Hey Guys, This is a little off topic but it's awesome fun!
I have created a website dedicated to this new sport! (If you can call it that) :)
To give you an idea of what it's all about I have attached some videos from our first race season.
Events are now starting to pop up around the world so log in and get involved!
Enjoy...
Race 1 (above)
Race 2
Race 3
Race 4
In this video the application of a Visual-Inertial (Camera & IMU) localization algorithm on a Parrot AR.DRONE quadrotor, for enabling real-time GPS-denied autonomous navigation, is presented.
A sensor package for data logging, consisting of a Beaglebone computer, an Intersense Navchip IMU and a Point Grey Chameleon monochrome camera was attached to the AR.DRONE.
The IMU operates at 100Hz while the camera at 7.5Hz. Currently, IMU measurements and camera images are logged on-board and they are processed off-board.
Details
The miniaturization, reduced cost, and increased accuracy of cameras and inertial measurement units (IMU) makes them ideal sensors for determining the 3D position and attitude of vehicles navigating in GPS-denied areas.
In particular, fast and highly dynamic motions can be precisely estimated over short periods of time by fusing rotational velocity and linear acceleration measurements provided by the IMU’s gyroscopes and accelerometers, respectively.
On the other hand, errors caused due to the integration of the bias and noise in the inertial measurements can be significantly reduced by processing observations to point features detected in camera images in what is known as a vision-aided inertial navigation system (V-INS).
In this video, we present the latest demonstration of a V-INS implementation, that has computation complexity linear in the number of features tracked from the camera. The specific implementation is targeted on enabling quadrotors to navigate with high precision in GPS-denied areas.
Relevant Publications
[1] A.I. Mourikis, N. Trawny, S.I. Roumeliotis, A. Johnson, A. Ansar, L. Matthies: “Vision-Aided Inertial Navigation for Spacecraft Entry, Descent, and Landing,” IEEE Transactions on Robotics, 25(2), pp. 264-280, April 2009.
[2] J. A. Hesch, D. G. Kottas, S. L. Bowman and S. I. Roumeliotis "Towards Consistent Vision-aided Inertial Navigation", 10th International Workshop on the Algorithmic Foundations of Robotics 13-15 June 2012, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA
[3] D. G. Kottas, J. A. Hesch, S. L. Bowman and S. I. Roumeliotis "On the consistency of Vision-aided Inertial Navigation", 13th International Symposium on Experimental Robotics June 17-20 2012, Quebec City, Canada
I am happy to announce I have secured a distributor in Australia. please contact admin@boltrc.com for ordering info. They should have a proper store front up next week at boltrc.com
never heard of the Techpod? Read more about it @ hobbyuav.com
g'day mate!
Wayne
If you've been wanting to put 3D sensing on your copter but were put off by the size/power or computational requirements of a Kinect, perhaps the Capri is what you've been waiting for. No pictures available until it's launched next week at CES (the above video just gives a hint of use cases in consumer electronics).
From Mashable:
When we look back at this year's CES, we may remember it as the year of the sensor. Wearable and embeddable sensor technology will be everywhere, and right there at the heart of at least some of it will be PrimeSense. The Israeli-based company created the 3D environmental mapping tech behind Microsoft's Kinect motion sensor for the Xbox 360 and, at CES 2013 in Las Vegas, PrimeSense will unveil what it calls the "World's Smallest" 3D sensor: the Capri.
As thin as a pencil and no larger than a stick of gum, Capri could herald a new era in 3D-sensing-capable products and services. As PrimeSense sees it, the Capri is small enough to go virtually anywhere: from house-cleaning robots to laptops, and from computer screens to tiny smartphones. Company execs describe it as "giving sight" to all of these devices.
PrimeSense's 3D sensor technology works by first bathing the area in front of it in a sophisticated, near- infra-red light mesh. This creates a grid that a second sensor can read. The algorithm uses the information to get a complete, live, fully 3D picture of the room -- including people and objects in it. (In Kinect, Microsoft added its own gesture-recognition software.)
