Posted by Timm Murray on September 1, 2013 at 7:30am
Hi all, I'm the creator of UAV::Pilot, a library for controlling the Parrot AR.Drone under Perl. It supports controlling the AR.Drone, its nav data stream, and real-time video display.
If you happen to be around Madison, WI, you can come join us for a presentation that I'll be giving on Sept 10. If you're not into programming but just want to check out some flying robots, feel free to come; I'll be covering the basics of drones along with the programming parts.
For those of you who can't make it, I should have a video up on YouTube afterword.
For decades, unpersoned planes have been used by the military in places such as Afghanistan and Pakistan to watch the ground and deliver weapons controlled by remote pilots thousands of kilometres away. But now companies and experts are putting their minds to turning military drones into civilian vehicles that can do things cheaper and better than piloted planes. Peter Day investigates unmanned aerial vehicles and how they are already being used by farmers and the police. Also, could a drone be delivering your pizza in the not too distant future? Show less
For decades, unpersoned planes have been used by the military in places such as Afghanistan and Pakistan to watch the ground and deliver weapons controlled by remote pilots thousands of kilometres away. But now companies and experts are putting their minds to turning military drones into civilian vehicles that can do things cheaper and better than piloted planes. Peter Day investigates unmanned aerial vehicles and how they are already being used by farmers and the police. Also, could a... Show more
The new PX4 Pixhawk module is an evolvement of the existing FMU and IO modules and completely compatible. The main difference is the target audience: While the FMU and IO stack is super small (the size of an average 8 ch RC receiver) but in some ways almost too densely packed, Pixhawk has more space, more serial ports and more PWM outputs.
As the above picture shows, there are two groups of servo connectors, one main group of 8 outputs which are wired through the backup processor, and an auxiliary group of 6 outputs directly wired to the main processor. The port labeled "RC" can take normal PPM sum or Futaba S.Bus inputs, the port labeled "SB" can read RSSI our output S.Bus to servos. A Spektrum satellite compatible port is on top (labeled SPKT/DSM).
The basic operation is the same, and the software is shared. Inside Pixhawk a FMUv2 and an IOv2 do their duties on a single board (and developers will find that the software will refer to FMUv2 and IOv2)
The main differences between old and new are:
14 PWM outputs vs. 12 PWM (old)
All PWM outputs on servo connectors (old: 8 on servo, 4 on DF13)
5 serial ports vs. 4 (with some double functionality, so only 3 in some configurations on old version)
256 KB RAM and 2 MB flash vs 192 KB RAM and 1 MB flash (old)
Modernized sensor suite (latest generation)
High-power buzzer driver (old: VBAT driven, not as loud)
High-power multicolor led (old: only external BlinkM support)
Support for panel-mounted USB extension (old: not present)
Revised, improved power architecture
Better protection on all input / output pins against shorts and over voltage
Better sensing of power rails (internal and external, e.g. servo voltage)
Support for Spektrum Satellite pairing (needed some manual wiring work in v1, but also software-supported)
No more solid state relays on v2 (was not really used)
Connectors easier to disconnect in case, as the surrounding plastic helps to place the fingers correctly (more on this in a separate post)
Case prevents one-off failure operation of servo connectors
The new unit is consirably larger, has the same height, but offers in general more handling convenience.
External power supply similar to existing 3DR power brick (every unit comes with a free module)
Both generations offer the same backup / override processor that allows failover to manual if the autopilot fails in fixed wing setups. For software developers the differences are nicely abstracted in the PX4 middleware, and can be sensed / configured at runtime.
Posted by Adam Conway on August 31, 2013 at 6:26pm
My 5 year son executed a fantastic Labor Day build, so I thought I would share...
Frame: Mead Heavy Weight construction paper in "X"
Autopilot: "authentic" purple APM
GPS: Yup, that is the white thing.
Props: Orange
This quad also advances the state of the art by including a feather "to see how fast the wind is blowing" - no joke, that is what he said. I may try that on my quad.
Anyhow, this made me laugh and I thought I would share, for those in the US have a nice labor day weekend - outside the US, have a nice weekend too.
