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Though Ducted Fans UAVs as of now are not very common, my personal opinion is that this will change in the future, since they have certain advantages over other concepts. Just one single engine is necessary which makes the use of internal combustion engine more viable than for multi-rotors. Also a transition into a very efficient horizontal flight is possible (with modifications).

 This is a project which started in 2001 as a Ducted Fan VTOL in a configuration where the centre of gravity is located beneath trust vectoring giving the  advantage of stability. Since there were no hobby autopilots available at the time, it was only equipped with one gyroscope and a mechanical mixer to control the vehicle around the vertical axis. The vehicle was destroyed on the first flight with minor success.

With the uprising of small accessible autopilots and increasing knowledge, the concept of this configuration was given up in favour to a concept with the centre of gravity above the control surfaces. The lack of time and the high effort to create relative complex moulds for composite sandwich parts and the parts themselves slowed down the progress. A new upcoming technology (3D printing) changed  this project again. 3D printing is perfect for complex shaped parts in low quantity. It is perfect for creating objects with surfaces curved in two directions (like on a duct). For a prototypes where the minimal weight is not primary, 3D printing might be the best solution such as with this project.

I modified my CAD model of the Ducted Fan VTOL UAV for 3D printed plastic parts. I also built a 3D printer which fits my purpose with a built volume of 40cm diameter and 40cm height.

3D printing has further an advantage that mounting brackets and other small parts can be included in the structure.  In conventional building methods they are usually added in a later stage of fabrication. This reduces the time for mounting servos and other parts which can be a very time consuming task. In this prototype mountings for servos are already included in the structure. The control surfaces are directly connected to the servos and extremely light. Most of the structure consists of 0.35 mm (1/72”) to 0.5 mm (1/48”) thick walls with rips to stiffen it out.

Originally I had planned to equip the UAV with a self built autopilot. This autopilot is based on a Beagelbone as a processing unit connected via (real-time) Ethernet to a micro-controller which serves as an real-time interface between the sensors and actuators. This has the advantage that the processing unit can be exchanged according to the requirements by any other computer with a Ethernet port. The disadvantage is that compared to other available open source systems the developed system is in a very immature stadium. So I decided to use an autopilot based on the PX4 which I recently used for other projects and has a huge community.

The UAV is powered by one 3 cell LiPo battery with 3500mAh. The outside diameter of the duct is 30cm (12”), the height is 55cm (22”) and the take-off weight is about 1.2kg (2.6 pound). It has not yet performed its first flight, but some bench tests have been conducted. The produced trust is sufficient, but no measurements have been taken so far. Also the stators together with the control surfaces do a great job in elimination the reaction forces form the motor. Wool threads were fitted to the stators inside the duct to see if any airflow separations occur, which would inevitably cause a loss of control. The same will be done for the inlet to see if any separation occur trough influences like wind gusts or extreme manoeuvres.

Once the missing parts arrive the next step will be a free test flight equipped with analysis equipment (threads on the inlet, outlet and the stators recorded by multiple cameras).  Together with the recording function of the autopilot this should maximize the information gain to improve any non perfect test flight. This will hopefully happen soon and I will give an update.

Personally I can't imagine doing that kind of work anymore without a 3D printer. Even though the parts might be not perfect with a home made printer and composite materials might be more suitable, 3d printed (prototype) parts can greatly improve the manufacturing efficiency and let you concentrate on the task you really want to achieve. In my case it is to bring this Ducted Fan UAV into the air and modify it that way that it can be used as part of a fully automatic Unmanned Aerial System.

By fully automatic I mean a system which consists of a box which has a power- and internet connection which opens on command, the UAV takes off, fulfils its mission (possibly makes a transition into a efficient horizontal flight) lands fully automatic into the box ,and gets recharged or refuelled. This box can be located on the top of any building or tower or on a boat/vehicle. The user exclusively concentrates on the mission.

Currently I am looking for people who share similar interests for cooperation or collaboration. If you are interested or you know somebody who could be interested then feel free to contact me at: info (at) arminstrobel.com

More pictures can be found here arminstrobel.com.

Hey DIY enthusiasts!

Today I am proudly presenting to you ObliX argo, the new concept for our airship-drone. 
ObliX argo can be operated in two flight modes:

1. Airplane mode:
Propulsion is mainly supplied by the slow turning stern propeller. Maneuvering is achieved by the empennage. Like this, maximum energy efficiency is achieved for traveling long distances.

