Blogs

Temperature measurement for ESC after running straight for 8 minutes

Yesterday, we performed 2 rounds of tests, the first was to test the effect of saltwater landings on motors. We found that motors dunked in saltwater after a simulated flight would regularly cause the ESC to fail after 2 flights. We also did some thermal testing of an ESC housed in a sealed carbon tube and found that though it ran a little warm, performance was adequate. For more information, see our MAE 156B page here (https://sites.google.com/a/eng.ucsd.edu/156b-2013-spring-team18/).

We are UCSD ME students currently working on a multicopter project. The multicopter systems are used as oceanographic platforms to collect data. However, there are challenges for the systems to operate in the maritime environment. Therefore, the objectives for this project are to 1. create a lightweight multicopter airframe with improved flight time in comparison to existing designs, 2. demonstrate the ability to take-off and land in a maritime environment, and 3. attach float to multicopter to allow it to land on water.

Here is the link to our project website: https://sites.google.com/a/eng.ucsd.edu/156b-2013-spring-team18/

By Carol Lawrence

Drone manufacturers and users need to be patient while the Federal Aviation Administration goes through the steps to get them safely and properly into the air, an aviation official told industry watchers Tuesday in Thousand Oaks.

Keith Ballenger, an assistant division manger of the Federal Aviation Administration, spoke before an audience of companies that play in one of the nation’s newest technologies — unmanned aircraft systems.

Ballenger’s division handles safety and certifications for the FAA, and that is key to getting unmanned aircraft systems certified and regulated by the federal agency.

Ballenger spoke on the first night of a three-day symposium on drones and their potential for civilian. The event at the Hyatt Westlake Plaza hotel was organized by Assemblyman Jeff Gorell, R-Camarillo, and the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics.

The aviation veteran told the audience what the FAA is up against as it attempts to come up with rules, regulations and ways to evaluate the safety of unmanned aircraft.

“The big quandary within the FAA is: How do we begin to manage that technology?” Ballenger said.

Small unmanned systems, those that weigh less than 50 pounds, are where the FAA will see the bulk of its work, Ballenger said.

The FAA is undergoing what Ballenger called a “huge paradigm shift” as it tries to integrate unmanned aircraft systems into the airspace over the nation used by most civilian aircraft.
Read more: http://www.vcstar.com/news/2013/mar/26/no-headline—uavconffaa/?goback=%2Egde_941207_member_227007557#ixzz2PCN9dhcJ

The New Yorker has a piece in its latest issue about a build your own drone event organized last month by the DC Area Drone User Group. You can read the article at http://www.newyorker.com/talk/2013/04/08/130408ta_talk_stillman. Unfortunately, the New Yorker does have a paywall, so you need to be a subscriber to see the full article. The beginning reads:  

"One recent Saturday morning, in a suburb of Washington, D.C., an eight-year-old boy named Ethan Manners and his father, José (“as in table manners,” the father said), arrived at a party whose invitation read “Do you want to build your own drone?” The Manners contingent was undecided. “We’re in watch-and-learn mode,” José said, explaining that he and Ethan were drawn by the mission of the party’s hosts—the D.C. Area Drone User Group—to promote “the use of flying robots for recreational, humanitarian, and artistic purposes.” Before they invested in their own drone kit, made in China (and available online for around three hundred and twenty-six dollars), they wanted to observe. “Moving from building Legos to drones—it’s like making the switch from the N.C.A.A. to the N.B.A.,” José said. . . "

Senior Oregon Drone Prevention Agent Griswald Krockoberry mans the 1.2 million dollar Pyongyang-made "Iron Wonder Blossom" Drone Detector near the border of California.

January 1, 2013: The sovereign state of Oregon enacts legislation making the possession or use of airborne photo-imaging devices a felony.

January 3, 2013: A Coos Bay, Oregon woman, apparently upset by a caller, was arrested after lofting her iPhone into a trash can next to a Dunkin' Donuts shop in full view of at least a dozen uniformed police officers who happened to be in and around the location. She was charged with operating an airborne photo-imaging device.

