I've written my own Ardustation software for talking to the APM using MAVLink. The software is based on my previous version (for APM v1.x), which was in turn based on code written by Michael Smith.

Thanks to Build Your Own Drone for supplying the unit pictured above for testing the compatibility of the software.

So far I have tested it with ArduPlane 2.24. The download is linked below, I've included a previous version in case of difficulties. You will need to use the included libraries.

-- Update 01 Dec 2011 --

Depending on whether you use the airspeed sensor you should change line 50 of ArdustationM.pde such that the PID settings page alters the correct navigation pitch value. Set it to 1 if you are using the pitot tubes

#define AIRSPEEDSENSOR 0

I've found that downloading parameters is currently a bit hit and miss, it seems that only about 10 are downloaded at a time, so you may have to request the parameters more than once before they show up. Alternatively you can edit the local value before syncing with no problems.

Hands-on video over at engadget about this hardware from Rotor Concepts.  Interestingly they cite a max. altitude of 2000 feet...where are they getting their permits??? {-Just a thought}  I'd love to see a hardware breakdown on this.

Hi everyone,

After several weeks of Flying with this plateform it's time for conclusion.

Avantages of OctoV : Payload can be 1 Kg

Autonomie can reach 5 mn with 4S 5000MAh

Against the Wind it flies well

One time the OctoV just fall down from 20 meters (no more juice) but the plateform stay horizontal and the Camera was safe :)  3D camera (really expensive).

I Fly with 2.0.42 ... 10 inch propeller and this stability is perfect.

Can be hard to YAW when the total weight is 4 Kg (YAW PID may need more P ???).

For the construction i use 1 meter Alu (15mm) without any cut :)

I encourage everyone to take the risk of building tha platform, you ll not regret !!! I finally sell it to a movie companie :) makes me sad but technology need to be share to those people. They want to make a movie in Maroco ( they told me about a car race) and for sure they need me to pilot the machine. I FOUND A JOB !!! MUM can be proud now :)

Another good non-military use for drones, reported in Fast Company:

Brazil's environmental police are deploying unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), or drones, to monitor the country's vast forest for illegal logging, drug trafficking and other crimes. Named Arara (Parrot) and Tiriba (Little Parrot), the home-grown planes are taking flight to watch over the world's largest remaining rainforest, the Brazilian Amazon

The São Paulo Environmental Police will be the country's first agency to regularly employ (unarmed) UAVs to monitor remote areas for deforestation, illegal fishing, and sand mining. The drones, built by AGX Tecnologia using technology developed at the University of São Paulo, can be deployed almost anywhere, and stay aloft longer than their human-piloted counterparts. AGX’s latest version, with a 10-foot wingspan, can be launched just by throwing it.

From the Google Earth blog, an update of the community-created flight simulator plug-in to GE. Not quite ready for hardware-in-the-loop simulation yet, but it's getting there!

The latest version (.07) includes some nice upgrades:

• 10 aircraft: from the Piper Cub to the A380, through Douglas DC3 and Sukhoi Su-35, helicopters and hot air balloon.
• A map rendering over 30,000 runways to take off from and DAFIF airspace charts (using Google Fusion Table and Google Maps) 
• Real time, local weather conditions (Cloud coverage, wind speed), wind lift on relief.
• In-game chat
• Time slider to select current time of the day.
• Improved physics, animations, flight models, instruments and multiplayer
• Improved user interface, fine control settings, saved preference

This is another great example of why it's so great to build games using the Google Earth Plug-in -- Xavier has certainly made some great enhancements, but there has also been thousands of new 3D buildings (and 3D trees) added to Google Earth in the past year, making it even better!

You can try it for yourself at ge-flightsimulator.com

Inspired by the recently announced APM carrier for the Bixler, I made my own carrier for the Hawk Sky.  Build notes and more photos here:

http://eastbay-rc.blogspot.com/2011/10/apm-carrier-for-hawk-sky-and-related.html

The Cooper Union - Unmanned Development Team

UAVforge.net Entry,

The Aeolis UDMA

Let me know about any improvements you guys can come up with, and vote for it if you like it!

So ... not everyone in R/C hates Team BlackSheep - what a surprise! :) Some even allow us to fly with them. Here's how that turns out:

Japan's Ministry of Defense released 2 days ago their spherical drone: 350 grams, 8 minutes fly time.

Pretty impressive. Drawing board anyone?

I've been looking around for a cool frame and came across the X650 V4 frame from Xaircraft.

Before I ordered it from BDpowers I did some homework concerning were I would put all the hardware.

The frame has space for the ESC's just next to the motors so I wanted to be certain that my ESC's would fit. I managed to putin them in the tight space but using the X650 ESC covers wasn't possible. Putteing the ESC's under the props keep them very cool. Also the distance between motor and ESC is kept to aminimum. EMI from powerlines will also be reduced this way. I also looked at the center plate that would hold the APM and IMU. It fits nicely and all connectors are accessable. The folding arms of this frame was a bonus.

The current setup are :

KDA 20-22L

APC 10x4.7

Plush 30 A

Motor to motor is 60cm

Currently I'm doing tests with the latest v49 code and the first couple of flight (excl gps and sonar) were very promising.

I would like to upgrade to avroto motors 2814 and perhaps a bigger 11" prop.

