Blogs

Development moved to github

We moved APM development from subversion to git quite a while ago, and it was a big improvement, but we've been noticing quite a few rough edges to the git support on code.google.com. Meanwhile, github.com has been rapidly developing as a great platform for projects like ours, with a really nice workflow and great issue tracking. One of the big advantages of git is that it's easy to move to a new host, so we decided to move APM development to github.com. The new master repository is at https://github.com/diydrones/ardupilot and the old repository on code.google.com has been frozen with no new commits.

One of the big advantages of github is a nicer system for people to submit patches for inclusion in the master tree. On github this is called a "pull request" and it is explained nicely in the documentation. I'd encourage all APM developers to have a look through the github documentation.

The pull request system also has the advantage that it is much easier for everyone to see what patches are pending review and inclusion in the tree.

Another major change is that we've reduced the number of people that have direct access to pushing new code in the master branch. The way we worked previously was that if you submitted a couple of good patches then you would be given direct push access for future work. That sometimes led to patches going in that didn't really have adequate review, but it was the least painful way to do things with the code.google.com system. Given the nice pull request interface on github we're trying a different approach, where nearly all developers, even people who have been contributing for years, will get their code into the tree via a pull request. Only 3 developers (Pat, Randy and myself) currently have access to accept pull requests, which we hope will lead to a bit more code review and higher quality code. We'll have to see how it works out over the coming months!

Issues now tracked on github

As part of the move to github we've adopted the github issue tracking system. This integrates very nicely with git commits, so we can for example add "fixes issue #7" in a commit message and the issue automatically updates to note the fix.

One tricky decision was whether we import over the old issues from code.google.com to the new system. After much discussion we decided not to, as we'd been so slack in keeping the old issue system well maintained that most of the issues were not relevant any more. There are some important ones in there though, so if your favourite issue has been lost then please post it into the new system (after checking if its has already been dealt it!).

New developer mailing lists

Another big change is the creation of two new mailing lists, drones-discuss and drones-devel. In the past we've had a private developer mailing list, which Chris invited people to join when they made a contribution to the code. That private list really originated from the time where there was a much smaller group of APM developers, and there is no good reason why it was still private, so we've created the two new lists as public for anyone to join, and shutdown the old private list. So if you want to get involved in APM development or just want to lurk in the developer discussions then please join the drones-discuss list!

Please don't post to the drones-devel list though - this is just for coordinating releases. It is a public list, so anyone can join and listen in, but we want to keep the noise on it low if we can.

We'd also like to emphasize that these lists are not the place for help requests - they are meant for development discussions only, such as discussing new features as they are being developed. The diydrones forums are still the right place for user discussion.

AP_HAL - the Hardware Abstraction Layer

The biggest change in the APM code itself comes from the new HAL (Hardware Abstraction Layer) pioneered by Pat Hickey. If you have a look at the current git tree then you'll see some new directories under libraries that start with AP_HAL. The AP_HAL directory itself defines the new API that abstracts out the differences between the various autopilot board types we support. Then we have a separate AP_HAL_$board directory for each board. The code for the APM1 and APM2, which are based on AVR CPUs, is in AP_HAL_AVR, but you may notice there are some other board types in there as well.

The main motivation for the AP_HAL work was to give us a clean way to support the new PX4 autopilot, which is based on a 32 bit ARM core, but it does a lot more than that. It gives us a very nice way to make all of the APM vehicle types portable to a lot more types of hardware with very little work.

In our code you will notice that we have a new 'hal' object which contains methods to access the hardware specific functions. For example, to set IO pin 17 as an output pin we would now do this:

  hal.gpio->pinMode(17, GPIO_OUTPUT);

the HAL API replaces the Arduino specific calls which we used previously, and gives us a lot of flexibility to implement all the board specific functions in different ways for each board.

