just three and a half minutes of flight time in total.

Then, bang. A loud boom rang out over the neighboring walnut trees. Growing up on a farm, Joe instantly recognized the sound as a 12-gauge shotgun. The unknown shooter hit his apparent target in a single attempt, and Joe soon watched his drone fall from the sky.

"When I went out to go find it, I saw him come out shotgun-in-hand," Joe told Ars by phone on Thursday. The man found himself face-to-face with his parents’ neighbor, Brett McBay.

"I asked: ‘Did you shoot that thing?’ He said, ‘Yeah, did we get it?’"

Joe claimed that McBay said: "I thought it was a CIA surveillance device." No matter the reason, the drone pilot wanted to resolve this encounter quickly and civilly ("I didn't want to get argumentative with a guy with a shotgun," Joe said). He went back inside and inspected the aircraft. It wouldn't be flying again. Later that evening, the two men exchanged e-mails.

Joe started the conversation:

It was nice to meet you and your son. I wish it could have been under different circumstances, but I have to give credit to the McBay school of marksmanship. Still, I'm pretty bummed that I just built this hexacopter only to have it shot down. Also, it was a little disconcerting to know that the spread of the birdshot/buckshot was in my direction. In any case, I had a chance to test the components of the downed hexacopter. Good news is that the more expensive components (on the inside of the frame) are in tact. Stuff on the outside of the frame took the most damage.

Joe included an itemized list of the damaged parts, which rounded up to an even $700.

McBay responded:

With all do [sic] respect $700 dollars seems excessive. Perhaps in SF it's normal for folks to have drones hovering over their property but we live in the country for privacy. I will be willing to split the cost with you but next time let us know your testing surveillance equipment in our area. I'll drop a check of [sic] this afternoon.

Joe wrote back:

I'm sorry, but I must insist on full payment for equipment you damaged, as you shot it when it was above my property. The aircraft's GPS data positions it clearly above our orchard. Additionally, the hexacopter crashed next to our driveway, ~203 feet (per Google Maps) from the dirt road that separates our respective properties.

I also dispute your characterization that I was "testing surveillance equipment." There was no camera on the hexacopter, and had a camera been mounted, the price for repairs would have been an extra $300. Just as you asked me to give the courtesy of notifying you of my flying activities, I also ask you the courtesy of not shooting live ammunition in our direction. This is the third time discharge from your firearms has hit our house and property. The first incident left a bullet hole in the door by our garage. The second incident occurred last Thanksgiving when birdshot from your skeet shooting activities rained into our backyard. The third, of course, being what we're currently discussing.

I'm hoping to resolve this in a civil manner. An entirely new rig would have cost $1500. Instead, I'm just asking that you pay for what you broke. Let me know if you wish to discuss further.

Three minutes later, McBay replied. "Your facts are incorrect, I'm considering the matter now closed."

Joe disagreed. In early 2015, he filed a case in a Stanislaus County small claims court. Late last month, the court found in his favor.

"Court finds that Mr. McBay acted unreasonably in having his son shoot the drone down regardless of whether it was over his property or not," the Stanislaus County Court Small Claims Division found.

Joe won $850, but McBay has yet to pay. If McBay does not pay by the end of the month, Joe and his attorney told Ars that they will pursue further legal action to collect the money. 

"We don’t believe that the drone was over McBay’s property—we maintain that it was briefly over the shared county access road," said Jesse Woo, Joe's cousin and attorney. "But even if it did, you're only privileged to use reasonable force in defense of property. Shooting a shotgun at this thing that isn't threatening your property isn't reasonable."

McBay did not respond to Ars’ repeated attempts to reach him by e-mail, phone, and text message.

Exciting news from the DroneCode Project, which today announced six new members, bringing the total to nearly 30 companies, representing the majority of the consumer, commercial and research drone industry outside of DJI.  There's a lot going on behind the scenes on the software side, and you'll see big news from these companies soon.