2. Helicopter mode:
Propulsion and maneuvering is mainly supplied by 8 fast turning electric ducted fans. Like this, maximum maneuverability in all 6 degrees-of-freedom (forward/backward, left/right, up/down, yaw and a little pitch and roll) is achieved instantly.

Read all the details about ObliX argo in our blog-post:
On our homepage we also have an interactive 3D model.

I want to say a big thank you to Johannes Eißing for his great Sleipnir idea and to Alexander Richter for his awesome AirshipLAB! You can read about both of these on our facebook group "Small Airship Union".

Now it's your turn: What do you think about this concept? Do you have questions or suggestions for improvement?

The SF30 laser range finder module has been designed to detect all kinds of different obstacles from a moving UAV. The most difficult obstacle to detect is an overhead power line because of its small diameter and dark color giving it a very small "laser cross-section". Add into this mix the issue of moving past these lines at speed and the real magnitude of the task becomes apparent.

In this test we drove under 5 groups of overhead power lines at 60km/h with the SF30 pointing directly upwards into the bright African sky. We used a laptop to record the results and limited the update rate to a relatively slow 1144 readings per second so that the USB comms and file storage could keep up. Measurements were taken in "snapshot" mode, meaning no averaging or filtering, and the resolution of the SF30 was set to 0.25m

Data was logged using the LightWare Terminal app and the objective was to detect the presence or absence of the overhead power lines. Graphing the results shows the five groups of cables as hoped for, and we labeled these 1 to 5 from left to right:

The first surprising result was that the SF30 was not only catching the main power lines, but it was also picking up the static lines at the top. This is a much thinner cable that is used for lightening protection. We were also surprised to see that the height above ground of the cables varied quite a lot between the pylons and even within a group on the same pylon.

When we zoomed in more closely, we noted a strange thing in some places in the data:

The first group of results near the top of this data set were from the static line but the main line appears near the bottom as two distinct groups of data. So we drove back to the site to check out this result and here's what we saw:

The main power lines appear to be in pairs when viewed from below and you can clearly see the static line just off to the left (we were driving from left to right under the lines).

We then examined more of the data and found another unexpected result in some places:

Here we could see three sets of data from the main power line. So back we went and took some more photos:

The power lines on some of the pylons were in groups of three. There were in fact two pylons with the three strand configuration. We found that pylons 1, 2 and 5 had groups of two power lines whilst pylons 3 and 4 had groups of three power lines. 

We were blown away by the ability of the SF30 to capture such detailed information about the overhead power lines, even though it was running relatively slowly. In a real situation, the SF30 can take 36633 readings per second and would get more than 200 readings from each individual power line when traveling at 60km/h. You can find more information about the SF30 here.

As you can see from the logo from today's release of the Robot Operating System "Jade Turtle" version, drones are a big part of ROS's future.  Although ROS started with robot arms and research robots, the migration of drone platforms such as Solo to Linux means that they can work with ROS, too. That means that the hundreds of powerful AI, simulation, computer vision and pathfinding packages that have been developed on ROS can now work on APM-powered drones, too. 

The forthcoming ROS 2.0 is designed for mobile and distributed robots such as drones, where you can't assume that communications links are always high-bandwidth, low-latency and even present. So it will work with comms links that sometimes break, and will automatically re-establish them. 

As part of this, the Open Source Robotics Foundation, which creates ROS, has joined the Dronecode Foundation and is now working with the APM dev team on integration of APM and ROS on the next-gen 3DR autopilots.

Early examples of similar efforts include the Erle Robotics drone platform, which combines APM and ROS on a Linux-based autopilot.  

This is, in short, the future. The worlds of academic robotics research, linux and drones are now merging. This is going to be amazing.

A very interesting post over at the Phantom Pilot forum.

From ianwood:

I had my first ever bonafide flyaway about 6 weeks ago. I had my theories, bought $1,000 in replacement parts, rebuilt and moved on. Then it happened again.

This time, however, I had a data logger attached to the Phantom, a custom made miniature "black box" that records 75+ different flight parameters 5 times per second. I've spent the past day analyzing the data and I've discovered some things that I didn't suspect before. 
  
  
  
None of the sensors including IMU, compass, GPS, etc. were to blame. The battery, ESCs, motors did exactly as they were supposed to do. There was no loss of connection, GPS interference or any other external factors.

The NAZA locked up. It had intermittent freezes that stopped it from functioning normally. Here is a snapshot of the logged data from when the NAZA stopped working normally.