While using many of the same 3D sensing technologies found in Kinect, Capri is 10 times smaller, includes a new system on a chip (SoC) and, PrimeSense representatives told me, features more powerful algorithms. The new reference design (PrimeSense is a fabless company that does not actually build the sensors) is even, according to company representatives, more affordable, a key attribute that could make it more attractive to consumer electronics manufacturers looking to add 3D motion control and interaction to their products.
At CES 2013, PrimeSense and its partners will demonstrate the tiny Capri inside a wide variety of consumer products and applications including 3D gesture-recognition signage from CoVii, real-time shopper behavior analytics from ShopPerception, a 3D interior design application from Matterport.
http://www.indiegogo.com/blutracker
Blutracker is an ultra small Bluetooth GPS locator. It has a range of over half a Mile, the battery lasts for over 2 months in between charges, it has a full GPS engine and motion detector. There are absolutely no service fees!
Most pets that are lost, are within a couple of blocks from your home.
Track your kids in large playgrounds, parks or in your neighborhood.
Discover the exact outdoor location of the BluTracker within 10 feet at any time.
Built in motion detector notifies you if your item is moved or missing.
Also the Engadget link:
http://www.engadget.com/2013/01/03/blutracker-locator-hands-on/?m=false
They claim an unobstructed range of 2500 ft for the tracker, it doesnt record GPS coordinates but it is water resistant and looks like it would be a great lost drone tracker. Only weighs 16 g.
January 2, 2013
http://dronemapper.com
In November 2012 we described the results from an UAV survey (courtesy of Falcon-UAV) conducted over the Pinery Country Club where an area of > 1 square mile was mapped at 6.7 cm resolution. We had access to a set of precision ground control points (GCPs) (courtesy of CompassData, Inc.). The ortho below shows the Pinery area surveyed with a set of ground control used for subsequent data processing and quality control verification. The GCPs circled in red show the original 6 points used in the processing of the DEM with the other 9 used for QA verification. We had a chance to re-process this data with 9 GCPs for the DEM. The additional 3 points selected are shown circled in yellow. The table below illustrates the absolute geo-spatial accuracy improvement by the addition of GCPs.
The table compares the results of the new processing with 9 GCPs (pink or orange) against the former - 6 GCPs (light green). The evaluation conditions are 1) RMSE error in GCPs (gnd control) that were used for processing, 2) RMSE error in GCPs (QA check) that were not used for processing and 3) RMSE error for all 15 GCPs. There was a significant improvement (~ 3 X) in absolute elevation error. The easting accuracy also improved by about 50%. Have a great new year!
I want share with the community my last goal achieved with an old Multiplex Easycub , APM2, Arduplane 2.6.8, 3DR telemtry 900 mhz, Airspeed sensor and a still not working Attopilot 90A.
A great flight above the clouds after some unsuccessfull flights ( i have lost an easystar with gopro and APM2 still dont know why)
I still have to tune the Nav Roll P for better videos but i am sure you will like it.
Also if i never wrote on the forum it was very helpful for me and i am ready to share all my tests with other people who is starting with drones.
EDIT : add version without copyright limitations at http://youtu.be/-vgmtJER-SE
2013 is going to be an awesome year for the show, and the APM is going to be a critical component to it's success. I'll be building and proving airframes, electronics, avionics, mobile ground stations and processes that will allow me take an airplane further, faster and longer than ever before; across the united States of America.
2013, here we come!
Hi all,
Just thought I'd post pics of my quad case. It took a while to build but the cost to build it was practically zero. I utilized an old beds plywood and the foam from its mattress.
I have been using it now for about 4 months and I really like it. It's just big enough to securely fit:
Dimensions are in cm: 55 x 55 x 24.5
IntroductionIn the last 3 months I have done a bit of thinking about an as-simple-as-possible and as-small-as-possible "follow-me"-box. The design goal is to have something so small that it can be e.g. attached to clothing by velcro and so simple that it's just switch on and go. After some googling, I stumbled upon the Arduino Fio which seems ideal for this kind of thing. I am primarily maintaining the information on this project on my personal website.