Suggestions welcome.

this is a wonderful counter rotating BLDC motor and prop set ideally suited for planes between easystar and skywalker because of small footprint for the power equivalent 30xx size motors. it delivers 270 watts with 3S Lipo. the mounting would be bit tricky though. never tried but would order soon. very useful because prop diameter has to be restricted on pusher prop aircrafts with tail boom below the prop. once i get mine would put the performance parameters on the same blog. available at http://www.rcecho.com/aeo-model-1550kv-contra-rotating-brushless-motor.html

The staff of RCTECH has published a video of the new quadricopter GAUI 500X installed by the navigation system INS GU- HD and GoPro Hero camera. In the video demonstration of the automatic return, the operation of the camera mounted on the frame of the drone and the real-time video transmission with telemetry information on speed, altitude and battery voltage.

GoPro launches HD Hero2 helmet cam, announces video streaming Wi-Fi pack for winter

Check out the full article over on engadget

The wifi backpack may prove to be cool depending on range, but the fact that they are integrating remote control, better streaming ans stills performance really shows they are listening to their customers.  SO, is this YOUR next drone-cam?

This is an airship I designed for the UAVForge competition, it takes advantage of its ability to alter its volume (and thus its density) to take off and land. It is 6 ft long, however folds down into a rucksack.

Some interesting technology I am looking at in terms of software is the Surface From Motion 3D environment estimation

http://ai.stanford.edu/~asaxena/reconstruction3d/

http://phototour.cs.washington.edu/bundler/

and Active Noise Control

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_noise_control

Unfortunately I won't be able to enter into the UAVForge competition as I am travelling while their live video milestone is due, but I thought I would post it here anyway if anyone was interested.

My AC2 is assembled, and I was able to do a couple indoor tethered test flights to make sure things are connected and setup properly.  Here is the first test:

This was somewhat of a success for the first flight, in that all of the electronics were basically working correctly, including wireless telemetry.  After re-checking all of the connections to determine why it was immediately pitching over, I found that the 4-wire connector from the APM to the PWB was plugged in backwards.  I switched it around, and re-ran the pre-flight test, paying closer attention to actually which motors were speeding up and slowing down at what time, and tried it again:

It's not immediately trying to pitch over, so I think the stabilization is basically working

A few other things are also going on here:
- There is probably a lot of weird air re-circulation going on in this small area that is causing it drift around, as well as dynamics from reaching the end of the tethers that are making it difficult to stay level.
- Toward the end, it seems to pitch to the back to the right. At this point, even after landing, the attitude showing on the laptop was far from level, I'm sure this is because the magnetometer was not getting a good reading inside, and also because the cords artificially held it at a nonzero pitch attitude without accelerating in that direction.
- I'm using a 20C 2200mah battery, which is too small for this since there are obviously 4 20amp speed controllers.

The next step is to take it outside to eliminate any re-circulation effect, make sure the magnetometer is getting a good reading, and get a GPS lock.  I will probably test it tethered again, maybe with longer tethers -  I think if I position the anchors further apart, the tendency might be to pitch back toward center when it reaches the end instead of pitch away.

"By crossing airships with airplanes, Solar Ship is planning to build a craft that can carry heavy loads long distances with a tiny carbon footprint. Filled with helium, they soak up rays from the sun to provide the energy for forward motion and fulfill its original design challenge – carry 1,000 kilograms (2,205 lbs) of payload 1,000 kilometers (621.4 miles). The craft is heavier than air, and uses a combination of helium filling its interior and its lifting body delta wing shape to stay airborne. Solar Ship shows plans for a range of different size craft for different duties."

Source:http://green.autoblog.com/2011/10/22/solar-ship-sails-the-skies-schlepps-supplies/

After my first custom quad wich took a lot of rough landings and finally crashed from about 40 meters due to disconnected battery Ive kinda overbuild this one.

Arms are 15x15x1mm aluminium profiles, centerplates are 2mm laser cut aluminium. Im using 3S batteries (5000 or 2200 mAh), ESCs are 18A Turnigy Plush and motors 900kV Turnigy from HK, driving APC SF10x4.7. M2M is 40cm (so i dont have to make extensions for ESC-motor wires. it weights about 900g with the smaller battery, flight time is about 12min (or 20min with the larger battery). 

Electronics (APM, IMU, Xbee, GPS, MAG and receiver are mounted with doublesided tape, plastic L profiles inside an CD spindle. ESCs and homemade power distribution (wil post another blog about it) are under the spindle. 

Top cover removed: the props are from the first quad and while i was learning to fly they took a lot of beating.

Inside (detail). All wires are glued to the connectors. The thing in the middle (with red heatshrink) connects all esc wires and leaves power from only one ESC for APM (with possibility to drive other electronics from other ESCs). This wa i dont need to cut 3 ESC power wires. Its made from stacking .1in headers with two 90deg rotated layers of the black plastic parts wich hold the pins.

LED lights inside arms

Side view. There are two power connectors. This quad is really small, its possible to transport it inside a notebook cardboard box with TX, charger, batteries and some spare parts.

Bottom view: centerplates, ESCs, power connectors on both sides and "landing gear" made of 6cm plastic standoffs. My GOPRO fits nicely between front arms (and under the spindle) pointing about 45deg down.

This quad flies nice in windless conditions and some tweaks in default PIDS, I hope to tweak it a bit to better fly in windy conditions. In my next frame "revision" im planning to use 10x10x1mm arms and Mikrokopter centerplates to save about 100g on weight (more than 10%).