January 14 , 2013: Timmy McSyte, age 11, was arrested and booked into the major crimes wing of the Klutch County, Oregon Juvenile Detention Facility after he was observed leaving the ground while skateboarding with a GoPro camera attached to his wrist. A spokesman for the Klutch County Sheriff's Office stated that apparently the young felon's parents had failed to properly secure the device at home and that they might be charged for that negligence.

February 2, 2013: Portland, Oregon police served a search warrant on a Lufthansa Airbus 380 with 532 passengers and crew aboard that had just landed after a flight from Frankfurt. 356 of the passengers along with the pilot and chief purser were arrested and charged with felonies related to their possession and/or use of airborne photo-imaging devices while over the state of Oregon. The aircraft was seized and presumably will be forfeited to the Portland Police Department, whose spokesperson stated that the department was looking forward to using the 380 for traffic enforcement work.

February 5, 2013: Farfetch County, Oregon District Attorney Iam Longschnabel has served a subpoena on the Oregon offices of Google, Inc. requiring that company to divulge the names and addresses of firms providing overhead satellite images for use in Google Earth and Google Maps. The subpoena also demands information about any instances of a Google "Street View" vehicle having been elevated on a hydraulic lift at an oil-changing facility. DA Longschnable stated that "we believe that such controlled vertical elevation meets the definitions of the law and that not only the operator of the vehicle but also the person operating the lift are subject to indictment."  He further stated that "we are looking into the issue of persons who enter elevators while in possession of imaging devices, especially those scary transparent elevators."

February 14, 2013: In a moment of clarity TSA administrators at various Oregon airports have declined the request of the Oregon Attorney General to seize photo-imaging devices that passengers attempt to take through airport security. TSA spokesperson Wanta Lotte said, "Much as we would like to support our brother and sister bureaucrats we estimate that we would be seizing three to five tons of phones, tablets, laptaps and of course cameras per day and we just don't have the room to store these awful things securely.  However, we will provide the names and, um, photographs of scofflaws to local law enforcement."

February 27, 2013: Oregon State Senator Spud Tuberless is sponsoring a bill to outlaw whole potatoes in the state of Oregon. Tuberless said at a press conference held in front of the Portland Farmers' Market that "it is a well known fact, as can be seen by a look at any page of YouTube, that potatoes are being used as video cameras by large numbers of people. This poses an unacceptable threat to the privacy of the citizens of Oregon and must be stopped. Under my bill only potatoes that have been grated, sliced or otherwise rendered incapable of capturing images will be allowed to enter the state." In related news, a Klamath Falls man was arrested for operating an airborne photo-imaging device when he fired a potato from an improvised cannon.

March 1, 2013: In an effort to protect the citizens of Oregon from the trauma and heartbreak of being photographed in public places by their fellow citizens, the state has initiated a no-questions-asked "Camera Buyback" program. Persons voluntarily surrendering their imaging devices receive their choice of a half-cord of firewood or five bales of hay or one pond-reared salmon or one pound of wild mushrooms or (TBA) one of the other two items made in that state. On the first day of operation the program took in three Blackberry phones, one iPhone, one 1923 Kodak Brownie and 384 red-light cameras.

March 11, 2013: California entrepreneurs are setting up "grey market" shops within inches of the largely unsecured and unpatrolled border between California and Oregon, where they are buying up Oregon-outlawed airborne photo-imaging devices brought to them furtively and usually under cover of darkness by frightened but greedy citizens.

March 15, 2013: X-Ray equipment may be outlawed in Oregon: State Representative Michelle Barkfrau, expressing further concerns for her constituents' privacy, has proposed an amendment to the state's airborne photo-imaging device ban that would outlaw x-ray equipment. "We may not need a new law to accomplish this as it is clear that x-rays travel through air and thus fall under the current ban," said Rep. Barkfrau, "but new laws are always a good idea."

