Blogs

7/18/2013 8:45 Am MDT

Launch from Route 66 Casino near Albuquerque.

Almost took my tongue with it !

Highest altitude was 65000 ft.

Maximum speed 45 Mph

PX4IO with 430 Mhz telemetry worked GREAT. Used 20 element 440 beam on ground and 3 element on balloon. Saw telemetry all the way.

APM 2.0 worked good also. Only the top camera didn't work. GoPro was fantastic. Cheep

down pointing gumstick camera recorded all the way up/down. Both APRS units worked good.

Recovered on Indian reservation 40 miles from launch.

Only got to 65000 ft because my knot at the balloon slipped! I told the crew I shouldn't tie the knot!

Video to be uploaded soon.....

Earl

The below Safety Notice is in relation to the UAS crash at one of Britan's X Factor auditions

Dear UAS Operator,

As a current permission holder for aerial work, we are sending you this email to inform you of a recently issued Safety Notice.  Safety Notices and Information Notices are issued by the CAA with the aim of improving flight safety.

The Safety Notice is available on the following link –

SN-2013/012: Small Unmanned Aircraft - Security of Antenna Mounts

The purpose of this Safety Notice is to highlight the requirement for the operator of a Small Unmanned Aircraft (SUA) to be reasonably satisfied that the flight can be safely made and that all appropriate checks on the SUA are completed before take-off.

It is possible to obtain a full list of Safety Notices and Information Notices using the following links - www.caa.co.uk/informationnotices and  www.caa.co.uk/safetynotices  

We have just completed a pioneer project with Dr Chue Poh Tan from ETH university, Zurich for her postdoctoral research on tropical rain forest biomass estimation with low cost UAV.

Flying in the middle of dense tropical rain forest is very challenging. Looking for a suitable takeoff and landing site is almost "mission impossible". But we are blessed with a team of highly knowledgeable forestry department staff lead by a senior officer. Finally we have two site to lunch the UAV.

I'm using my Skywalker base UAV with the same configuration as this, But I have upgrade it with the APM 2.5 and ublox GPS and 2.73 firmware. The new navigation controller is really amazing. My plane now trace perfectly along the grid line. It also hold altitude better than previous version. I'm totally happy with my current set up and a big thank you for the arduplane development team.

The real challenge of flying in forest is definitely landing. Although we may have a suitable site for landing but it is all surround by tall trees. The window for approaching is very narrow. Most of the time we have to do a steep dive to lose altitude once the plane pass those tall tree. 

We fly a total of 8 mission in three difference area including one using a modify near infra red camera. There are a few thousands geo-ref image waiting for the Doctor to analyse. I think she will be busy for sometime.

Here I share the tlog from one of the mission and you can see how well the new controller is.

2013-07-18%2010-26-32.tlog 

Looks like CNN changed their music but finally some good exposure-

From Engineering.com

Created by Dr. Paul Pounds at the University of Queensland, Australia, the drones are designed to be so cheaply manufactured that they can be single-use, disposable robots.

The first design, modeled after a paper plane, is created from a cellulose sheet that has electronic circuits ink-jet printed directly onto its body.  Once the circuits have been laid on the plane’s frame, the craft is exposed to a UV curing process, turning the planes body into a flexible circuit board.  These circuits are then connected to the planes “avionics system”, two elevons attached to the rear of the craft, which give the UAV the ability to steer itself to its destination.

The second design from Dr. Pounds’ lab is named the Samara.  It’s an odd looking UAV designed to mimic a maple seed. The Samara is built from a rigid circuit board with sensors housed on a tiny round PCB at its leading end.

The proposed use for the Samara is to drop a huge number of them from a larger vehicle to survey a vast swath of land. Because of its unique design the Samara would fall gently to the ground, rotating like a helicopter’s blades, collecting valuable environmental information on its way back to Earth.

Whether Dr. Pounds’ designs ever see full scale production is still to be seen. However, as more researchers, corporations and militaries look to big data for ways to understand complex systems, UAVs like these could be in high demand.

(via MakerBlock)

This shot  was taken about half an hour before a storm moved in, using my inexpensive aerial stitched photo technique I wrote about HERE.

This is a video taken during a storm (not the same one though).

I put my cheap standard def camera on, because I still baby my $40 keychain cam a bit, and the 20mph winds made me nervous. The quad on the other hand is a tank. I have flown it full speed into a tree without a scratch.

So, now you know why I call myself HeliStorm! 

Also, I know some people have been enjoying my videos, and pictures, done on the cheap. I am thinking of starting a site for low cost drone tips, tricks, etc. 

Thanks for all the views of my blog posts, my videos, and my pictures! This is a great community, of which I am proud to be a part.

Saw this today: http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/sideshow/drone-hunting-colorado-172357477.html

It's interesting that the article leads with a photo of a hexacopter, calls it an octocopter, and the drone bounty being discussed would reward people for turning in "identifiable parts of an unmanned aerial vehicle whose markings and configuration are consistent with those used on any similar craft known to be owned or operated by the United States federal government".  So, presumably it's nothing to do with multi-rotors or hobbyist craft, but that's what they include a photo of?  Sigh.