We think that the ArduCopter 2.9 release which is in its final release candidate now will be the last "pre-HAL" release. The master branch is fully converted to AP_HAL, and has all of the features from 2.9 merged in. It is also flying very well!

One thing to watch out for is that if you are building the APM code using the Arduino development IDE then you will need a special patched version to support the new AP_HAL based code. We've released zip files of the patched IDE for Windows and MacOS. If you build on Linux then please use the 'make' command.

PX4 support

The big test of the new AP_HAL system was the PX4 port. We've had the PX4 hardware for months now, but the software port was lagging behind badly. It was really quite tricky to port the code across to the new NuttX RTOS based platform cleanly. With the introduction of the AP_HAL system it was incredibly easy, and just a few days after we got AP_HAL into the tree we had our first successful flights of both ArduPlane and ArduCopter on PX4 boards on the same day!

So if you have a PX4 then it is now possible to use it with any of the 3 vehicle types we support (copter, plane and rover). There are still some interesting issues with how to plug in servos and radios, but if you don't mind a bit of creative wiring then it does work. We will be posting some instructions soon.

I'd also encourage you to have a good look around the PX4 website. Lorenz and the whole PX4 development team have done a fantastic job with this board, creating something that gives us an incredible scope for future development. The work they have done on the sensor drivers and ORB integration is top notch, and I found it really nice to work with the system they have created in doing the APM port.

If you want to build the APM code for PX4 yourself then it's worth noting that one of the things we don't have yet is a good way to build the APM code for PX4 on Windows - it's building fine on MacOS and Linux, but the Windows build system still isn't ready. We'll post an update when we have that working. The core PX4 code does build on Windows with Eclipse, but we just haven't done the extra bits needed to allow the APM code to build within that development environment yet.

Meanwhile, if you want to build on MacOS or Linux then you'll need the PX4 firmware tree somewhere on your system, and you need to use the "make px4", "make px4-clean" and "make px4-upload" commands.

There are still some missing features on PX4, for example we don't yet have analog inputs, so no airspeed sensor on ArduPlane, but we'll get that sort of thing fixed up pretty quickly I think. Even so, I've done around a dozen flights with my PX4 equipped SkyFun so far, and it is flying very nicely! Both Pat and Randy have flown ArduCopter on PX4 as well, and both found it flew very well. Here is a video showing Pat flying the master git branch on PX4

Note that the port to PX4 doesn't mean we are abandoning the APM1 and APM2. All the APM code builds on all 3 platforms (plus the 'SITL' simulator platform), and our plan is to continue to support the APM1 and APM2 for as long as we can. What we expect to happen is that some new CPU and memory intensive features will only be enabled when you build for PX4, where we have so much more CPU and memory available.

Happy Flying!

I hope the above gives everyone a bit better idea of what has been happening. The pace of development has been very high over the last month, and if you've noticed that some of us have been a bit quiet on the forums then this is why. Over a thousand patches have gone into our git tree in the last 2 months to make all this possible, so we've actually been quite busy!

Pictures and video’s shot by Smit (Friend & Well Wisher)

I hope to make some covering so that it looks neat........

It flew awesome and it was a really big ground of Maha Laxmi in South Mumbai where I flew it.......

 Still learning to make a soft ,landing

My Quad Specs if anyone interested to know:

Motors: Turnigy L2215J-900 (200w)

Prop: 10x4.5 SF Props Multi Color

ESC: Hobbyking 18 - 20 Amp SS Series 

Flight Controller: APM2 (+ Configuration, Stable Mode)

Frame: X550

Had a great time......................,,

Any one from Mumbai can contact me on +919819336435

They said it was "pencil-sized" which seems like a bit of an exaggeration, but it sure is smaller than the Kinect. 