At 12 minutes, 45 seconds, the data shows 5 anomalies:

• The Course Over Ground (COG) freezes. It had been fluid all throughout the earlier part of the flight.
• The speed (Total SPD) changes to 769,361.92 m/s. It had been normal throughout the earlier part of the flight.
• The satellite count (SAT) jumps to 204 then returns to normal.
• Erratic updates of ATTI pitch and roll values. 2Hz or slower.
• Erratic updates of motor speed. 2Hz or slower.

The cause is likely to be one of two things:

• Defective hardware in NAZA (e.g. cold solder joint) that took several flights of light vibration to manifest.
• Firmware defect when flying in edge condition (corner of the envelop) that rarely manifests.

I am working on recovering the video (file is corrupted due to loss of power) and I also have a 3D "fly through" of the incident which I will post later.

I've included a more detailed analysis of the data which is in the PDF link here: http://www.ianwood.com/docs/anatomy-of-a-dji-flyaway-v1.pdf

I'm used to getting Pixhawks from the 3DR store and resellers - and it comes in the nice grey box. And it's the first time I've seen it packaged in the 3DR branded "white" Pixhawk box. The white Pixhawk was purchased somewhere in China. Is this an older (or newer) batch? Or is it a "knockoff"?

Transport Canada will investigate the use of a Quadcopter for shooting fireworks. It is again people giving unmanned vehicles a bad reputation. Shooting fireworks on someone is plain stupid, I think we can agree. However, should Transport Canada be handling this case? What if they were shooting from a radio-contolled boat or car? The danger is from the fireworks, no the use of the quadcopter. Here is the report from CBC:

Transport Canada is investigating a popular online video that shows two shirtless men running on a frozen Ottawa River as a drone, mounted with Roman candles, fires exploding shells at them.

Andy Stewart, who controlled the drone in the video from the shore of a bay in west rural Ottawa, told CBC News he attached a camera to the drone so that he could record his brother and friend trying to dodge the sparks.

"We weren't doing anything to hurt anybody, just fooling around," he said. "It's hilarious how many views it's gotten."

Since it was uploaded to YouTube on March 5, it has been viewed more than one million times.

His friend, Matt Trueman, is seen lighting the Roman candles on the drone before running onto the snow-covered bay. At one point, his brother Jason Stewart is hit in the back.

"Do not try this at home," the video warns.

"We're just having fun," Stewart said. "We're not trying to hurt anybody — besides the odd, little burn. Nothing too crazy."

'Extremely dangerous' to carry fireworks on drone: Transport Canada

Transport Canada told CBC News in an email that it is "extremely dangerous" for an unmanned aerial vehicle to carry pyrotechnics or explosives.

Andy Stewart says he was 'fooling around' when he made a video of a drone, mounted with Roman candles, firing at his friends. (CBC)

"In addition, Transport Canada's safety guidelines for recreational users stipulate they should stay at least nine kilometres away from aerodrome, such as the Constance Lake water aerodrome, and from built-up areas, including homes and cottages," Transport Canada said in a statement.

Stewart said he likes making extreme videos but never imagine it would catch the attention of Transport Canada. 

"We'll see what happens (with the investigation) and take it from there," he said. "We're still going to make tons of fun videos... [we] just might not be attaching fireworks to them if it is something that you're not allowed to do."

Hi,I want to share a new OSD - the PlayuavOSD. It is new but not totally unfamiliar. It is created by integrating a variety of excellent open-source projects. Many thanks to the developers for their efforts and dedication.

This project is licensed under CC 3.0 BY-SA and GUN v3. You can find all information about this OSD at http://www.github.com/Playuav/playuavosd, including the source code, the schematic diagram, and the configuration tools etc.

Inevitably there will be bugs and improper designs. But as an OSD, I don't think it will cause crash:-). Though most functions have been realized, there is still a lot to do, such as the implement of UAVTalk and DJI CAN. If you are interested in it, please share your opinions and suggestions. Thank you.

Config Tool download here. Manual download here.

Configuration video:

Greetings all. About a year ago, we introduced you to the Lynx. http://diydrones.com/profiles/blogs/introducing-the-lynx. Lynx was our first system developed as an affordable, fixed-wing UAV for mapping. The Lynx design was inspired by military UAS, and we sought to make our own system that was equally durable and practical for field use.

Fast forward a year, and we are proud to announce the Lynx M. Our new design is approximately 20% lighter and 20% smaller than the original but with doubled endurance (3 hours with payload!), sideways camera placement (top facing forward), and more camera options.