April 1, 2013: Peep Party Prevails in Oregon Election: The grass-roots Peep Party, unheard of a year ago, has swept the spring elections in Oregon. The Peep Party platform was largely based on outrage that the state's ban on airborne photo-imaging devices did not go nearly far enough in protecting Oregonians' rights to privacy while in public places. Peep Party spokesman Harry Keller stated at the victory celebration that "the people of Oregon have concurred with us that the human eye, coupled to a brain, constitutes an intrusive imaging device that is designed to violate the privacy of the citizens of this great state." He went on to outline legislation that he said "will correct, once and for all, an outrageous affront to common sense and decency." The legislation will make it a felony to expose an eyeball in public. An amendment will outlaw the possession and sale of eyeglasses and contact lenses. "Aside from the obvious benefit of protecting privacy," Keller said, "this legislation will be an enormous boon to the economy, especially to the makers of robotic devices which will necessarily be tasked with performing many functions now conducted by means of those gross, slimy invasive orbs that were so obviously invented by the Devil."

Happy April 1st!

I recently purchased a raspberry pi from adafruit.  Without much difficulty I was able to get a demo python script for opencv running (see here).  It was able to detect my face as a face and that was kind of exciting.  It was a little choppy obviously, but still pretty fantastic.  I used an old PS2 eyetoy which you can pick up at a gamestop for about $2.  You'll get what you pay for.  One trouble with the Rpi is that they haven't released their camera yet, and it doesn't play well with a lot of USB cameras.  I was also given a GoPro Hero 3 for Christmas.  This is the silver edition, which uses different hardware from other editions.  The GoPro is an incredible little machine.  The GoPro isn't a webcam in the traditional sense, except that it is.  It charges via USB, but it doesn't stream images this way, it uses a webpage and a private Access Point (AP).  It can stream images to an iphone app (and a 3rd party Windows shareware) which begs the question as to how.  To see this work you have to connect your iPhone to the Hero3 as an access point.  My Rpi isn't going to be running Windows, so I'm not interested in the shareware unless I can port it to UNIX.  Looking at the settings on the iPhone, the Hero3 is the router @ 10.5.5.9 and the iPhone is the client at 10.5.5.119.  So I googled 10.5.5.9 & GoPro to see that someone else has already figured out what port to use; 80:80.  When I go to http://10.5.5.9:8080 on my iPhone I get a screen that looks like this:

This is really exciting because I've already seen people using Eye-Fi cards to upload their info.  I have an Eye-Fi and I hate it.  I hate the fact that it won't just let me share over samba windows networking.  That's probably unfair of me.  I'm sure it is, but I already have enough wing-ding widgets trying to run in the taskbar and I didn't want to have to leave a computer on just to transfer files.  Nor did I want to post 1,000's of pictures of my yard to facebook.  I felt really cheated of my money. 

There are 4 directories available from this little unix machine (the GoPro).  DCIM is what you'd expect; a directory for your pics and videos just like on most cards and cameras.  Live is the interesting one (and I don't really know what mjpeg and shutter are for as both were empty).  I have an axis network camera that uses mjpeg which I guess is a moving jpeg, perhaps for embedding. 

However, in the live directory are two .m3u8 files which can be used to view the "live" video feed from the GoPro.  The link above says this is an Apple filetype for streaming to iOS devices.  The files aaba.m3u8 and amba.m3u8 both stream, but the amba seems to sustain the video feed.  "Live" is in quotes because there are a few seconds of delay, just as there is with the GoPro app.  But still, Tada!  Now in theory... all I have to do is have my Rpi log in to my GoPro and I have a video feed.  I still don't know how to get Python to talk to a URL rather than a USB, but I think I can overcome this.  Everything in UNIX is treated as a file, so I doubt it will matter.  I'm not sure I can overcome the lag.  My robot is pretty fast, perhaps not the fastest, but fast enough to wreck in the lag interval.  Note to self, the next time I get it running, I should give my phone to the test driver (my daughter) and track the top speed with GPS.  I would like to stream the video without requiring two wireless cards.  My networking skills aren't awesome, and UNIX does such a great job with multiple nics (network interface connections) that I'll probably just use two cards.

One more piece of curiously juicy information. Googling "amba.m3u8" and "GoPro" returns a .pdf of patched GoPro code.  And, just to confirm, all the coolest stuff is open source: the original tarballs are available from the gopro website.  I don't really have the skills necessary to tackle a project like this.  I'm just hoping my bird-dogging helps the next person barking up the same tree.  It's encouraging to know that the API might be sufficiently accessible to make remote APM2.5 or Rpi control possible.  More likely, the people with the skills to decode an API don't need my help.