From IEEE Spectrum:

PrimeSense's 3D sensor, which is what's inside the Microsoft Kinect, hasrevolutionized vision for very cheap and very expensive robots. That's not what it was supposed to do: it was supposed to help lazy gamers get off their couches and jump around a little bit. PrimeSense is still very focused on marketable consumer applications with the next generation of the 3D sensor, called Capri, but we're more interested in what it'll do for our robots. At CES last week, we got some hands-on time with Capri, and we have some details for you.

Engineers are familiar with the idea of being able to pick two of the following: faster, better, cheaper. PrimeSense has instead gone with much smaller, probably cheaper (although we're not sure), and arguably just a little bit worse when it comes to performance. The overall size of the sensor has shrunk by a factor of 10, which is really the big news here, and otherwise, most of the specs have stayed the same. Here's what you'll get with Capri:

• Field of View 57.5×45

• Range 0.8m-3.5m

• VGA depth map (640×480)

• USB 2.0 powered

• Standard off the shelf components

• OpenNI compliant

PrimeSense told us that their focus was to "maintain" performance while focusing on miniaturization and cost reduction. And performance is nearly the same, with the exception of there being no RGB camera. This isn't great news for robotics, since having an integrated color camera is a nice feature, but we have to remember that we're just piggybacking on the fact that PrimeSense is really trying to get into the mobile market: Capri is small enough that it'll be able to fit into tablets (and eventually smartphones), and for pure 3D sensing, an RGB camera just adds cost and complexity that's unnecessary for the application. It's tough that robotics isn't yet a big enough market to allow us to dictate features for something like Capri, but as long as we can adapt this sort of technology to make robots cheaper and more capable, we'll get there.

In Hungary a young research group (Interspect) presented a high resolution aerial remote sensing technology and the World's highest spatial resolution ortho image mosaic. It's available at www.aerialrecord.com
They made it by a Piper aeroplane (!) at 0.5 mm spatial resolution.

I've been thinking. We can do it with slow flying drones, but how can it work from an aeroplane. I heard  an interview. 83 m/s ground speed requires a very fast shutter.

As you know rcdetails.info - it's database (motors, esc, batteries, servos etc).

RCdetails - app for Windows Phone. There are 2 versions: "free" and "full" ($0.99). There is no difference in functions and features.
You can buy full version if want to say "thank you" :)

This app contains "bookmarks", you can add any products to bookmarks and send links via email to your address or to your friends.

P.S. Right now I'm working on version for Android and my friend working on version for iPhone.

After over one month, I work out the second generation prototype of HeX. 

1. trimmed down the size:

the diameter of the first generation is 100 centimeters. this one's is 70 centimeters

2. the modular design goes like this:

zoom-in details for electronic and mechanical connections between dynamic units and the centerpiece

3. the body frame of the second generation is made by a CNC, a laser cutting and a 3D printer for different parts rather than almost all printed by a 3D printer like what we did to the first generation. By doing so the cost of materials has been reduced to 40% of the first generation.

more pictures of the second generation prototype of HeX

We hope this kind of design could get rid of the traditional way of manufacturing in a factory. Individuals can download the CAD files of our designing and produce their own parts and assemble a HeX in a makerspace or on their desktops. Pros can modify the design and customize one as well. This is inspired by these:

Part 1,2,3,3.5^^^^^^^^^^^  (4 Coming Soon!)

RQ-11 MidWest Drones Project

My short term goal for this aircraft is to have the RQ-11 Kit fully assembled and operating as an ROA (Remotely Operated Aircraft).  My overall goal though is to buy a ardupilot from diydrones and make it into a fully functioning UAV.  Learning programming through my college classes I want to create a fully functioning UAV that has a flight time of around an hour or more that could be used to track animals and photograph agriculture.  

What I have left to do:

1. Add digital camo to parts of the wing
2. Add servos and connect wire cables to rudder and elevator
3. Possibly add ardupilot
4. Possibly add FPV flying feature

I'm looking for suggestions on any mods or upgrades I can do to this RQ-11.  I hope the videos are enjoyable and educational.  