Open Source Dronecode Project Attracts New Investment and Members

Drone Software Platform Evolving Quickly, Driving Cutting-Edge Advancements in Vision Processing and Obstacle Avoidance

San Francisco, June 29, 2015 – Dronecode, the nonprofit organization developing a common, shared open source platform for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), today announced six new commercial members and several nonprofit and academic drone projects that are supporting the effort.

New silver members announced today include Arsov RC Technology, Erle Robotics, Event 38 Unmanned Systems, Parrot, Team Black Sheep and Walkera.

New sponsor members include OpenRelief, Open Source Robotics Foundation, The Autonomous Systems, Control, and Optimization Laboratory (ASCO) at Johns Hopkins, Team Tiltrotor and Uplift Aeronautics.

Formed in late 2014, Dronecode brings together existing open source drone projects and assets under one umbrella organization governed by The Linux Foundation. It currently coordinates and prioritizes funding for six initiatives, 28 Dronecode members and more than 1,200 developers who are collaborating on a de facto standard platform for consumer and commercial drone/robotics open projects. 

Dronecode’s significant influx of financial and technical support is driving rapid, diverse UAV progress in areas like vision processing, obstacle avoidance, and environmental and situational awareness. While still a nascent market, industry experts estimate that the commercial drone market will reach $1.27 billion by 2020. Backing for Dronecode is taking off as many begin pursuing drones for humanitarian aid, ecological, agriculture, logistics and parcel delivery purposes.

“We’re thrilled to welcome today’s new members and sponsors so soon after forming Dronecode as a neutral, transparent initiative for advancing UVA technology,” said Amanda McPherson, Chief Marketing Officer at The Linux Foundation. “Their participation affirms the collaborative development model, enabling more parties to provide resources and support to the already vibrant drone community. From improving wildlife protection and search and rescue, to 3-D mapping and precision farming, drones can change our world for both goodwill and economic gains.”

Arsov RC Technology: designs and manufactures PX4 compatible flight controllers and other electronic accessories used in UAV vehicles.

Erle Robotics: focuses on making Linux-based artificial brains for robots and drones. They also design, construct and deliver different robots based in Linux.

“We are delighted to join the Dronecode Foundation and collaborate pushing forward the next generation of robots and drones. Linux-based, low-cost and affordable robots, together with the creativity and passion of thousands of developers, will lead the next technological revolution,” said Víctor Mayoral Vilches, CTO of Erle Robotics.

Event 38 Unmanned Systems: provides high endurance UAVs, optical sensors and its cloud based Drone Data Management SystemTM designed specifically for aerial photogrammetry and map making. Its UAVs feature easy-to-use autonomous operation, extended flight times, and large payloads for the agriculture and surveying markets around the world.

“We are excited to officially join the Dronecode Foundation and look forward to helping shape the future of open source drone technologies,” said Jeff Taylor, Founder, Event 38 Unmanned Systems Inc.

Parrot: Headquartered in Paris, Parrot creates, develops and markets advanced technology wireless products for consumers and professionals. The company innovates and develops in the civil drones market with leisure quadcopters and solutions for professional use. Parrot continues to expand in the commercial drone market, building out its expertise and focus on three target markets:

• Geographic information systems (GIS) for the environment, mining / quarrying and city planning sectors,

• Surveillance of sensitive areas (warehouses, industrial sites, hypermarkets), protected locations (natural environments) or accident sites (disasters), 

• Precision farming, made possible by the combination of drones, sensors and algorithms for conversion into agricultural recommendations.

“The market for consumer-friendly drones is skyrocketing,” said Henri Seydoux, Founder and CEO of Parrot. "Consumers have a strong appetite for UAV novelty; drones that don't just only fly, but also do amazing videos, jump, skim the ocean and maneuver at night with headlights. Linux and open source are leading the way, and we're excited to collaborate with other drone companies, universities, and nonprofit organizations to advance the technology even further.”