Posted by Scott Fuller on August 30, 2013 at 11:30pm
It's not everyday I get a text message asking if I want to fly with two test engineers from 3dRobotics. But who would pass up the opportunity? Joe and Craig wandered down to SEFSD today to tune some of the airframes they were working on. Plus they wanted to check out my X7. Here's some flying with Joe, Craig, and my friend Josh. This is THE most APM's we've had in the air at SEFSD at one time!
Thanks for coming down guys! Can't wait to fly with you again!
Found the story intriguing. Batteries remane fickle things. Their total charge is still only estimated by stopwatches & coulomb counters, but there is no dip stick for a battery. Even a pilot experienced enough to keep 1 eye on the flight time while the other eye is on the 5000 other details still is often surprised when a battery comes up empty ahead of schedule.
Sometimes you forget to charge batteries. Battery chargers sometimes don't finish charging because they overheat or their own supply sags. Sometimes they don't start charging because of a balky button or a poorly designed user interface. Sometimes they report maximum voltage despite no longer holding a full charge.
A return to launch feature when the battery is low also remanes fickle. GPS comes & goes anywhere besides a wide open field. Is the return to launch feature supposed to count coulombs & maintain a database of every battery's capacity in order to determine when to end the flight? Should the pilot enter in the current battery ID or should the batteries have ID chips, raising the cost & complexity?
It's yet another one of the variables & details that keeping something in the air still involves keeping your mind on. There is still a lot of room in the current state of reliability to keep the price, complexity & training beyond the reach of hobbyists before the personal drone becomes as ubiquitious & hand off as the marketing campaigns depict.
Here's a video demo at the Berkeley Marina of the APM/Mission Planner UAV swarming interface (control-F in the MP). Although it's designed for multicopters, we tested it first on autonomous ArduRovers (APM-powered cars), which are slow and safe. First demo: Leader-follower, using only GPS data. Works like a baby duck following its mother!
Popular Science has a fun slideshow of weird drones and other robots at the AUVSI show a couple weeks ago. Above, a really cool "pop-up drone":
Created by Bird Aerospace, the Bird's Eye drone comes in a launch cylinder that fires it 300 feet into the air, where it self-assembles and then flies for up to three hours. Whoa.
Its full range is over 40 miles, though it can only stream high-definition video back to a pilot from 20 or fewer miles away. Images from the flight can also be stored on board, and collected from an SD card in the drone is retrieved. It also has a Styrofoam body like the Skate, and it too launches quickly enough to be useful to soldiers on the battlefield.
VR Copter Landing Gear now we have a new Option for our new frame. (raw video from VR LAB)
nice compensation example start at 1.30
This video is doing by our VRGimbal user VR Gimbal with Sony 3D HXRNX3D1U ( 720 gr) in handeld mode
This is a video using complete VRGimbal with Panasonic GH2
..and this is another video of the same copter (in HD)
Dear Friends,
after first batch of board available only for developer and hard work on firmware , hardware and software we are ready for end user :)
These are specification of our : VR Gimbal :
Micro Controller is STM32F1 at 72 mhz.
3 Axis Brushless Direct Drive gimbal :
Roll (MOT1)
Pitch (MOT2)
Yaw (MOT3)
For each channel we have 3 high power pwm 5 Amp output .
I2C IMU that support 3 axis . It is on camera module , so we can know exactly the position of camera and control in realtime the 3 Brushless motors. MPU6050 (6 DOF) + HMC5883 (3 DOF)
1 USB port.
1 Serial port that support mavlink protocol.
1 Power module that support until 3S battery.
4 Radio RC Input for :
Control ROLL Setup.
Control Pitch Setup.
Control YAW Setup.
IR control repeater.
4 Analog Input 0-3.3v
1 IR Out , so is pssible to control a remote camera by its ir receiver.
On new revision 2.0 we add :
customizable push buton.
support for motors ampere monitor for each motors.
Very intuitive Firmware update tools.
Simple and powerfull VR Gui for VR Gimbal configuration.
Serial driver on USB port.
A complete and updated wiki repository with media gallery with last video from our user.