Lynx M is an incredibly rugged, long endurance mapping UAS equipped with interchangeable sensors. The design is simple and assembly is quick, requiring no tools. A removable wing and tail simply slide into place on the fuselage and ‘shed’ on hard landings. Takeoff is accomplished with a hand launch, and landing is done with a vertical deep-stall or conventional belly land. The deep-stall enables users to operate from confined areas, such as a forest clearing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9p4Q0fsw20M

Specifications:

• Weight: 3.6 kg (8.0 lbs)
• Wing Span: 2.3 m (7.5 ft)
• Endurance: 3 hours
• Propulsion: Electric
• Construction: Kevlar, carbon, foam
• Takeoff: Hand launch
• Landing: Deep-stall or belly land
• Payload: .7 kg (1.5 lbs)
• Autopilot: Pixhawk

Features:

• Tool-less assembly
• Three piece wing & removable tail
• Swappable payloads
• Throttle safety key
• Silent operation

The airframe is constructed to be as strong and as light as possible by utilizing a composite/foam core structure. A single airframe can withstand in excess of 100 vertical landings. Tests were conducted from a variety of terrain with camera onboard.  This makes Lynx M is one of the most rugged systems available.

Lynx M achieves three hour flight times with the standard 24 MP Sony a5100 APS-C payload. By combining long flight times with quality sensors, Lynx M can cover 8 square kilometers (almost 2,000 acres) at 2.3 cm/pix resolution. With the optional Sony a7R 36 MP full frame sensor, ground resolutions of 1.3 cm/pix are possible.

Payloads are located at the aircraft’s center of gravity and are thoroughly protected by removable foam mounts. Custom mounts can be made to carry additional sensors.

Autonomous takeoff, navigation, and mapping are done with the Pixhawk flight controller. SwiftTag post flight software is used to easily and accurately geo-tag and filter images based on aircraft position and attitude.

Lynx M packs down into two transport cases - one case for the aircraft and a second case for the battery charger kit.

Sample Flight Log

A Lynx M flight log can be found here: http://files.swiftradioplanes.com/36.BIN

• Flight time: 186:57 minutes
• Total distance traveled: 162.65 km
• Payload: Sony a5100
• Flight plan: survey grid & loiter

Contact

For more information on the Lynx M, please visit http://swiftradioplanes.com. For pricing and availability, please contact support@swiftradioplanes.com.

The DIY post about SwiftTag can be found here if you missed it: http://diydrones.com/profiles/blogs/swifttag-free-photo-tagging-software

About Swift Radioplanes

Swift Radioplanes was founded in the summer of 2013 and based in mile-high Prescott, Arizona. The company designs and manufactures unmanned aircraft systems and performs photomapping services for research, simulator, agriculture, and survey applications. Swift Radioplanes emphasizes simplicity, durability, and performance in their aircraft. This design philosophy is easily seen with their flagship UAS, the Lynx M. Lynx is capable of three hour flights, a vertical landing method that requires incredible durability, tool-less assembly, and only three moving parts on the entire aircraft.

In December of 2013, a team from Swift Radioplanes volunteered to aid the Philippine disaster relief in the wake of Typhoon Haiyan. The team flew a Lynx UAS and collected and donated over 20 square kilometers of high resolution aerial imagery.

You're all having a lovely time with your little copters and planes.  Over on Rover - were going full size!!!!  Check out this tractor performing FollowMe!

Hello Diy Drones Universe,

Here at CAD Drones LLC we are currently looking for 20 Beta Testers of the Drone Parachute System we are now currently selling. To get this affordable product to the Drone Industry we have to have video from people sharing their success with our product! Currently we have only a small number of customers all of which have had great success but many of which are very busy or do work with systems/companies that they are not allowed to share information/results of our product to the public. We are not able to offer the Beta Testers free products but we are fully willing to offer 25%-40% OFF our already extremely affordable products to the Beta Testers. All we ask in return from the Beta Testers is:

• Have an extreme passion and love for Drones/UAVs and the growth of the industry
• Own either a Quadcopter, Fixed Wing Plane, R/C Model Aircraft, or an R/C Watercraft
• Share blogs on our dedicated Drone Parachute Forum on CADDrones.com
• In these blogs please share your results, tips, personal opinion on the product, any possible improvements you would suggest, and anything else that will help show our customers that these products work at an affordable price
• Video's documentation of your test, results, and tips is essential to help get this off the ground so if your able to please create videos for your blog posts on our dedicated forum

If interested please contact me at: JoshuaAllenJohnson@gmail.com or fill out our "Contact Us" Form on our store page!

Sorry to see this notice from AirDroids, who had launched the PocketCopter on Kickstarter, but glad to see their list of "lessons learned". Manufacturing is really, really hard, and they were not the first or last Kickstarter project to get in over their head in the process of going from prototype to product. 