Team Black Sheep: was founded out of passion for “First Person View” aerial videos broadcasting live from above. Known for trilling YouTube videos shot all over the world, the company sells FPV aircrafts and accessories. 

“Consumer drones have fundamentally changed the way we shoot videos and see the earth from above,” said Raphael Pirker, Pilot at TBS Avionics. “We are happy to recognize that open source software has spearheaded the technology and our industry. At TBS, we want to be a part of this development and help shape the way that people use drones in the near future.”

Walkera: a professional aero-model manufacturer based in China with offices in the United States that unifies UAV product research and development, production, marketing, and services. The company also recently introduced the DroneCode APM copter, the QR x350 Premium, the first model of the iUAS 2015 series.

“We believe Dronecode Project is off to a strong start managing, guiding and aligning resources to best advance the drone revolution,” said Lucy Chen, President at Walkera. “It’s providing a clear path for corporate and open source collaboration and innovation, and we’re excited to share our drone expertise with this growing initiative.”

 

More about today’s new sponsored members:

OpenRelief: provides open, crowd-sourced information solutions for disaster relief, enabling the right aid gets to the right places when needed. OpenRelief uses an open source approach that ensures everyone, anywhere, can access its technology.

Open Source Robotics Foundation: is a nonprofit organization that supports the development, distribution and adoption of open source software for use in robotics research, education and product development.

“By working with Dronecode, we’ll be able to make our tools even more useful for UAV projects,” said Tully Foote, ROS Platform Manager at OSRF. “With demand for ROS and Gazebo in UAV development on the rise, Dronecode and OSRF are natural partners. The alliance will organically stimulate greater sharing of knowledge, tools and capabilities between the general robotics and aerial robotics communities.”

Team Tiltrotor: is an Vertical Take Off and Landing (VTOL) initiative from aerospace engineers Trevor Strand and Mike Remaly to develop APM-powered tiltrotors. Tiltrotors combine the qualities of vertical lift for low speed vertical landings and forward thrust for high speed, long range airplane flight.

“As today’s small, affordable drones progress from toys to tools, the tiltrotor will fill roles that  traditional fixed wing and multirotor cannot,” said Team Tiltrotor.

The Autonomous Systems, Control, and Optimization Laboratory (ASCO) at Johns Hopkins: is part of the Laboratory for Computational Sensing and Robotics (LCSR) and is focused on creating robots with unprecedented agility and robustness that can fully exploit their dynamical and sensing abilities to operate in natural environments.

“Robotics is an exciting, fast-growing industry that greatly benefits from working with other engineers, developers and commercial parties to help advance the design and usefulness of such systems as quickly as possible,” said Marin Kobilarov, Assistant Professor in Mechanical Engineering at the Johns Hopkins University. “With so much UAV innovation happening in all corners of the world, Dronecode plays an important role transforming research and ideas into real-world applications.”

Uplift Aeronautics: is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization with a mission to empower and aid communities through innovative aviation technology. Uplift is run entirely by volunteers who are passionate about helping communities develop sustainable aviation solutions that help address social problems. They have a special interest in reaching inaccessible or hard-to-access populations.

"Uplift Aeronautics has been steadily improving its fixed-wing cargo delivery capabilities,” said Mark Jacobsen, Founder, Uplift Aeronautics. “It recently flew a 130km sortie with its Waliid aircraft, a variant of the X-UAV Talon, delivering a 1kg package by parachute at the 70km point. Uplift also developed and tested a lighting system that can be toggled on and off by the autopilot, which could be useful for covert deliveries of humanitarian supplies in conflict zones. Uplift is also developing a custom MAVProxy module called 'testpilot' that automatically generates attractive reports with flight performance tables and plots like power, endurance, and range at various airspeeds. Testpilot can be used to compare different configurations of an aircraft and optimize an aircraft for maximum performance."