In this video is possible see the utility available for measure the current used by different kind of motors. This feature is very usefull for evaluate the specification of motors.
Is available a new tools for firmware update you can found more detail here :
Last revision of code is 1.0.5 this is good for end user all function of standard brushless gimbal is available and is possible also to manage the 3th axe using rc radio. This firmware is a porting and BruGi_049B_r161
Completed PID mode on Roll and Pitch, with support of RC commands.
Manual (RC) mode (to be used on Yaw for now) working but requires improvement.
So if you want to join in development you are welcome .
This is a screenshot of VR Gimbal Gui developed using .net technology, so could be work also using mono on mac and linux , test on that platform is welcome ,you can connect directly by usb to VR Gimbal or by radio link as 3dr module , blueetooth or other ttl wireles adapter :
With VRGimbal is possible to control this kind of gimbal ;
Handheld and Air Drone Gimbal 2-3axis Entry level gopro gimbal.
Handheld and Air Drone Gimbal 2-3axis Heavy dslr gimbal.
This is an example of video doing by our user of VRGimbal on heavy dslr gimbal :
This is official thread in virtualrobotix community is here join us for have more info and support :
Posted by Gary Mortimer on August 30, 2013 at 1:30am
Sorry if you have seen this before, I have been watching this one and don't think it has come up here much. No doubt for all sorts of reasons variable pitch will become popular. The aerobatics are just the half of it.
If you are having a Friday Flyday enjoy it, otherwise everyone have a safe weekend.
Posted by Tom Mahood on August 29, 2013 at 10:30pm
...Or so says the Joint Regional Intelligence Center. JRIC is yet another anti-terrorist agency most people have never heard of and is comprised of the Feds and law enforcement agencies in the counties of Southern California. The following single page information bulletin was sent out to JRIC's member agencies on August 27, 2013. There are more than a few things that are interesting in it.
I wasn't sure if the original pdf file would present well in a blog posting so I converted it to a jpg. It should still be legible.
Posted by Usman Qayyum on August 29, 2013 at 3:30pm
We have developed a PID position controller that can communicate with arducopter via 3DR radio. The position controller is running on the ground computer and transmitting the commands to hexacopter at 50HZ via mavlink protocol. The mavlink packet used during our test flights is "set_roll_pitch_yaw_thrust_send". We have tested the hovering flight for the developed controller. Please email me, if source code is required.
Almost exactly one year after the first PX4 announcement, we would like to introduce our newest member of the family, Pixhawk! For those familiar with the existing PX4 electronics, it is the all-in-one board combining PX4FMU + PX4IO, combined with a processor and sensor update and a number of new features. The current board revisions will however remain in full service and active development and are fully compatible. Pixhawk is designed for improved ease of use and reliability while offering unprecedented safety features compared to existing solutions.
Pixhawk is designed by the PX4 open hardware project and manufactured by 3D Robotics. It features the latest processor and sensor technology from ST Microelectronics which delivers incredible performance and reliability at low price points.
The flexible PX4 middleware running on the NuttX Real-Time Operating System brings multithreading and the convenience of a Unix / Linux like programming environment to the open source autopilot domain, while the custom PX4 driver layer ensures tight timing. These facilities and additional headroom on RAM and flash will allow Pixhawk the addition of completely new functionalities like programmatic scripting of autopilot operations.
The PX4 project offers its own complete flight control stack, and projects such as APM:Copter and APM:Plane have ported their software to run as flight control applications. This allows existing APM users to seamlessly transition to the new Pixhawk hardware and lowers the barriers to entry for new users to participate in the exciting world of autonomous vehicles.
The flagship Pixhawk module will be accompanied by new peripheral options, including a digital airspeed sensor, support for an external multi-color LED indicator and an external magnetometer. All peripherals are automatically detected and configured.
