Blogs

Shes all done, dont those microdan 2510's look purty

full house this puppy, ardupilot, magnetometer, gps, sonar and 900mhz telemetry, plus red and white LEDs

just worked it out, she has about 2.8kw of power on tap !

Running 2.047 with a custom mix (5 channel for 8 motors)

Motors are 2510 microdans 970 kv spinning 10 by 3.8 apc's

VERY responsive, had to drop the gains down by 30% over the RCtimer 750's i normally use, the 25mm diameter stator makes these a tourque monster, 14 magnet DLRK wound

LEDs feed on a seprate 3S lipo

This is an update from the original blog post in October 2011:

I've updated the Ardustation 2  source code to allow compilation with Arduino 1.0 Relax and the latest libraries for ACM 2.5.3 and APM 2.3.0. This update also includes a modification of parameter names for PID editing that match ACM and APM. The updated version is 2.0.12.

The download zip file also includes the libraries used to verify compilation of the software. The software has been lightly tested with ACM and 2.5.3 and has not been tested with APM 2.3.0.  If you find any issues feel free to comment here or post an issue at the Ardustation 2 Google 

The software is available here:

http://code.google.com/p/ardustation-ii/downloads/list

Download 2.0.12 for ACM 2.5.3 or APM 2.3.0 - compile with Arduino 1.0 Relax

Download 2.0.11 for ACM 2.0.48 or APM 2.24 - compile with Arduino 0022 Relax

Heino R. Pull

The original 10/2011 info follows:

With the help of Jeff E and Hai Tran, I've updated the Ardustation 2 Antenna tracker code to support the detection of the UAV platform from the Mavlink heartbeat. Parameter download and editing is automatically configured for ArduPilot 2.24 or ArduCopter 2.0.48 when Mavlink connects. The key parameters available for editing is modifiable in the source code with the  PID gains set as the default for both platforms. A number of bug fixes have been made to previous versions of Ardustation 2 including a more standard Mavlink interface for the latest libraries distributed with APM 2.24 and ACM 2.0.48. 

This version has been ground tested with APM 2.24 and ACM 2.0.48 with parameter editing, but testing is still needed to verify that the appropriate parameters are changed correctly. Please be cautious if you try this software out and verify the parameter changes with the Mission Planner.  I don't have a fixed wing setup to test APM in the air, but I plan to test ACM 2.0.48 while tuning my loiter values on my quad this week. I've included the libraries used to compile the code in the zip file.

A video describing the original antenna tracking functionality is available here: Original Ardustation 2 Antenna Tracker Post and Video

The updated code is available here: Ardustation 2 ACM/APM Version 2.0.11

This software is based on Phillip Anthony Smith's Mavlink Ardustation. Thanks also to Jeff E and Hai Tran for their code additions and suggestions.

hi friends, on 14 October 2011 there was an exhibition organized by some 20 UAV manufactruing companies in New Delhi, India. It was wonderful to have something like this in India. The technology dispalyed was amazing. there were fixed wings and rotary winged UAV's. The show was won by this twin cylinder rotary engine designed for UAV's. The manufacturer claims to having nil vibrations in the engine. a very important issue for IMU's in the autopilot.  beautiful engine with circular cross section and excellent cooling fins and  fuel injected. runs on petrol as well ATF. amazing. Weight? only 2700gms with air intake and muffler. from outside looks like a turbine engine. more details on www.cubewano.com. It's a british company. a dream engine.

If you're in the San Francisco Bay Area, you can meet the ArduCopter team and see demos tomorrow at the East Bay Maker Faire in Oakland. Jason Short and I will be giving a presentation at 12:00 on the main stage. Quads will fly! Come by and say hi ;-)

A few days ago I posted some videos of my object tracking algorithm, and some folks were curious how well it would perform if the object left the frame. Since posting I have hit kind of a breakthrough in the algorithm and it is working much better than I had ever expected. I am still fine tuning some of the sensitivities, but I added some neat features.

1. Now you get a white box when you click and drag to define the target.
2. There is an adjustable accuracy threshold. If one finds that the target will not re-aquire, one can reduce the accuracy (demonstrated in the video above)
3. New improved multi-threading (under the covers)

I am working on both Mission Planner integration and, for those who want to use this for auto antenna tracking or camera tracking from the ground, Pololu Micro Maestro integration. As you can see in the video above, the software is able to re-aquire the target when it leaves the frame or gets confused. This is thanks to the constant learning of that objects features as it changes shape or orientation over time.