3DRobotics and Yuneec International Co. Ltd. are Platinum, founding members of Dronecode, which includes the APM/ArduPilot open source UAV platform, andPX4, an independent, open-source, open-hardware autopilot project. More than 1,200 developers are working on Dronecode with more than 150 code commits a day on some projects. Under the neutral guidance of Dronecode, other qualified parties and developers are encouraged to participate in the development and direction of the software. 

About Dronecode Project

Dronecode Foundation is a nonprofit organization working on a common, shared open source platform for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs). Dronecode brings together existing and future open source UAV software projects, including the APM UAV software platform originally developed by 3DRobotics. More than 1,200 developers are working on Dronecode’s six projects focused on maximizing adoption of the project's cost-effective, reliable and technologically advanced UAV software. A Linux Foundation Collaborative Project, Dronecode is an independently funded software project that harnesses the power of collaborative development to fuel innovation across industries and ecosystems. https://www.dronecode.org

For those who have missed it - the newest version of UgCS - 2.4 is live and available on Windows, Mac and Linux!

UgCS 2.4 makes drones smarter and more agile than before. The most important new features are that it allows import of custom terrain elevation models, 3D building models which make the drone more aware of what`s around it.

Terrain elevation models allow safe flying in hazardous areas such as mountains where the terrain is tricky. These can be imported as .tif files. 3D buildings can be imported either from Google Earth or even created by the operator. The buildings can be imported as .kmz files.

No-fly zones have also been implemented in UgCS. UgCS 2.4 comes with in-built Aerodrome NFZ to make flying safer. UgCS One and Pro versions also offer the possibility of creating custom NFZ and even disabling the in-built ones.

Futhermore, the video feature has been improved, video can now not only be streamed directly into UgCS in real time from a GoPro camera or other source, it can also be recorded and saved onto the computer.

Also, the mission creation process has now become a lot easier, waypoints can be created by just double-clicking on the map. The shift+click feature for creating waypoints is still there. The double-click feature makes using UgCS on Windows tablets possible.

Also, now the waypoints are created at the height of the previous waypoint, meaning that the operator no longer needs to specify an altitude for each one, making route creation a lot faster.

With UgCS 2.4 also comes support for helicopter vehicles equipped with Pixhawk / APM, “Upload to Droneshare” button for easy sharing and saving of missions, map placemarks, improved landing for fixed-wing aircraft and other new features and fixes.

UgCS 2.4 can be dowloaded from http://www.ugcs.com/en/software

My students and I like to write MAV applications in Python, and we were disappointed in that Google does not provide an interactive map-visualization API in that language. So we wrote one ourselves, which we call GooMPy.

GooMPy provides a Python interface to the Google Static Maps API, automatically downloading and stitching together map tiles into a single image that you can zoom and pan dynamically in your Python program. To support using maps when you don't have an internet connection, GooMPY provides a pre-fetching function that stores the tiles in a caching folder. To keep the amount of tile-downloading to a minimum, GooMPy doesn't have functions for adding waypoints or other annotations to the map through Google's API. We plan on implementing these feature ourselves in the future.

To run GooMPy you'll need the Python Image Library (PIL) or equivalent (Pillow for Windows and OS X) installed on your computer. The repository includes an example using Tkinter, though you should be able to use GooMPy with other toolkits like wx and Qt.

Because Google limits the number of tiles that you can download during a given time period, we recommend setting up an API key as described here. Once you have your key, put it in the file goompy/key.py, and GooMPy will use it in fetching map tiles. If you run out of downloads, the tiles will be black with a "capacity exceeded" image in them.

We succeeded 2015/06/25 with a test flight (craft strapped with 4 ropes) with a 80 kg payload. It only used 8 of the 12 rotors! Next,we want to give you a glimpse on how it will look in future (part with canopy) Hope you enjoy. And for all the critics: you helped us to pursue our targets! And indeed a lot of challenges ahead, range extender, silent props, etc.  Any suggestions welcome.  We are now in the stage of seed capital funding. Also there suggestions are welcome. 