DomiCopter Case Study from AeroSight on Vimeo.

This is a project I worked on that made global news

http://www.psfk.com/2013/07/drone-evolution.html#.Uea1TfEVR1o.facebook

I was recently interviewed about "drones" by the Wall Street Journal. Most FPV footage in the video is mine as well. You can watch the video here: http://on.wsj.com/15Fiqae

I took my new Pulsar H-8 Octocopter for a test flight tonight.  I'm getting ready for more flights with the Nex5 camera, so I wanted to give it a bit of a shakedown run. For this flight it has a Contour camera mounted just for fun.  Previous to this flight, some of the bearings sounded and felt a little iffy...  and now we know why!

One of the motors failed and came apart in flight.  It appears that when it came off, it actually hit another propeller, stopping it.  The H-8 now had two adjacent props stopped which isn't good.  It does a flip, but then miraculously recovers after the second motor re-starts.  I've never seen a better example of Arducopter stability and fault tolerance.  In the past, I've disabled motors by removing the props to test the performance, but it's just not the same as the real thing.

The IEEE Robots App has just been updated to a new version and is now FREE.

It features the 3DR Hexacopter and over 150 other robots.

Thanks to Erico and Randi, with IEEE Spectrum Magazine, for including us in this project!

Check it out here: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/robots-for-ipad/id566581906?ls=1&mt=8

Was wondering when someone would get this working.

Over on hackaday.com, they have a writeup with video of using the Occulus Rift as an FPV headset.

Original source.

Today is mid July and it is time to start Ecilop Eco sales!
We have promised that the price for kit self-assembly will be less than $100.

But "Ecilop Flying Camera" Team decided to make even better deal for you!

We are sharing drawings and technical docs of Ecilop Eco model for free!
It will be our first opened project. And we hope it will help you easy to make your first flying camera model.

Just:
1. Visit our web page to take drawings and other instructions
2. Assemble your own Ecilop Eco and equip it
3. Fly with your model and make good videos
4. Share your experince and videos on Ecilop Eco RCGroups page

You can donate to the development of this project if you like. Thank you in advance!

We wish you a good luck!

"Ecilop Flying Camera" Team

A video of the Shrediquette GEMiNi:

Hi everyone! I just posted this already in the internet somewhere else, but I think it might be worth a blog-post on DIYdrones as well, as it contains some information on motors / propellers / aerodynamics that might be interesting to you guys...:

I spent some time during holidays to design a new FPV hexacopter based on my latest flight controller (see details here: click) and a canopy which was designed using CAD.

Cheap hobbyking motors were shown to have the same performance as the more expensive Roxxy ones (see details here: click). I found propellers that I did not know before (see details here: click) and that are more efficient than the AirAce propellers. The props are tilted 10° forward in order to decrease the angle of attack of the copters body in forward flight, which, together with the canopy, decreases the net aerodynamic drag in fast translational flight by about 30% (see details here: click). This copter flies even faster than the BOLT (see here: click) and it seems more maneuvrable. The GEMïNï is however slightly larger, the max. dimension is 315 mm from propeller tip to propeller tip (diagonally). I use the CCD-Killer camera, and a 25 mW Airwave module for video transmission. The CCD-Killer is still my favorite camera in terms of image quality and exposure control vs. weight and size.

Ever since I built my first tricopter, I wanted to build a canopy that somehow resembles the Limulus, an impressive animal that seems to have survived from the primeval times (see details here: click)... I like the design of the Limulus ("Horseshoe crab") a lot. Now I had the opportunity to print the model in 3D and to cast it using thermoformed flat film (Polystyrol).
The GEMïNï is extremely fun to fly, it seems to be very fast and agile - better than any copter I built before. For one full FPV flight of the GEMïNï, see this video:

I am very much interested in FPV multirotorracing, anyone that likes to have a fun competition, please tell me!

All the best,

William (Bremen / Germany)

I just finished building a tilt-rotor quadcopter. I started the project about a year ago, starting with a 3DRobotics quad frame to learn the ropes. At this point, the only thing that remains from the original quad is the APM and ESCs.

I planned to add wings on the arms to allow the quad to generate lift while flying forward, but I haven’t gotten around to trying that yet. The original design also had four servos so each arm could tilt independently, but that ended up being too heavy and too difficult to synchronize the servos, so I ended up changing it to have just one servo in the front and one in the rear. This lets the quad fly forward/backwards without having to pitch forward and allows for differential control of the two servos to control pitch in forward flight.

The main drawback right now is that it's too heavy. For the next version, I'd like to reduce weight and streamline the design. I'll probably replace the wooden frame with carbon-fiber, get rid of the wheels, and use the space inside more efficiently so I can fit the APM and an FPV system inside the body. Below are some videos and pictures from my build. This is my first blog post on diydrones, so I hope you like it!