Unfortunately, I haven't had time to build one yet plus I'm lacking a functional APM-based drone at the moment, but here is my preliminary design:
ArduBeacon is a simple GPS beacon that locates it's current position via a GPS module and sends MAVlink waypoint messages to an ArduPilot-equipped UAV.
Draft
Hello, Bonjour,
A "drône" (or U.A.V.) is visiting Marseille to get some equipments.
He first have to find a lighting system in order to navigate in the night.
Then, he will meet a photograph on the beach who will install him a camera.
Finally you will discover the real mission of the UAV.
Un drône est en visite à Marseille pour se procurer des équipements.
Il doit d'abord trouver un système d'éclairage pour naviguer dans la nuit.
Ensuite, il va rejoindre un photographe sur la plage qui va lui installer une caméra.
Enfin vous découvrirez la véritable mission du drône.
Good viewing and happy new year 2013 !!!
Bon visionnage, et bonne année 2013 !!!
JP
Finally got the macbook running on VNC, XCode to add some widgets to a screen, keychain access to manage all the passwords Apple requires, & then ran into the dreaded "Access denied" when trying to create a provisioning profile to run the program.
So developing anything for the 'pad requires either paying $100 every year to belong to the iOS developer program or getting someone you know who's already paying up to give you a provisioning profile for every device & app you develop. It's unfathomable to have to pay $100 every year to run your own code, so that just about finishes off having an aircraft that belongs to M.M.'s Apple universe. It needs to run on Android.
There are ways of rooting it, but now we're back to writing software that no-one else can run without rooting their own device with a program that requires someone somewhere to root every new version of iOS. There's no guarantee Apple devices are going to be rooted forever.
Don't know what the future of this macbook & iPad is. They're basically worthless except for writing software for a paying customer that won't be runnable after a year. Have found the pad interface more tedious to navigate than Android, even though it's faster. The pad is also heavier than the Android.
After deciding on continuing with just Android development, started the 4th incarnation of the ground station interface. It has now been done once in Java with a HUD, once in Java without a HUD, once in C++ without a HUD, & once in Android. The ground station is a significant amount of development, every time it's redone on a new, incompatible platform. Even graphics in Android are incompatible with the AWT libraries.
At least the Android rendering is real fast. It's much faster than those 1st 2 Java implementations. There's no lack of connection to the state of the aircraft. The ground station may actually be more complicated than the flight control software.
This phase was originally intended to be just enough to fly Marcy 1 manually. 1 day of programming ended up producing just enough to engage the autopilot or fly manually. Flying manually with the tablet is real hard.
Getting enough telemetry displayed to debug problems takes many days of work. There are graphical & text representations of many pieces of data for even something as simple as a monocopter.
When it came time to show the video preview, Java fell over. It can't get nearly the framerate of the C ground station.
Finally I got my T-Rex 600 in the air.
Equipped with: APM 2.5 - Radio 915 Mhz
GPS uBlox - Sonar-EZ0 - AttoPilot
RC: Spectrum DX8
I managed to fit the APM 2.5 and the DX8 receiver into one box, keeps the wiring down and adds weight to the box which is better for vibration dampening.
The box is supported by 4 ear plugs acting as great vibrations damper. It works very well, you can’t feel any vibes.
I run 2 BEC’s on a 2200 3S LiPo, one powering the servos, and the second the avionics.
A switch for the avionics and a connector acting as a switch for the ESC makes it easy to get ready for takeoff. Everything is done; you don’t have to fiddle around, just flick the switch, and let the APM get ready, then push that connecter in, and go.
The Heli is powered by 5000 12S LiPo (2 6S in series), which will give me about 15min+ in the air. I provided for a second set 5000 12S LiPo’s to be connected in parallel to the standard battery pack by a connecter, this will give me a capacity of 10000 12S.
Don’t be afraid to connect LiPo’s parallel; if you do it right there is no harm to you and the LiPo’s.
See link’s LiPo parallel charging 1 LiPo parallel charging 2
This setup might give me about 25min in the air, and if I fit the Heli with asymmetrical rotor blades,
I might get 45min airtime.