More info see our website: www.onemandrone.com.

Thanks, Winfried

Just had to tell all of you about this $59.95 three axis gimbal deal on EBay:

This seemed like a great deal and looks to be identical to DYS Gimbal on Hobbyking which is $200.00.

I got one and quality appears excellent though I haven't tried to use it yet (I will probably get another.) 

I'm planning on converting to a Storm 32 for a laser rangefinder scanner.

Apparently DSLRPros has moved on and is wholesaling them out.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/DSLRPros-3-Axis-Gimbal-for-the-GoPro-3-3-and-4-/161735430984?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item25a82ed348

I get nothing from anybody for this, but if you want a real 3 axis gimbal, this is the best deal you'll ever see.

Heres a link to the manual for the DYS: http://www.getfpv.com/media/wysiwyg/documentation/3AxisbrushlessGimbalManual.pdf

Heres a link to the Basecam (Alexmos) Home page: http://www.basecamelectronics.com/

And a link to download the appropriate 8bit Alexmos Gui: http://www.basecamelectronics.com/files/SimpleBGC_GUI_2_40b7.zip

And a link to download the Alexmos manual PDF file: http://www.basecamelectronics.com/files/v10/SimpleBGC_manual_2_4_eng.pdf

(This does include the Alexmos 3rd axis expansion board.

Best regards to you all,

Gary

https://youtu.be/7rpxcCoycvA

This is an electric Quadcopter powered buy fuel cell technology innovated by The Canadian "Energyor".

It got an amazing power density, pay attention to the water dropping from the Quadcopter, this is it by product and not dangerous gases like internal combustion engines.   

Great job guys.

Right now, for precise indoor positioning you typically need an expensive optical motion capture rig like a Vicon. This Kickstarter project promises to do the same thing with ultrawideband wireless for much less ($500). It's already made its $30,000 goal and has four more days to run. 

Pozyx is the first affordable and easy-to-use hardware solution that provides accurate indoor (and outdoor) positioning and motion information for Arduino. In order to achieve a positioning accuracy of a few centimeters, the pozyx system relies on a novel wireless radio technology called ultra-wideband (UWB). The accuracy achieved with this ultra-wideband technology is several times better than traditional positioning systems based on WiFi, bluetooth, RFID or GPS signals. Furthermore, the signals can penetrate walls and make it suitable for indoor environments.

Pozyx is many times more accurate than today's positioning technologies.

Results from a live test of the Pozyx system. The blue line accurately represents the trajectory of the person walking in the room. The cone indicates the orientation of that person

 Key points

Pozyx is more than just positioning!

What to do with it?

The high positioning accuracy enables a lot of applications that weren’t possible before. For example, you can program a drone or robot to navigate through a building without bumping into things. But that’s just the beginning...

Possible applications for accurate positioning with Pozyx

We firmly believe that for indoor positioning to become great, we have to share the technology and make it easy to work with such that creative minds can come up with the next killer positioning application! 

Depending on your skill level, you can use the system in several ways:

• Beginner: Plug the Pozyx tag into your arduino and get started right away. Obtaining your position and orientation is done with a few lines of code using our Arduino library.
• Intermediate: Use the Pozyx system as any other sensor. Connect with it through I2C. Perfect for a connection with a raspberry pie or some other platform.
• Expert: Program the microcontroller of the tags or anchors yourself and connect with all the onboard sensors for ultimate control. We provide you detailed tutorials and example files for this.

How does it work?

Our system is very similar to the GPS you have in your car. Like the GPS satellites in the sky, Pozyx requires 4 little anchors to be placed on the walls. The Pozyx board is what you will put on an Arduino to track it.

The full pozyx system (READY TO LOCALIZE reward - power cables not shown)

Positioning is achieved by making range measurements (by means of two-way ranging) with the anchors. The Pozyx tags processes all measurements to compute the position and orientation of the board, at a high update rate.