Dear Drone Lovers,

We are writing to let you know that AirDroids, Inc. is ceasing operations. As of this week, we have sent out units for all the orders that we received addresses for. Our company ran out of money a few months ago, but we have been able to fulfill all orders through a recapitalization of the company funded by the projects creators taking out tens of thousands of dollars in personal loans.

In this message we want to answer two questions. First, how did a project that raised nearly a million dollars run out of money? Second, what does this mean for our Kickstarter® backers and customers?

There are three primary factors that led to significantly greater costs than we originally anticipated. Some of the issues that arose could not have been predicted, others were attempts to make things better for our customers.

First, the unprecedented success of our Kickstarter® campaign meant that we manufactured around 20 times more orders than we originally anticipated. To address this challenge and to make the product more durable for our customers, we decided to do a complete redesign of the system. After seeking advice on how to handle the higher production numbers, we engaged contract engineers who had more experience in designing for higher production runs and who were specialized in designing plastic parts for injection molding. The cost for their services cut significantly into our budget.

Second, since the redesign caused delays in the production schedule, we decided to minimize further delays by making our molds and doing assembly in the United States, rather than outsourcing production to China or Taiwan. This approach was intended to give us the flexibility that we needed to make course corrections and was also a great opportunity to support local businesses. However, this decision significantly increased our mold and tooling costs.

Finally, given the success of our Kickstarter® campaign, we ordered extra parts to be able to build more units for post campaign sales. Much to our disappointment, our Shenzhen suppliers did not consider orders for 2000 units to be sizable enough to give us a large volume discount. We were forced, therefore, to estimate our market demand and our “part failure” rates in order to get the pricing necessary. Further, when the parts arrived, the “dead on arrival” rate was higher than we anticipated.

These key decisions, combined with the already high bill of materials and Kickstarter® and Amazon Payments taking an 8% cut of total funds raised, left us with a minimal financial cushion. In addition to these expenses, the cost of assembly, packaging, shipping, and salaries for our small manufacturing staff caused us to be significantly in the red financially.

The company’s leadership did not receive any profits or distributions off of this project, and took on over $100,000 in personal debt to be able to contribute additional capital to the company in order to assemble and ship all the units that were ordered. Of course, this is all due to our own decisions and we are not soliciting sympathy. Our hope is to provide you, our backers, with some context for what happened and perhaps help other makers with Kickstarter® dreams avoid similar mistakes.

Our small staff has been notified that they are being laid off. Unfortunately, upon the completion of the final orders, the company has ceased operations and will not be able to receive returns or send out additional parts or units, as there is neither staff nor money to do so. We have sent out all orders that we received addresses for. A small group of Kickstarter® backers never provided addresses in response to the backer survey we sent out and we have not been able to ship those orders. Also, some of the packages that were sent out could not be delivered by UPS as the address and contact information provided was incorrect or the recipient did not follow up with customs to meet local import requirements. 

We are putting our design files on our website, which you can access at www.airdroids.com/files.html. You may attempt to use these to generate your own spare parts, although please be advised that results created from a 3D printer may differ significantly from what we created using injection molded plastics and we make no guarantees regarding the designs and their functionality. Please use them at your own risk. 

With The Pocket Drone®, we wanted to provide our customers with a powerful user-friendly tool to enhance exploration and preserve memories. We are deeply grateful for the support and forbearance of all of our backers and customers. We have also been impressed and humbled by the amazing community of people who came together to improve upon the designs we generated and support other users. We wish you safe flight, and hope you will all continue to enjoy the magic of being able to see the world from a new perspective.

Team AirDroids

Here is my pixhawk run Cularis Motor Glider with a very custom Taranis Setup.

Complex Taranis configuration can be time consuming, so I'm sharing my config so that others can re-use it.

Mine allows you to setup your flaps asymmetrically where they go down more than up, or only down. You decide how you want to set yours up and you only need to change the subtrim in channels 6 and 7, something that was very non obvious to me when I was learning how to program my Taranis.

My setup is also different from Sean’s by having the throttle stick control crow flaps from 0 to 45%, nothing from 45 and 55%, and then throttle from 55% to 100%. This allows you to use a single power lever to slow down from gliding, or add power to gliding, middle being neutral. No switches to flip to switch from crow flaps to motor power, which is very handy if you have to cancel your landing as the last second.