• Part 4 will include fully operating plane with other possible surprise DIY Mods. 

We ever posted a article in DIYdrones' forum to see the feasibility of turning iphone into a RC controller. It seems that people are not very keen on it, partly due to the lack of precise control through tilt action and partly due to the reluctance of giving up an actual control stick. So we disabled the tilt action and modified the interface into a RC simulation one. Then we give the full set of gadget-hardware that translates the signal coming out from headphone jack into radio and app in iphone or ipad to control drones-a name RC Touch:

the original interface of the app was like this:

the modified interface is like this:

We adapted this from iPhly

As many might already know that we have been selling the PX4 Autopilot along with AR.Drone Empty Frames for a while now, but a bunch of customers suggested we sell the two together in a kit.  So we now sell ARPX4 Drone kits(for a lack of a creative name) for a lower price than the individual parts.  This includes the PX4 FMU, PX4IOAR boards, along with the ARdrone frame with motors.  A deans connector is also included for easy battery connection! (if you prefer XT60, we have an adaptor)

The original foam hull (indoor and outdoor) is also included so if you cut away some of the foam you can easily put it back on for added protection when you are flying around.  Its a great quadcopter kit for anyone interested in developing for the PX4 as its super simple to build and repair.

You can find out more information at our shop.  If you have any questions, please let me know!

Here's a simple servo-controlled very light GoPro mount for any UAV. I have machine tools to make this, but you might be able to do it with simple home tools. The real trick is a direct connection between the servo and the camera rotator, and to use a control link ball (left side in photo) so you don't need to hit any dimensions perfectly.

Remember, if you bend aircraft aluminum, you must heat it to 530C for 15 min, instantly dunk it in water, and then do the bends within a day or so, otherwise it will crack. If you warm it up to 150C for an hour later, then it will return to full hardness.

Symptoms: Flamewheel 450 twitches down on one arm, not the same every time, and sometimes, instantly flips over as if one prop suddenly lost power.

The cause is a quality control issue with the bullet connectors on the motor and the sockets on the Opto speed controller.

The bullet connectors have a cage with a split. The problem is that when inserted, the split closes but the inside diameter of the now-closed cage is larger than the pin on the male bullet connector. This leads to weak or intermittent contact, and is evidenced by a little slop in the connector when inserted--it can easily be rotated or pulled in and out a fraction of a millimeter as if loo

se.

The fix is twofold. First, one must use a small wire cutter to snip one section of the cage so as to widen the split. The second is to make a narrow strip of thin (0.002" thick) copper. Fold the strip, insert the modified connector into the strip in the socket, and no more problems. The photo shows the strip and modified connector. Every one of the 12 connectors on the Flamewheel 450 kit I bought in December of 2012 has this problem.

My IMU stabilized bike has yet to (intentionally) leave the ground, so it doesn't get very far away from me.  I'm not sure if this would be useful to those of you with drones - definitely not planes, but maybe quad rotors could benefit?

From the beginning, I've been sending data from the bike to my laptop and logging that data so I have some idea of what's going on.  It's been useful for bench testing as I can lean the bike and see the graphics on the screen change or I can watch the noise on the accels when the motor runs and see that I need to adjust the filtering, etc...

The problem is when I go to run the bike and see something funny happen, I can't go back through the data and pinpoint the exact instance that the glitch occurred.  I don't know when the bike is in a turn if it really knows the current lean angle or is the lateral acceleration throwing off the DCM at the time.  I can try and watch the laptop screen and the bike at the same time, but that hasn't worked very well.  (Though this does seem like a good use for those Epson Moverio glasses. hmm..)

Well, this is the solution I've come up with for now.  The bike sends data to the laptop using a pair of Xbee transceivers (I can also send data back to the bike - currently just using this to update the PID constants).  The laptop logs this data to a file but also sends it to another application that is capturing video from a Dazzle USB frame grabber.  Using a DirectShow overlay filter the video capture application adds a time stamp and a limited subset of the data to the video frame.  Using this I can now go back and review the video footage along with all of the data that was captured during that frame.