Features

• Indoor ranging and 3D positioning: Ultra-wideband (UWB) technology is the key to accurate ranging and positioning. However, the UWB-module itself only provides accurate timestamps. We have implemented state-of-the art algorithms to obtain the most accurate ranging and positioning information.
• Automatic anchor calibration: 3D positioning requires at least 4 anchors to be within range (3 for 2D positioning). In general the position of these anchors must be known in advance. Pozyx provides the feature to obtain the anchor positions with a single line of code. No manual measuring required!
• Remote control: With the use of ultra-wideband wireless technology, messages can be transmitted over the air. These messages can be text or user data, but also commands to control remote pozyx modules. We made it possible to remotely turn on LEDs, toggle pins, read out sensor data, and much more. Perfect for your home automation project!
• 9-axis sensor fusion: Pozyx is equipped with an accelerometer, gyroscope and magnetometer. With these sensors it is possible to obtain the orientation of the device. However, separately these sensors all have their flaws. For example, the accelerometer is noisy and the gyroscope is biased. Together these flaws can be mitigated. Pozyx offers 9-axis sensor fusion (3 axes for every sensor) to get the best possible measurements.
• Reprogrammable: By default, we program the board with our firmware for localization and tracking. However, it is possible to reprogram the microcontroller to suit your own needs. Using the debug pins (SWD), you can load your custom code on the microcontroller of the board. We provide you with detailed tutorials and example files that take care of all the configuration: gpio pins, leds, clocks, and all the sensors (through SPI or I2C).

Technical specs

Technical specs of the arduino-compatible board

• dimensions: 71.75 x 58.00 mm
• powerful STM32F401 microcontroller 
• ultra-wideband transceiver (decawave DWM1000)
• 9-axis inertial motion unit (invensense MPU9250)
• pressure sensor (freescale MPL3115A2)
• I2C for serial communication 
• SWD for programming
• micro USB for firmware updates 
• 4 general purpose LEDS 
• 2 LEDs for UWB connectivity 
• 4 optional GPIO pins 
• Onboard 3.3V regulator: automatic power selection from battery, arduino or usb.

Image of the pozyx tag mounted on an Arduino Uno. (the final version that you will receive will include an usb connection and a pressure sensor not seen here)

The anchors have similar specs as the tags without the motion unit because the anchors are considered to be stationary. The anchors come in a protective casing of dimensions 63.50 x 63.50 x 22.86 mm and together with a micro USB power adapter.

Where we're at

In terms of hardware, we are nearly finished. We have come from a partial breadboard implementation of our system to the working prototype. Currently, we are finishing an improved version that also includes the pressure sensor and an usb output for firmware updates.

In terms of software, the core features such as positioning, anchor calibration and sensor fusion are finished. However, we still need to polish things and finish the Arduino library. This will be performed during the campaign and during the production of the modules

Why we need your help

Pozyx isn’t a consumer product (yet). It’s a working prototype to show that accurate indoor positioning works! We don’t want to keep it on our shelves. We believe that with kickstarter, we can reach a lot of creative people that can use our positioning system to create the most wonderful applications!

Furthermore, with kickstarter we can:

• reduce production cost by producing in higher volumes.
• get feedback while we are finishing our product and writing the Arduino libraries.

Who are we?

Pozyx started with Samuel Van de Velde who has been doing research on indoor positioning for almost 5 years at Ghent university. Because their was no affordable or simple positioning platform available to test his algorithms or applications, he decided to make one. Once the ultra-wideband technology was available, Vadim Vermeiren and Koen Verheyen joined to make the first prototype. After that Michael Van de Velde joined for some serious marketing action.

The Pozyx team: Samuel, Vadim, Koen and Michael

Another Lithium-Ion battery tech story...