Blog post here: http://marc.merlins.org/perso/rc/post_2015-05-17_Cularis-7-Channel-Glider-With-Crow-Flaps-and-Washout-Taranis-Config-EEPE.html
Full doc: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1bGKjyvOksHBhD8gT3Q20ZmDu1TUsDn15BvGPHw-doVg/edit



Cheers,
Marc

After spending quite a while building a pixhawk based Multiplex Cularis with FPV, and lots of foam cutting to fit everything (including 3 cameras), here is the result:

http://marc.merlins.org/perso/rc/post_2015-04-23_FPV-with-Multiplex-Cularis_-v2.html

Fitting all the APM and FPV gear in there is kind of tight, but it's doable.

Specs:

• 80Amp Castle Phoenix ESC
• Neumotor 1905 2.5Y 600-1200W motor 865kV (too heavy and powerful but I inherited it with my old Cularis)
• 4S 3300mAh lipo
• 14x8 folding prop, 60A, 960W power at full power takeoff (same power with 12x8 prop)
• 5V BEC to power servos and backup power to pixhawk
• Pixhawk with ardupilot 3.2.3
• 433Mhz telemetry radio
• MinimOSD with minimosd-extra R800
• 12V uBEC for Vtx
• 900Mhz 500mW video TX with 5V output used to power 2 mobius cameras and FPV camera
• Narrow angle Mobius for forward bottom view
• Wide angle Mobius for rear bottom view
• Fatshark TVL 600 FPV cam on top
• RC controlled onboard video switcher for the 3 analog video sources
• Lost model finder plugged into an RC channel
• Separate loud Keyringer with independent battery, sound activated

Total weight is a bit heavy, around 2.1kg, but with the huge wings, it's not a big problem. The wing area is 55dm^2, and wing loading of about 40g per dm^2 (the pure glider version is only 25g per dm^2).

2D LIDAR (Laser Range Finder) prototype working, measuring distance upto 50 meters with angle 0 to 359 degrees. Can be used in CAR to avoid rear and front ended bump, can be interface with UAV or Robot. It's done uisng UNO. Its not done yet.

Note: The image formatting is a little difficult and the number of images per post appears to be limited on DIYdrones, so I mirrored this whole post to my website where it looks a little nicer and the rest of the images can be found.

Two weeks ago I attended AUVSI to learn how the unmanned defense industry is pivoting into the commercial space and where 3DR fits into that ecosystem; give a talk on our community (including DIYDrones!); and sit on a panel moderated by Drone Analyst on drone startups. However, the time available for my mission was cut seriously short by the overwhelming and unexpected interested in Solo displayed by an enormous range of show participants. Everyone from old school, black suit-wearing Lockheed engineers to awesome startups building accessories for drones flocked to our “unmanned” Solo kiosk to ask about Solo. However, I still had a quick two hours on the last day of the show to scope out some of the exhibitors.

Toward one end of the exhibition hall there was a horde of Chinese and Korean multirotor manufacturers who all  mysteriously claimed to have engineered their own autopilots from the ground up. Hmmmmm… That 3DR ublox GPS module is pretty distinctive, even if the logo is wiped off with acetone…

AirRobot showed off a massive hexrotor that takes a 750 Wh battery! To give a sense of perspective, this is nearly five times the limit that can be taken on a plane. Every time the vehicle is shipped the battery must be packaged in a special flameproof case and carried by special courier.

MicroDrones spun out a new US-based manufacturer called Avyon. Their business relationship is not totally clear, but they appear to be making the exact same high quality vehicles stateside, but rebranding them for the American audience.

Drone America showed off an interesting octo at the AirWare booth. These designs nicely shroud the blades, but it can’t be an efficient way to maximize disk loading and I can’t imagine trying to travel with this.

This shotgun-wielding heptarotor appeared in a number booths. No one could answer any questions about it, but it appears to be some boat/multirotor hybrid with a couple of 20 gauge shotguns underneath.

This SenseFly eXom is truly an impressive piece of engineering. It carries a thermal/optical gimbalized camera for inspections, several simple fixed cameras for sense-and-avoid, and several sonar units for the same purpose. I never saw a flight demo, but the GCS looked impressive, if not a little overwhelming.

This huge Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter probably stole the show. I wonder if she flies PixHawk? As we were packing up, I was disappointed to see her getting loading onto a truck. I was hoping she flew in.