Here's what's on the inside:

Completed iQuad before flight:

(the mast on the back was a GoPro mount which I ended up removing to reduce weight)

I'm attempting to build a 9kg hex that can drop 6 beers on parachutes to people floating between houseboats on a lake.

I need your ideas: How can I adjust the tuning parameters in-flight to account for the loss of 6 x 400g beers, which is 25% of the AUW?

The beers are released by the rotary latch release pictured above. I can mix (copy) this to channel 6 and use the channel to vary something like CH6_RATE_KP along the range of the drops, but this doesn't let me also adjust other valuable params such as stabilization P.
Safety is a primary concern, and I won't fly over my floating friends unless it's rock solid. Safety prompted the heavy structure that is now my challenge. I have a large blade guard superstructure that sits on the floats and serves as a frame for a protective net of thin UHMWPE thread.

It's been tough recognizing the right PIDs no matter how many videos I watch of other people tuning, or how much I practice on Jason's PID sim. My thrust-to-weight ratio is 2.0 with four beers; the flight above was with two.

Compassmot result is <1% and vibration looks OK, right?

I'll skip detailing my design until it's really working, but thanks to everyone for the ideas and inspiration, particularly Robert's offset motor build thread.

I have three days left, so I'm looking for software tuning ideas. I don't have time to reduce the moment of inertia or re-engineer a better frame. I'll leave it at home if it's not ready for safe flight.

Thanks for your help and ideas!

I’ve been curious about what installation conditions I need to worry about when building my APM based quad. We are all very aware of how magnetic interference affects the compass but I was curious how different light sources, magnetic fields and heat affect all of the IMU sensors.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MrEPsA34daY

I did some testing on my workbench. This is by no means an “experiment” as I was rather lackluster in controlling outside variables and I certainly didn’t run the test more than a few times. (Basically I ran each test once off camera just to make sure I wasn’t going to make a video of nothing.)

You will notice a distinct lack of accelerometer data in the videos. That is simply because I couldn’t seem to cause any interference to the accelerometers with light, magnetic fields or heat. I chose to ignore that portion of the IMU for my tests.

What I learned from this was that I need to put additional light blocking materials to the sides of my APM. I did some testing with the case on and light definately leaks in through the foam from the sides. I was surprised how much of a difference it made. I’ve experienced altitude loss during aggressive maneuvers with Alt Hold and I wouldn’t be surprised if this was contributing to the issue.

I also learned that heat affects the gyro. I’ve had a few roll over issues recently that have been diagnosed as a bad gyro. (I’m only 90% convinced that it’s a bad gyro. It will work perfectly for weeks and then just go nuts. Once it goes crazy it will only stay broken until the APM is power cycled.) I normally do my test flights outside of my home. This would involve cold power on in a 72 degree work room followed by a transition to a sunny 80+ outdoors. I’m going to do additional testing on this to see if I can reproduce my exact issue with heat only in controlled conditions.

Let me know if you have any other questions about my tests or if there is anything that I should investigate further during my next round of testing.

Also, some gratuitous FPV flight from my other quad.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rxO0mrCKsLU

Hi ya'll,

So Droneshare has become popular enough I was running out of compute resources on my free Heroku instance.  3D Robotics has been kind enough to donate an EC2 instance in their cluster, so I've moved Droneshare over to their server.

For those not familiar, droneshare is an optional/free way to share your flights/tlogs/param files with friends.  Support for uploading to droneshare is built into the Andropilot ground control system.  Drag-and-drop upload is also included on the webpage (though its features are currently a bit limited).

Droneshare/andropilot should work with any vehicle that uses tlog files or mavlink.

Key features of droneshare:

• View flights on google maps or earth
• Download auto generated KML files
• Download auto extracted PARAM files
• Basic parameter plotting (eventually hopefully someone else will make the plotting much nicer)
• Warn about param files with suspicious values
• Sharing links so you can share your flight with G+ or facebook

If you are a dev and want instructions on how to add support to your GCS for droneshare uploads, just send me a note (in short, just a REST PUT with a few params).  Eventually I'll be setup to have other devs help out with the development of droneshare - but I still haven't done some cleanup I need to do. (Before sharing the source I need to change amazon authentication so API access can't leak)

Any questions/ideas/feedback on droneshare/andropilot are always welcome...

Kevin

I built a Tricopter that front motors can tilt forward to gain speed.

I also added gears so that It can take-off and land like a plane !!!

Motors also can tilt-backward so it looks like a Scorpion with high tails and can move backward on gears .

asdfa
I'll be presenting in the COSMOS Distinguished Leture Series on the campus of U.C. Davis on Wednesday.

Synopsis: "This talk will be about hobbyist drones. We'll talk about how they are made, the interesting technological innovations that make them possible, and how you can build your own. I'll bring a couple of homemade drones (both multirotor and fixed wing) for you to examine. Conditions permitting, we'll take them out for a flight following the talk."

July 31, 2013, 1:00 - 1:50 p.m.
UC Davis Conference Center, Ballroom A, B, C

If you happen to be in the area stop by and say hello!