My intention is to be able to VNC into the raspberry pi to program my Arduino.  This way I could easily upload completely new sketches wirelessly. The addition of computer vihttp://www.eecs.ucf.edu/seniordesign/fa2008sp2009/g11/pictures.htmlsion is even more exciting. There are a couple of snags so far; I haven't been able to connect to the Rpi with x11VNC from my Oracle Ubuntu VM.  This is possibly because I forgot to connect to a "broadcast"ed SSID.  The Rpi will only connect to WiFi networks which broadcast their SSID.  This is sort of lame because my whole precariously cobbled together network, which is built from repurposed DSL routers as APs, etc, doesn't broadcast.  I realize it doesn't make a difference; it's just a preferance.

There really isn't anything new under the sun in the google-centric universe.  I've found a group of 4 engineering students that did the exact same project 5 years ago that I am attempting now.  They even used the exact same servo for the steering, and they struggled with the same problems in implementation (the knuckle is at an inefficient angle).  One document they posted described how many 100's of hours it took them to build which was sobering.  It made me a little taller.  I can say I'm glad I can buy an arduino for $30 and not have to build it from scratch; I'm pretty sure that saved me a lot of time.  There are probably a lot of things engineering students should have to do for their senior project that a political science student shouldn't have to do.  I have several old GPSs lying around in old iphones, a tomtom, a garmin.  I don't want to have to solder in a new one and invent the wheel.  I hope to keep my design modular enough that I'll be able to plug in an autopilot from diydrones at some point (when they go back to, or below their low of $179!) but that is still a long way off.  In the interim may Moore's law march on.  

The wind was calmer then it has been in months so I decided to see just how stable the Arducopter (2.5 APM, UBlox GPS) can be with the 2.9.1 code.
I was pleased, I could have hovered until the battery runs down. Also, landing while in Loiter is really smooth, much better than I could do flying in stable mode!. Just had flip the switch back to stable mode once down to finish the flight properly.

Follow up from my recent post : 

Arduplane goes to ASPRS

A Great week for all attendants and a glorious 2day for all DIYDrones members and APM users & Devs!!

With glad, i realized that a great amount of US and EU researchers use APM for their work, combine & exchange knowledge and as a super active community members involve rapidly  at their expertizes. 

I was one of the lucky who followed the UAS fundamentals workshop, attended all the wonderfull thinks that photogrammetry and remote sensing geniuses were up to and watch what market leaders had to display, as well as presenting our efforts of creating a UAS for precision agriculture!

A brief trend overveiw

-Market : Computer Vision, LIDAR, cloud photogrammetry computing

-Papers & Posters: Agriculture, Open Source, LIDAR, Remote Sensing of Land Applications, Disaster Management and Rapid Response

-Popular Topics: Vegetation, Automation, LIDAR, UAS/UAV

-Popular debates: Image point cloud vs LIDAR

-VERY popular discussions: FAA.....

There was a dedicated

Special Session: UAS Capabilities Overview, with a great overveiw of the UAS potentuals and a long discussion for there integration at US airspace "system" by FAA. I understud the conserns and problems, but since iam not US citizen, neither fly at, i wont express my opinnion, but i think its usefull to inform you that there is a major consultation with  FAA to overcome any issues.

Heres a quick video with our paper presentaion

If you can tolerate gopro's mic and my terrible english here is the full presentation 

I want to thank

-Every fellow that i ve met at the conference and encouraged our work, i wish them the best,

-All DIYD members for their support, 

And last but not least, my friends and colleagues at UcanDrone Team  

If you missed the conference and you were intersted at a topic here is the final program if you want to find somebody.

Hey, I had to get my roof repaired, and so I took my quad up for a little roof inspection afterwards.  Worked great.  I reckon you could sell this as a package to roofing companies.  That way they could show home owners how bad their roofs are and why they need repair, and then show them how great it looks when all the work is done. 