Now I just need to wait for the weather to improve so I can get back outside.  I also need to look into a head mounted camera so I don't have to bug a friend to help out.

No doubt this has all already been done before, just thought I'd share...

Dave

Sad news from Hackaday:

Fabio Varesano, the man behind FreeIMU and Femtoduino, died of a sudden heart attack at the much too young age of 28. The RC helicopter/plane/drone and HCI/physical computing communities lose a great mind with Fabio‘s passing.

There is talk on the Dangerous Prototypes forum of continuing the development of FreeIMU, a project it seems Fabio worked on alone. We’d love to see someone pick up the reigns of the FreeIMU project, hopefully after doing a run of the current hardware and donating the proceeds to Fabio‘s family.

Here is some cool footage taken from that flight! 

Soon I will implement an APM that will hopefully help me calibrate HF radar antennas. HF radars are used to measure ocean surface currents in real time. Check it out! 

http://www.sccoos.org/data/hfrnet/

http://www.sccoos.org/data/hfrnet/fullpage.php?ll=33.559707,-119.344482&zm=7&mt=p&cp=1

We had a dry day today so I thought I would try out the GoPro Hero 2 I got for Christmas. All went well until I accidentally hit the switch for Simple mode without realizing it. Camera mount popped off and was fine, and I lost one prop nut. Could have been lots worse. Let this be a lesson...

The DC Area Drone User Group held a guided kit build and build party at Nova Labs on January 12 in what we think is the largest flying robot build event ever held in the area, although we're not sure what the second largest such event would be. Approximately 20 people attended in person and an additional 10 people signed up to attend via Google Hangouts. The kit build was led by brilliant roboticist and educator Christopher Vo, who taught and guided the group an epic 13 hours straight.

DC DUG is also excited for a packed agenda of events in February including:

• Flight training for beginners with games for more advanced flyers. A case of beer will be awarded to the person who can pop the most balloons with their drone flying autonomously.
• A talk with the General Counsel of the Association of Unmanned Vehicle Systems who will discuss what you can and can't legally do with a small UAV and what we expect to see with FAA regulations between now and 2015.
• An event with Director of GRASP Labs Vijay Kumar. You may know him from his TED Talk with quadcopters playing the James Bond Theme. This event is being co-hosted with partner Meetup DC Robotics Group.

The DC Area Drone User Group is an association devoted to promoting the use of flying robots for artistic, humanitarian, and recreational purposes. We are always looking for new members to become part of our community so if you are in the area please consider joining through our Meetup page and attending some of our events.

So, it's an actual real product and not just pretty pictures.  Nice plastic wrapping around what I suspect is just a standard quad.  I like the props.  They look like normal airplane props.

Here's a couple of videos:

I built a quadcopter based upon the TBS discovery frame, as the APM is located in the frame it is quite difficult to get hold of the status leds.
This is why I wanted to have some kind of Pilotlamp indicating the state of the APM.

I started off wih a prototype (Arduino pro mini with RGB led).

The above video is a small demo.

Plan is to convert it so it can be used with the Xaircraft Pilotlamp

To be continued...

Engadget review

Madagascar Team Leader and Drone operator:
Zuzana Burivalova (PhD candidate)
Applied Ecology & Conservation Lab, ETH Zurich

See: www.conservationdrones.org for more information.

With support from:
Dr Martin Bauert, ZOO Zurich
Wildlife Conservation Society Madagascar
Madagascar National Parks
Tom Allnutt, UC Berkeley
Edward Louis, Omaha ZOO and Madagascar Biodiversity Partnership
Pierre and Maria Bester, Masoala Forest Lodge
Jao Aridy, Madagascar National Parks
Nandi Fatro, Université d'Antananarivo