Finally, someone has created a PID tunning howto video, from scratch to perfect stabilize flight, that I think will be very useful for the arducopter community, specially for those flying non stock frames.

The concepts are already in the AC2 PID tweaking guide developed by Jason, but a visual howto helps a lot!

The guide has been created by Menno (joebarteam), an active user of the megapirates community in rcgroups. Full credit to him, I'm just spreading his post.

First, acro mode tunning (which I always discard, but I'm realizing it is pretty relevant):

Second, stable mode tunning:

The full post with Menno comments is here.

Note:

If the arducopter developers think it is useful maybe it could be added to the wiki (with Menno permission obviously).

CNN did an episode on DIY Drones today. Good shots from the back of 3D Robotics, including clips of Jeff Taylor and Gigio Romero (Udrones) flying ArduPlane and ArduCopter.

The above is a plot of the 3 components of estimated magnetometer offsets computed during spin tests at 78 RPM of an improved method for estimating and removing magnetometer offsets. There is a report available with theory and implementation. The method will work equally well for fixed wing aircraft, multicopters, and helicopters. It makes no assumptions about the dynamics of the airframe.

The idea for the new method came to me while I was recently working on a method to detect and compensate for magnetometer misalignment errors. I realized the method that I had been using for offset compensation was sensitive to misalignment between the magnetometer axes and the gyro axes, so I thought about ways to compute offsets that would ignore misalignment. I found a good way to do it that turned out to be more accurate and easier to implement than the method that I was using.

I also figured out a slick way to detect and adjust for magnetometer misalignment, I will be publishing a report in a few days on that subject. The method will compensate in flight for any amount of magnetometer misalignment, including a 180 degree yaw mounting error. In other words, the algorithm can figure out that you mounted your magnetometer backwards and apply a rotation matrix to the magnetometer vectors to put them into the correct reference frame. Stay tuned....

[Here is the technique for doing inflight magnetometer alignment. - WJP]

Best regards,

Bill Premerlani

Thanks to Chris, according to many who had been at Number Twelve yesteraday was a very interesting meetup. One of the rare one's where you talk about everything from UAV's to how UAV's could be used to monitor eggs in bird's nest to export regulation of UAV's.

Here is a short clip where you can see HD video that was captured from a flight of my Creep 1.0 Tricopter.

Mad Scientists

I know it was already touched on earlier but I saw this on yahoo news and wanted to share...

A computer virus that hit the US drone fleet last month created a "nuisance" but no serious threat to flight operations for theunmanned aircraft, the US Air Force said.

Confirming the virus for the first time days after it was first reported, Air Force Space Command said computers at a Nevada air base were infected with malware but played down the problem as a minor headache.

Malware on the computers at Creech Air Force base, where drone planes over Afghanistan and elsewhere are piloted remotely, was first spotted on September 15, Space Command said in a statement.

"The infected computers were part of the ground control system that supports RPA (remotely piloted aircraft) operations," it said.

"The ground system is separate from the flight control system Air Force pilots use to fly the aircraft remotely; the ability of the RPA pilots to safely fly these aircraft remained secure throughout the incident," it said.

The malware, of a type that is "found routinely on computer networks and is considered more of a nuisance than an operational threat," had been isolated, it said.

Wired magazine first reported the virus last week, saying it had spread at Creech through removable hard drives used to load map updates and transfer mission videos from one computer to another.

Drone units at other US bases around the world have now been told to stop using the removable hard drives, the magazine reported.

A spokeswoman for Space Command said that rules prohibiting openly discussing the operational status of aircraft were waived to assure the public about the state of the drone fleet.

The Air Force "felt it important to declassify portions of the information associated with this event to ensure the public understands that the detected and quarantined virus posed no threat to our operational mission and that control of our remotely piloted aircraft was never in question," Colonel Kathleen Cook said in the statement.

The American military and intelligence agencies have come to heavily rely on the robotic aircraft to track enemy forces, with the planes transforming battlefield tactics and strategy in recent years.

The US military openly acknowledges drone flights in wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya but the CIA declines to publicly discuss its covert missions using drones to take out Al-Qaeda extremists in Pakistan, Yemen and elsewhere.

http://news.yahoo.com/us-air-force-calls-drone-fleet-virus-nuisance-053626091.html

You're probably familiar with Al Shan Mao who vblogs on RC topics from China.  He's got a new video up previewing a UAV he will be receiving and reviewing.  Does anybody know anything about this unit?