An advanced manufacturing approach for lithium-ion batteries, developed by researchers at MIT and at a spinoff company called 24M, promises to significantly slash the cost of the most widely used type of rechargeable batteries while also improving their performance and making them easier to recycle.

“We’ve reinvented the process,” says Yet-Ming Chiang, the Kyocera Professor of Ceramics at MIT and a co-founder of 24M (and previously a co-founder of battery company A123). The existing process for manufacturing lithium-ion batteries, he says, has hardly changed in the two decades since the technology was invented, and is inefficient, with more steps and components than are really needed.

"the new formulation produces battery cells that can be bent, folded or even penetrated by bullets without failing. "

The new process is based on a concept developed five years ago... In this so-called “flow battery,” the electrodes are suspensions of tiny particles carried by a liquid and pumped through various compartments of the battery.

The new battery design is a hybrid between flow batteries and conventional solid ones: In this version, while the electrode material does not flow, it is composed of a similar semisolid, colloidal suspension of particles. Chiang and Carter refer to this as a “semisolid battery.”

Reducing nonfunctional material by 80%

This approach greatly simplifies manufacturing, and also makes batteries that are flexible and resistant to damage. Using fewer, thicker electrodes, the system reduces the conventional battery architecture’s number of distinct layers, as well as the amount of nonfunctional material in the structure, by 80 percent.

Cutting manufacturing costs by half

In addition to streamlining manufacturing enough to cut battery costs by half, Chiang says, the new system produces a battery that is more flexible and resilient. While conventional lithium-ion batteries are composed of brittle electrodes that can crack under stress, the new formulation produces battery cells that can be bent, folded or even penetrated by bullets without failing. 

Applications: Energy Grid, also well suited to weight and volume sensitive applications like EVs (Drones too?)

The company is initially focusing on grid-scale installations, used to help smooth out power loads and provide backup for renewable energy sources that produce intermittent output, such as wind and solar power. But Chiang says the technology is also well suited to applications where weight and volume are limited, such as in electric vehicles.

Find out more here: https://newsoffice.mit.edu/2015/manufacturing-lithium-ion-battery-half-cost-0623

Reposting from the 3DR blog -

Hello from China! Well, I’m writing this from an office in Palo Alto, but the news comes from the team in the factory in Guangzhou.

The gimbal is making good progress, with our production crew delivering some great footage recently. Check it out below.

The team is currently in China working on DVT2 of the gimbal, a pre-production build. If it goes well we move directly into making sellable units. The DVT2 units are essentially identical to PVT units (the ones we sell and deliver), so right now we’re just verifying the entire assembly and test procedure is in place before we say GO.

WHEN WILL THE GIMBAL BE OUT, BY THE WAY?

Right, a most important question! We’re targeting the end of July, about a month from now, and it’s looking good so far. Like we said, we want to get it right, so we always prioritize quality over schedule. Plus, the schedule has extra buffer time built in for any unknowns that may arise, so we’re feeling really good about making that delivery date. Until then, here’s a look at some footage from the gimbal as it is today—not even a touch of stabilization in post.

MORE ON THE STATUS OF THE GIMBAL

We’re happy to report that the HDMI flexes for production are meeting spec based on the latest testing, and we’ll be putting them into the DVT2 units by the end of this week. We’re still root-causing the 2% failures due the to over-currenting mentioned in the last post, and, long story short, we’re working on fixing this with more advanced filtering techniques on our power management. This means we’ve been able to turn this into a software issue, which means it won’t affect our manufacturing schedule—and for you, the delivery date!

The plan right now is to run the units through the actual assembly line with all the fixtures and test procedures in place. These procedures have been iterated on since the last build.

Right now we are finishing SMT—this acronym basically means the printed circuit boards are being cranked out and tested. The next step is assembly, in which all the pieces of the gimbal are put together and tested—this will be done this week, which means we will be test-flying the latest and greatest on copters over the weekend.