For the past several months we have been working closely with an infrastructure inspection firm to develop a multirotor system for them.  There were many goals, but COTS parts and cost were major drivers.  We decided to use a DJI S1000 frame but selected the 3DR Pixhawk controller.  We went with the Pixhawk for a variety of reasons, but flexibility was a primary consideration.  The ability to plan complex missions, geotag photos, and a variety of flight modes ultimately sealed the deal.  On the gimbal side we ended up using the brand new DJI Ronin-M.  Equipped with remotely controlled zoom, the Sony AX100 provides crisp 4K video as well as 20MP still photos (even while rolling video).  Mounting the Ronin was no small feat, requiring our dedicated fabricator to spend a few late nights in the shop.  On the downlink side, we used a Amimon Connex, sending 1080p footage at 60 FPS.  A Futaba 14SG provides flight control as well as camera control.

I must say, the S1000 is an impressive frame.  The performance with the Pixhawk running Arducopter 3.2 is staggering, especially when compared to the DJI A2 that would normally occupy this frame.  Youtube videos coming shortly!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BobRiQqVzLQ

Our Drone Parachute Products:

The Parachutes and Packs are made out of a durable fabric that allows you to mount a recovery parachute on your Quadcopter, Fixed Wing Plane, Model Aircraft, and even R/C Boats! They come in Small, Medium, and Large.  Use a servo or any preferred hardware when setting up a release mechanism for the parachute in the event of a flyaway or malfunction. To help determine the right size parachute and pack for your vehicle system first weigh your vehicle and then use the descent speed chart found at the top of the store page to decide what size fits your needs!

APM:Plane 3.3.0 released

The ardupilot development team is proud to announce the release of version 3.3.0 of APM:Plane. This is a major release with a lot of changes. Please read the release notes carefully!

The last stable release was 3 months ago, and since that time we have applied over 1200 changes to the code. It has been a period of very rapid development for ArduPilot. Explaining all of the changes that have been made would take far too long, so I've chosen some key changes to explain in detail, and listed the most important secondary changes in a short form. Please ask for details if there is a change you see listed that you want some more information on.

Arming Changes

This is the first release of APM:Plane where ARMING_CHECK and ARMING_REQUIRE both default to enabled. That means when you upgrade if you didn't previously have arming enabled you will need to learn about arming your plane.

Please see this page for more information on arming:

http://plane.ardupilot.com/wiki/arming-your-plane/

I know many users will be tempted to disable the arming checks, but please don't do that without careful thought. The arming checks are an important part of ensuring the aircraft is ready to fly, and a common cause of flight problems is to takeoff before ArduPilot is ready.

Re-do Accelerometer Calibration

Due to a change in the maximum accelerometer range on the Pixhawk all users must re-do their accelerometer calibration for this release. If you don't then your plane will fail to arm with a message saying that you have not calibrated the accelerometers.

Only 3D accel calibration

The old "1D" accelerometer calibration method has now been removed, so you must use the 3D accelerometer calibration method. The old method was removed because a significant number of users had poor flights due to scaling and offset errors on their accelerometers when they used the 1D method. My apologies for people with very large aircraft who find the 3D method difficult.

Note that you can do the accelerometer calibration with the autopilot outside the aircraft which can make things easier for large aircraft.

Auto-disarm

After an auto-landing the autopilot will now by default disarm after LAND_DISARMDELAY seconds (with a default of 20 seconds). This feature is to prevent the motor from spinning up unexpectedly on the ground
after a landing.

HIL_MODE parameter

It is now possible to configure your autopilot for hardware in the loop simulation without loading a special firmware. Just set the parameter HIL_MODE to 1 and this will enable HIL for any autopilot. This is designed to make it easier for users to try HIL without having to find a HIL firmware.

SITL on Windows

The SITL software in the loop simulation system has been completely rewritten for this release. A major change is to make it possible to run SITL on native windows without needing a Linux virtual machine. There should be a release of MissionPlanner for Windows soon which will make it easy to launch a SITL instance.

The SITL changes also include new backends, including the CRRCSim flight simulator. This gives us a much wider range of aircraft we can use for SITL. See http://dev.ardupilot.com/wiki/simulation-2/ for more information.

Throttle control on takeoff

A number of users had problems with pitch control on auto-takeoff, and with the aircraft exceeding its target speed during takeoff. The auto-takeoff code has now been changed to use the normal TECS throttle control which should solve this problem.

Rudder only support

There is a new RUDDER_ONLY parameter for aircraft without ailerons, where roll is controlled by the rudder. Please see the documentation for more information on flying with a rudder only aircraft:

http://plane.ardupilot.com/wiki/ardupla ... udder_only

APM1/APM2 Support

We have managed to keep support for the APM1 and APM2 in this release, but in order to fit it in the limited flash space we had to disable some more features when building for those boards. For this release the AP_Mount code for controlling camera mounts is disabled on APM1/APM2.