Highlights:

• full autopilot and GCS
• 4 years of development
• from "China's leading UAV makers"
• interesting elastic-propelled takeoff and parachute landing systems
• video feed with target focusing

APM_configs.xls

Hi all pls find the actual version of the recommended configurations from here

http://code.google.com/p/ardupilot-mega/downloads/list

What is intriguing is that

XTRK_GAIN_SC is varying widely, very high PTCH2SRV_P for skywalker,

and unexpected differences in rudd tuning for bixler and easystar.

What is your favorite 'best setup'? Please share.

Who am I kidding right? its almost impossible to design an indestructible quad copter frame! That's why this frame is actually the complete opposite. Its designed to fail! 

This is nothing new. Most designs nowadays are designed to fail, but they are designed to fail correctly and safely. There is always something that needs to be protected and for that to happen something needs to fail. Like crumple zones in cars or pressure relief valves on pressure vessels.

In the case of a quadcopter, I'v got not passengers to look after but I would like certain parts (the expensive parts) to survive crashes. Also after crashes it should be easy to fix.

Iv taken what Iv learnt from my arducopter v1 frame (which is now very tired) and my engineering diploma and put together a frame that will protect all the valuable items and break the cheap readily available parts.

So, every nut and bolt is nylon except the motor mounts. Any hard impacts will shear the bolts and save the frame. This happened alot with my arducopter frame. its a good thing =) rather break a bolt or 2 than a landing gear. I will be placing some high density foam right in the center of the frame for when an arm gets pushed into the frame. This should absorb some energy and stop further damage as those carbon booms dont break easily. I have placed the motor mounts slightly inside the boom as I think they are vulnerable at the ends. Yes, this now makes booms vulnerable but nothing a rubber stopper cant fix =) Where the arms meet the frame and motor mount I want to put thin strips of high density foam to absorb some vibration from the motors and also absorb some energy in crashes.  

So hopefully all I will be replacing after crashes is nylon bolts. Even if not, I still like the frame =)

More about the frame itself:

The arms will be shortened 450 heli carbon tail booms from HK, $2.40 link

The carbon sheet is 1mm thick also from HK which I will cut with a dremel, $10.79 link

landing gear will be 3mm clear Perspex strips bent will mini blow torch

Motor mounts will be 4mm perspex discs made with a hole saw and file =)

Electronics, motors, etc will be from my arducopter frame.

Will post a build blog when its done.

Please criticize =)

Hi everybody,

I am starting with new hexacopter Project. It is my own project.. I am totaly beginer

an I hope, that project will be succesfull.

The frame is made from plywood 3mm, cuted with laser.

Last week, I ordered APM from jDrones.. I am still waiting postman.. :-) APM is on the way (on the air I hope) be cause I am from middle of Europe.

Motors will be AC2836-358 with 12X45 propeller set.

Plywood will be finished with polyester resin and waterresist polish.

My progress you can watch on this blog :-)  .. so I will be pleased for every advice and comment...

-jan-

The German effects studio OMStudios must really trust their custom RC Octocopter--the super high-def RED camera they're lifting costs $40,0000.

Via Engagdet

I'm just getting all my equipment sorted out for FPV on the quad, but made some good progress today that I thought I'd share.

I got the idea for a standalone FPV pod from flitetest.  Just wanted to get things working quick and dirty for both the quad and the EZ*

Wrapped up in there I have the following:

1)  Camera is 420TVL from here for $32 (free shipping when you order 2!)  The cameras are easily removed, and seem to be good enough to start with.

2)  Tx/Rx is 5.8Ghz from HK for $63

3)  Bluebeam antennas from here $65 for the pair unless you are capable of making them yourself

4)  Don't forget the adapters for this antenna VTx/Rx combination from here $10 for two

5)  It also has a 3S 500mAh battery like this $12 - I plan on dropping this and creating a single battery setup

Strange, I just hit "save as draft" didn't mean to post this yet, but here's the video anyway!

I am currently working on integrating an object tracking algorithm of my own making into the Mission Planner. The algorithm combines Lucas-Kanade and SURF and attempts to learn negative and positive reinforcement values as it runs. Right now it is in the early stages of development, but I hope to have something fully functional within a few months.

My hope is to use this to aid in automatic centering of the tracked object by sending commands to the APM to move the camera gimbal based on the distance of the tracked object from the center of the frame. In the videos below you will see two demonstrations of this tracking algorithm. In both cases it seems to perform well with background noise.

NOTE: I apologize for the terrible frame rate of the videos. I don't have very good screen capture software. The second video is a little higher quality.