Meanwhile, in software land, a lot of supporting pieces are falling into place. These are mostly key pieces that include behavior not directly related to stabilization. These include making sure that the gimbal updates seamlessly when installed on the copter—this means that the user will be able to update the whole system at once via the Solo app, without any wires or uninstalling/reinstalling/screwdrivering of anything.

There is also internal “devops” infrastructure, such as updating our entire software build process to ensure new gimbal firmwares are always in sync with the rest of the code. The Pixhawk firmware, the Linux firmware on both the vehicle and controller, the STM32 on the controller, the app, the ESCs—whew—it’s a lot of stuff to coordinate. When you are early in the test process, the number of people fiddling with the system is small, so you can have a pretty manual build process. But as we test with more and more people, it’s crucial that we ensure all the systems remain in sync.

Finally, we’re adding much more robust datalogging from the gimbal, so we can better track and understand the behavior of the system over time. This will be one smart gimbal!

Stay tuned to this blog as we continue to roll out updates—we’re hoping to be able to add one every week, but honestly, this stuff might get way too technical and dull, so we might package weeks together. At any rate, we’ll maintain transparency every step of the way until the gimbals are on Solos and blowing minds!

Check out a video of recent footage. No post-stabilization.

An unannounced addition to Google Street View suggests that drone imagery could fit in nicely. From the Google Earth Blog:

Google are constantly looking for new places to capture Street View, often going a long way away from the nearest street. The Street View cameras have been on boats all over the world such as the Amazon River and Greenland, under the oceans and on zip-lines into the Amazon forest canopy.

Now the street view cameras have been carried up sheer rock walls to give us views of one of the most famous rock climbs in the world – the El Capitan in Yosemite National Park, California, USA. Read more about it on Google’s LatLong blog. It is not technically the first vertical Street View, as the Burj Khalifa, in Dubai gave us Street View going up to the 154 floor, but I am sure they took the lift.

The Yosemite area has the new 3D and looks excellent in Google Earth, but we were unable to view the Street View from within Google Earth. We had similar problems with underwater street view and the forest canopy Street View.

If you watch the intro to the above YouTube video, there is a nice ‘fly in’ to the location reminiscent of a Google Earth tour, but done using Google Maps. However, as far as I know, it is not something Google has made available to the public.

Click here to find the above location in Street View.

They have managed to erase all traces of the Street View camera’s mounts even better than the way they erase the Street View car. This seems like a job for a drone, but maybe the Street View camera is too heavy.

Congratulations to Flirtey, whose Pixhawk-powered copter has been approved by the FAA for the first US drone deliver trials. From Dronelife:

July 17 will be a day of victory to the countless amounts of people who have been fighting for looser regulations on drone usage. For the first time, a drone with a seal of approval from the FAA will deliver pharmaceuticals to a free medical clinic in West Virginia. This project is a collaboration between NASA, Virginia Tech, and Flirtey. The fixed-wing air vehicle was built at NASA Langley and its multi-rotor delivery drones were manufactured by Flirtey.

Organizers of the event hope to showcase how drones can be used for positive events rather than be used for malicious purposes or by those who solely fly them for entertainment. The purpose of these drones will be to bring medication to underserved areas of the community.

According to Matt Sweeny, CEO of Flirtey, “Proving that unmanned aircraft can deliver life-saving medicines is an important step toward a future where unmanned aircraft make routine autonomous deliveries of your every day purchases.”

Primarily made of aluminum and fiber, the hexacopter also has dome 3d printed materials on it. The aircraft has the ability to fly over 10 miles from its starting point and can drop cargo off via a tethered line. It also has safety features that warn users about low battery or loss of GPS signal. In such cases, it will automatically return to its home base.

This July 17, the drone will drop off as many as 24 packages of medication that will weigh about 10 pounds. Just like this drone is being used to serve a good purpose, many drone supporters believe that it is a glimpse of what we will see in the future; more relax regulations of drone usage, allowing people to receive other items at their doorstep.