This is first halt hold (acc z compensation)  + loiter of VRBRAIN using TauLab Firmware (Open Pilot Fork)

Dear Friends,

after some months of work Stefan send me last update about his work on Taulabs Project.

this is his Repo on Github : 

https://github.com/scenkov/vrbrain

Taulab is a fork of Original Open Pilot project , some guys decide to fork it and develop a code that support a lot of different platform .

The main advantages of this project is that native at 32 bit , use a operating system and all the code is write in pure c , not use c++ class. 

A lot more complex of other project but very interesting for developers.

The other advantages of work doing by Stefan is the opportunity to doing some benchmark between two firmware that use same hardware VR Brain . 

Could be interesting evaluate the quality and performance of firmware ported to 32 bit platform as Arducopter32 rev 2.9.1.1 and TauLab that instead use an Operating system and is 32 bit native. 

This is only a introduction of work doing by Stefan he promise me that create a post with more info about his works :)

So this is some example of how vrbrain fly with TauLab Project firmware 

Stable fly :

Simple Fly :

The next step will be : return to home , auto landing and navigation waypoint :)

Original blog post : http://www.virtualrobotix.com/profiles/blogs/vrbrain-and-last-update-on-taulab-project-by-stefan-first-loiter

http://diydrones.com/group/minneapolis-minnesota-fly-club Feel Free To Join!!

*** This Group's Main Focus is to Help Assist in Any Way in the Development of the Fighting Walrus Radio for iOS telemetry***  

This is a group dedicated to networking and organizing/discussing Group Fly Events in and around the Minneapolis area for all Drone,RC,and UAV Hobbyists!

Useful Links to the Fighting Walrus Dev Group and Blogs

Fighting Walrus Radio Dev Group - Click Here To Check It Out!

1. http://diydrones.com/profiles/blogs/usnews-article-on-fighting-walrus-radio?xg_source=activity
2. http://diydrones.com/profiles/blogs/fighting-walrus-on-engadget?xg_source=activity
3. http://diydrones.com/profiles/blogs/ios-groundstation-on-indiegogo?xg_source=activity
4. http://diydrones.com/profiles/blogs/drones-in-engadget-expand-coverage

We have a winner! Adrian Mescalchini is the victor of our "Design a New Banner" competition, and his work is now gracing the top of this page.  We'll work with him to slightly enlarge the type, but the overall design was a clear favorite amongst those voting in the poll over at Google+ (I wanted to also get the views of a broader community, not just the current members of this site)

Coming in a strong second was Petrus Botha, with this impressive range of options:

It was hard to choose just one, so in recognition of two such talented designers, both will be getting a full APM 2.5 kit as prizes. But Adrian, as the people's choice, wins the top award, of the banner at the top of this page.

Many thanks to all the others who entered this competition. Ning, our hosting platform, is moving to a 3.0 version with a lot of new design tools and a cleaner aesthetic, and we'll be migrating to that this summer. That means lots of additional opportunities for this community to contribute to the evolution of our design. More contests, more prizes!

Meanwhile, Adrian and Petrus, if you're looking for more design work, please ping me. We'd love to sign you up for paid design work at 3DR. Or frankly anywhere else where I can use cool graphics. You both rock!

Our target is to have a multicopter

• to capture smooth video --> choose to make a flying steadycam
• to have redundancy for safety--> choose an octa / 8 motor configuration.

V-frame was chosen over X-frame due to better fit with with steadycam.

Arducopter works fine - we have noticed 2 bugs with MissionPlanner

• Octa X gets changed to the frame form every time when PIDs are tuned in mission planner. Terminal must be used to set the V-frame form back.
• Motor test does not seem to work with terminal for octa V.

2.9.0 seemed to work fine, so we used that.

Frame is fully DIY-frame - Octa V is a rare frame form. Better do-it-yourself.

Some specs:

• Turnigy 2217 x 8
• 1147 APC props x 8
• Arduflyer chip
• 2 x 4 Ah 3S Lipos. 20C seems to be a bit too little for this beast.

We have maidened the octa V. Now the next challenge is to tune the gimball. So eager to see the first video captures with this ship!