Features
32 bit ARM Cortex M4 Processor running NuttX RTOS
14 PWM / Servo outputs (8 with failsafe and manual override, 6 auxiliary,
high-power compatible)
Abundant connectivity options for additional peripherals (UART, I2C, CAN)
Integrated backup system for in-flight recovery and manual override with
dedicated processor and stand-alone power supply
Backup system integrates mixing, providing consistent autopilot and manual
override mixing modes
Redundant power supply inputs and automatic failover
External safety switch
Multicolor LED main visual indicator
High-power, multi-tone piezo audio indicator
microSD card for long-time high-rate logging
Specifications
32bit STM32F427 Cortex M4 core with FPU
168 MHz
256 KB RAM
2 MB Flash
32 bit STM32F103 failsafe co-processor
ST Micro L3GD20H 16 bit gyroscope
ST Micro LSM303D 14 bit accelerometer / magnetometer
MEAS MS5611 barometer
Interfaces
5x UART (serial ports), one high-power capable, 2x with HW flow control
Servo rail high-power (up to 10V) and high-current ready (10A +)
All peripheral outputs over-current protected, all inputs ESD protected
Monitoring of system and servo rails, over current status monitoring of peripherals
Dimensions
Weight: 38g (1.31oz)
Width: 50mm (1.96")
Thickness: 15.5mm (.613")
Length: 81.5mm (3.21")
Availability
This announcement is a service to our users and developers to allow them to plan their hardware roadmaps in time, and to show what we're currently working on. The board will not be immediately available, but 3D Robotics is taking pre-orders for Pixhawk now, and will begin shipping in late October [Update 11/11: the current expected ship date is late Nov]. The price is $199.99.
Posted by Tommy Larsen on August 29, 2013 at 10:37am
I sat down and made a sketch after i got the idea of making a full-size Y6 with an APM2.5 and Arducopter firmware :)
A MC like seat and maybe an Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 running AndroPilot or Droidplanner on the dashboard. Or maybe even Mission Planner. Just make a mission and go for a ride :)
This is the frame for the enignes and this will be covered by a Carbon fiber body.
I guess there will be some hard-core calculations for engine dimensions, weight and propellers. But imagine how cool it will be to ride this Air-Scooter in Stabilize or other modes!! Maybe this is an idea for a Kickstarter prosject??? I would love to start the building and testing of this future scooter! :-)
We did a recent flight minutes after an attempted break in to scan the area for criminals possibly hiding behind walls etc. We took off from a nearby field and allways stay directly over the flield (just in case).
The APM on AC 3.0.1 has been doing a great job in keeping the Tarot T810 hexa in the air (this frame is epic!) and I'm very happy with a flight time of 20mins (considering the load it's carrying). The Flir is mounted to a Martinez stabilized brush-less gimbal.
We love drones here at MAKE. The growth of the recreational and commercial drone space is exciting to watch. If you’re a drone enthusiast with an eye for videography we want to see your stuff and share your POV with the world on this site and on our YouTube channel.
Send your videos to me at sholbrook [at] makermedia [dot] com with “MAKE Drones” in the subject. Be sure to include any technical details about your drone build, your camera rig, your drone’s mission, and other drone geekery.
For inspiration, check out this video from last year. It’s a stunner. Of course, don’t try anything like this unless you’re an experienced pilot. And to be sure you’re not going to draw heat from the feds, here are the FAA’s rules and regulations on unmanned aircraft vehicles—aka drones. See you in the friendly skies!
I have submitted a pull request https://github.com/diydrones/ardupilot/pull/520 that adds Spektrum satellite support to the APM2.0/2.5. I know this was possible with the old APM1 and I've seen some people requesting this for the new APM.
I have tested it quite a bit on the desk, but not in flight, since I haven't completed my UAV yet (I wanted this to work first so it will be less of a cable mess). You are free to test it but I take no responsibility if it makes your UAV crash. This is my first contribution to an open source project so I'm not 100% sure about the workflow, but I thought I'd post here as well as adding a pull request, and hope that the right people can test it and verify that it works.
Note that you need some sort of adapter because the satellite is designed for 3.3V, a simple regulator should be enough, since 3.3V is still enough for the AVR to detect as high. I use a fancy adapter that a colleague of mine built, it allows me to connect 2 satellites for diversity and merges it to one output.
Connect a jumper between channel 3 and 4 to enable this mode. It currently does not work with 11 bit frames, and you may experience servo glitches when you have the the USB cable connected. See the pull request for more info.