I think this Heli wil be a great platform for FPV flying, which I will look into in the very near future, after gathering more experience with this setup.
The first flights proofed already very stable in Stab and AltHold, and I was 15min+ nonstop in the air. The average current draw is just 15Amp.
My RX setup with Spectrum TX8 is surely unusual; I fly the Heli in Airplane mode.
Flying with an autopilot you don’t need swash mixing or the link between throttle and collective. You have a flat throttle curve anyway.
I linked the Knob to Aux1 which is my throttle and the throttle curve from the Airplane is my pitch curve. The rest is pretty much the same as you have it in Heli mode.
The pros of this are:
It works and flies very well for me.
You could control the throttle with the Knop in Heli mode as well, but you have to sacrifice 1 RC channel, because in Heli mode the pitch and throttle are always linked.
I’ll keep you up to date with my experiences and further developments.
I found that a conventional laptop computer is fragile for use in the field and decided to create my own ruggedized PC that would be suitable for use in the field and the workshop. Having upgraded my desktop, I have a spare socket AM3 motherboard. The motherboard has an integral video adapter, so will not require a bulky graphics card. To power the PC, I will use a 12 volt ATX power supply. A 19" Samsung LED LCD will be used. The screen comes with a 14.2V mains power supply, this is more than the intended 12v input. I attempted to power the screen with 12V but it would not switch on. To ensure the the LCD will have a consistent 14.2V input, I will use a buck-boost regulator. This means the PC will be able to take a wide input range from 10-20V.
The case is constructed from sheet aluminum and 1" aluminum equal angle and held together using M4 stainless-steel cap headed bolts. I think it should be up to the job when it's finished.
After tearing through countless quantities of landing legs on my drone I decided to make my own, somewhat stronger than the original legs. Through years of modifying cars I have learnt (the hard way!!) that when you make something stronger, there's always something else in the chain that will fail. So with this in mind I have designed these legs, and while they are a little rough at the moment (I only had hand tools at my disposal), they all but saved my copter last night in a crash from about 10ft caused by a short...
The upper part, (copter is on it's back) is aluminium strapping with holes drilled from the original legs as a template, the lower part is a 10mm tube. I've used two mounting holes in the tube, the top one I have used a steel screw, but to provide a suitable failure point, I use a plastic screw in the bottom hole and I've glued an 10mm LED in the bottom because I have a heaps of them and they are nicely rounded to prevent the landing gear digging into the ground.
When assembled they are nicely angled, typically they don't give much in a hard landing, but they worked brilliantly in an un-powered decent from well over 10ft onto concrete, resulting in absolutely no damage to the copter other than requiring four new plastic screws for the landing gear.
One handed plug removal, simple labeling in case the copter ends up on the ground and I'm not the first one there.
10cm of kevlar thread, 6cm plastic tubing, label
Happy New Year 2013 from jDrones to all and everyone.
See you guys/gals next year ( i mean this ).
Jani / jDrones
We had a great year here at DIY Drones. Membership is growing at the fastest pace ever (about one new member every 35 mins), as are all the other measures of participation, such as number of blog posts, discussions, comments and pictures/videos.
Traffic is also growing nicely, and we now do more than 1.6 million pageviews per month.
On the development side, 2012 was a huge year. Here are some of the highlights:
Software:
New 3DR Hardware
Our hardware partner Jdrones also grew spectacularly this year, with exciting new products and new production facilites, but I'll let Jani write that post ;-)
2013 Preview
Along with a flood of new products and continued software evolution, the big changes you'll see around here in 2013 are going to be in the websites, which are due for major improvements.
Finally, a huge thanks to all the members, Moderators and developers who worked so hard in 2012 to make this our best year ever. This community has become something extraordinary, and every day I'm blown away by the ideas, insights, energy and creativity of the members here. Drones are hot!
Hello,
I want to introduce my new copter!
it is a Compackt Hexacopter 300mm x 300mm x 500mm
for professional user
Up to 1 kg of payload
10 -12 min. flight time
information at
www.koppendorfer.de
Thanks
Peter