Videos posted online of multicopter crashes including the one of the DJI S800 crashing in a stadium in Brazil and the aerobot crashing in the CBD of Auckland NZ make the public and safety regulators concerned about drone operations.  Every drone crash posted online is a hit to our community, whereas every successful drone flight shows the public the potential and future importance of drones.

The guys at Coptercam have once done it again by being the first to provide live HD broadcast from a UAV at the Rip Curl Pro at Bells Beach.  http://live.ripcurl.com/foxkopter-to-take-flight-at-bells.html

Some critics had said that Coptercam would "destroy this for everyone" when Coptercam was granted permission from the Civil Aviation Safety Authority to live HD broadcast at the Cricket on Fox Sports in 2012.  After a successful season of the Cricket and National Rugby League, hobbyists haven't been negatively affected and the results speak lfor themselves. http://youtu.be/N3vpx9E6He4

I thought I would post some information about some research I have done.
This video shows a simulation of UAVs swarming with an advanced control algorithms.

Seven UAVs are shown, which find a source of fumes or aerosols by measuring the concentration at their actual position. Due to communication and a distributed Extended Kalman Filter they estimate the fumes position. These UAVs fly at a certain concentration line, which in the video is marked blue.
This is just a demonstartion of one kind of task for the swarm.

I finally have found some time and good weather conditions to try my new quadcopter.

Unfortunately, it was absolutely not like I thought it would.

After few attempts (three), I noticed that it was not well "balanced" and has the tendency to fly sideways.

But then, the unexpected happens. It took off by it self. I wasn't touching anything on the remote and went up a meter and half before I decided to take it down using the sticks to not to lose it.

Here are some pictures that I took after the crash.

So I was wondering if there's a way to know how it behaved this way to avoid this from happening next time?

Anyway, it seems like I will not be flying it any time soon as many bolts broke and I can't get my hand on any soon.

I hope you guys have an idea and can help me understand what really happened!

Cheers!

Saad

From Hackaday. How many of these would be aplicable to UAVs?

The above video just one of many demonstrations from the many swarm robotics research projects going on at the University of Sheffield’s Natural Robotics Lab.

The main focus for all of the research is to see what can be accomplished by getting a large group of relatively simple machines to work together. Each device has a microcontroller brain, camera, accelerometer, proximity sensors, and a microphone. By mixing and matching the use of available components they can test different concepts which will be useful in creating utility robot swarms for real-world tasks. The video shows off the robots grouping themselves by like characteristic, a test called segregation (the purpose of this didn’t resonate with us), and group tasks like moving that box. The nice thing is that a series of white papers is available at the post linked above (click on the PDF icon) so that you may dig deeper if these projects are of interest to you.

WASHINGTON — It’s a good bet that in the not-so-distant future, aerial drones will be part of everyday life in the U.S.

Far from the killing machines whose missiles incinerate terrorists overseas, these generally small, unmanned aircraft will help police departments find missing people. Real estate agents will use them to film videos of properties and surrounding neighborhoods. Oil companies will use them to monitor pipelines.

With military budgets shrinking, drone makers have been counting on the civilian market to spur the industry’s growth.

But the industry worries that it will be grounded because of public fear that the technology will be misused.

Some companies say the uncertainty has caused them to put U.S. expansion on hold, and they are looking overseas for new markets.

“Our lack of success in educating the public about unmanned aircraft is coming back to bite us,” said Robert Fitzgerald, chief executive officer of The BOSH Group, which provides support services to drone users.

http://www.theleafchronicle.com/viewart/20130329/NEWS01/303290052/Civilian-drones-crosshairs-amid-privacy-worries

Earlier this year there was some discussion of the AllwaysInnovating Mecam.  Here's some more details, which make the unit very interesting.

The MeCam is based on the Always Innovating Cortex-A9 SoC Module which can run from 1.0GHz to 1.5GHz depending on the configuration. It's the world smallest module available on the market that offers GHz Arm-based CPU, 1GB RAM, SD card, 2.4GHz/5GHz Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity. 

It's amazing to see the compute power getting ever cheaper and ever smaller!

http://www.alwaysinnovating.com/products/mecam-photos.htm