At some point soon it will become impractical to keep supporting the APM1/APM2 for planes. Please consider moving to a 32 bit autopilot soon if you are still using an APM1 or APM2.

New INS code

There have been a lot of changes to the gyro and accelerometer handling for this release. The accelerometer range on the Pixhawk has been changed to 16g from 8g to prevent clipping on high vibration aircraft, and the sampling rate on the lsm303d has been increased to 1600Hz.

An important bug has also been fixed which caused aliasing in the sampling process from the accelerometers. That bug could cause attitude errors in high vibration environments.

Numerous Landing Changes

Once again there have been a lot of improvements to the automatic landing support. Perhaps most important is the introduction of a smooth transition from landing approach to the flare, which reduces the tendency to pitch up too much on flare.

There is also a new parameter TECS_LAND_PMAX which controls the maximum pitch during landing. This defaults to 10 degrees, but for many aircraft a smaller value may be appropriate. Reduce it to 5 degrees if you find you still get too much pitch up during the flare.

Other secondary changes in this release include:

• a new SerialManager library which gives much more flexible management of serial port assignment
• changed the default FS_LONG_TIMEOUT to 5 seconds
• raised default IMAX for roll/pitch to 3000
• lowered default L1 navigation period to 20
• new BRD_SBUS_OUT parameter to enable SBUS output on Pixhawk
• large improvements to the internals of PX4Firmware/PX4NuttX for better performance
• auto-formatting of microSD cards if they can't be mounted on boot (PX4/Pixhawk only)
• a new PWM based driver for the PulsedLight Lidar to avoid issues with the I2C interface
• fixed throttle forcing to zero when disarmed
• only reset mission on disarm if not in AUTO mode
• much better handling of steep landings
• added smooth transition in landing flare
• added HIL_MODE parameter for HIL without a special firmware
• lowered default FS_LONG_TIMEOUT to 5 seconds
• mark old ELEVON_MIXING mode as deprecated
• fixed 50Hz MAVLink support
• support DO_SET_HOME MAVLink command
• fixed larger values of TKOFF_THR_DELAY
• allow PulsedLight Lidar to be disabled at a given height
• fixed bungee launch (long throttle delay)
• fixed a bug handling entering AUTO mode before we have GPS lock
• added CLI_ENABLED parameter
• removed 1D accel calibration
• added EKF_STATUS_REPORT MAVLink message
• added INITIAL_MODE parameter
• added TRIM_RC_AT_START parameter
• added auto-disarm after landing (LAND_DISARMDELAY)
• added LOCAL_POSITION_NED MAVLink message
• avoid triggering a fence breach in final stage of landing
• rebuild glide slope if we are above it and climbing
• use TECS to control throttle on takeoff
• added RUDDER_ONLY parameter to better support planes with no ailerons
• updated Piksi RTK GPS driver
• improved support for GPS data injection (for Piksi RTK GPS)
• added NAV_LOITER_TO_ALT mission item
• fixed landing approach without an airspeed sensor
• support RTL_AUTOLAND=2 for landing without coming to home first
• disabled camera mount support on APM1/APM2
• added support for SToRM32 and Alexmos camera gimbals
• added support for Jaimes mavlink enabled gimbal
• improved EKF default tuning for planes
• updated support for NavIO and NavIO+ boards
• updated support for VRBrain boards
• fixes for realtime threads on Linux
• added simulated sensor lag for baro and mag in SITL
• made it possible to build SITL for native Windows
• switched to faster accel sampling on Pixhawk
• added coning corrections on Pixhawk
• set ARMING_CHECK to 1 by default
• disable NMEA and SiRF GPS on APM1/APM2
• support MPU9255 IMU on Linux
• updates to BBBMINI port for Linux
• added TECS_LAND_PMAX parameter
• switched to synthetic clock in SITL
• support CRRCSim FDM backend in SITL
• new general purpose replay parsing code
• switched to 16g accel range in Pixhawk
• added FENCE_AUTOENABLE=2 for disabling just fence floor
• added POS dataflash log message
• changed GUIDED behaviour to match copter
• added support for a 4th MAVLink channel
• support setting AHRS_TRIM in preflight calibration
• fixed a PX4 mixer out of range error

Many thanks to everyone who contributed to this release. We have a lot of new developers contributing which is really great to see! Also, apologies for those who have contributed a pull request but not yet had it incorporated (or had feedback on the change). We will be trying to get to as many PRs as we can soon.

Best wishes to all APM:Plane users from the dev team, and happy flying!