http://startingelectronics.com/articles/radio-controlled-watermelon/
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This is something NASA has been working on for years (I saw the Blackhawk hovering autonomously at NASA Ames in 2008), but it's good to see it actually out in the field.
From Singularity Hub:
The autonomous Blackhawk’s official name is Rotorcraft Airscrew Systems Concept Airborne Laboratory, or RASCAL, and it has just completed its first test flight at the Diablo Mountain Range in San Jose, California. Pilots were actually aboard during the two-hour test flight for an emergency takeover, but turned out they weren’t needed.
RASCAL’s navigation system successfully negotiated an obstacle field with terrain-sensing and statistical processing. It flew within a range of 200 to 400 feet above ground and identified a landing site – a forest clearing – and was able to hover 60 feet above the site within 1-foot accuracy. Risk assessment and threat avoidance tests were also considered a success.
Importantly, the RASCAL was operating on the fly. “No prior knowledge of the terrain was used,” Matthew Whalley, the Army’s Autonomous Rotorcraft Project lead, told Dailytech.
From Shapeways:
We do not always know exactly what everyone is 3D printing with Shapeways, Every now and then we see some odd forms coming out of the 3D printers and we speculate what they might be. A sliding bracket to connect a camera to a dog, a rolling half mount to amplify bird calls, or a weirdly flapping crawler to take flight over Japan?
Check out the videos of the ornithopter that was modeled in Autodesk 123D and 3D printed with Shapeways as it is first tested, then launched into outdoor flight. If anyone understands Japanese and would like to translate the site, please feel free to share more information on the project.
Here some backstage details of last episode of "60 minutes", a popular tv show focused on the most relevant news around the world. This episode focuses on the biggest ship accident of modern era, the Costa Concordia sinking.
Starting from 1:40 of the embedded video you can see the italian made drone "Scrabble" which filmed aerial footage for CBS!
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504803_162-57559461-10391709/a-world-askew-on-board-the-costa-concordia/
Around 10 days ago I started a debate on wing Aerofoil choices to improve flight range rather than endurance. A number of folk joined in with ideas and suggestions, and the choice was eventually made - The Selig S7075 at 9% thickness.
Many Aerofoils were simulated and the S7075 choice seemed a good one, so I proceeded to make a prototype set of wings to begin some trials.
The 'original' wing is a Clark Z Aerofoil, 316mm Chord and 1.8meter span. Fitted to our SurVoyeur aircraft with an all up weight of 4.8kg ( a heavy camera...) we achieve around 35km flight range at 21m/s airspeed on two 4cell lipo packs, each 5000mAH.
The 'New' wing is the S7075, chord 315mm, and span 2meters. The wings are CNC foam cut cores, vacuum bagged with Carbon cloth and mylars top and bottom. Ailerons are almost full wing length, but split so that the inboard can be used solely as flaps to test the limits for low speed autolanding and autolaunch.
Flight trials will start in the next few days.
For all those who were part of the discussions, here are some photos of the process and the results...
Regards
Joe
The NamPilot...Swakopmund
I have/had many flight controls, Hoverfly Pro, MK, YS-X6, NAZA, Autoquad and APM. I test these a lot, on small quads and big octos, and I have to say that arducopter is getting better and better and I'm all for open source plataforms like Autoquad and Ardupilot. The speed of these open projects can't be matched and the performance differences between the early APM and the current APM is incredible, so big that I was comfortable to use APM during 2 days instead YS-X6 or Hoverfly Pro that I'm used to. And it worked really well.
The flying parts of the video were made with a heavy lift hexa + Ardupilot and a hoverfly pro as gimbal controller (not hoverfly gimbal) it is from a big motorcycle event in Brazil.
I couldn't preview my video embeebed, so please some moderator embed it for me?
We designed a dock and made a prototype by carving out all the components from glass-fabric board and putting them together.
the concept is like this
the prototype is showed as below
We bought a set of carving machine and a 3D printer to make our own components for HeX
We haven't fixed it on our drone yet. Later on, I will update the result of how it actually works on a drone
Spectrum DX8
2 Switches 1 TX channel
6 Flight Modes
You don’t need to sacrifice 1 RX channel to mix 6 Flight Modes out of two switches.
Just mix Aux2 to itself in 3 different ways depending on the position of the
F Mode switch. You need to have Flight Mode enabled with the F Mode switch.
First go to Servo Setup and set Aux2 Travel to 85%
Then go to Mixing and select Mix 3, 4 and 5 und set it up as shown in the following pictures.
You will then get the Flight Modes a pictured below.
The good thing is, if the Flap/Gyro switch is in the middle (pos1) you always get
APM Flight Mode 4, which you could assign to Stabilize.
So you have still the channel Rud and Aux3 free for other useful things.
The GoPro Hero 3 is the newest series of the popular GoPro hero Camera which has already gained wide popularity for use in RC planes, helicopters and multicopters.
It is an amazing little camera with incredible video and photo capabilities and the WiFi up and down link and remote provide an excellent complement for our our RC / APM planes and copters.
It is the intention of this Blog to provide an ongoing forum for users of this camera to report their experiences and methods and for potential users to investigate the usefulness of this camera for their purposes.
Your responses can and should include what you like and don't like about this camera, specific information regarding mounting and stabilizing it and if possible pictures of your planes, copters, installations and mounts and even examples of pictures and videos acquired with this camera where practical.
Although I am going to start by reporting my early experiences with the GoPro Hero 3 Black I received on December 10th 2012.
I will add significant information from your posts to this main post as can manage.
The GoPro Hero 3 is somewhat smaller than previous GoPro's and now incorporates the WiFi capability built in.
It is available in 3 versions, White, Silver and Black.
The Hero 3 Black is the top of the line version with better lens, faster video, lower light capability and most importantly a really wide range of video options up to and including 4K at 15fps pro quality cinema and 2.7K at 30fps which is fast enough to be useful.
In 1080P HD (up to 60 fps) mode it features wide, medium and narrow fields equating to a 3 tier zoom capability with no loss in resolution And 720P HD can be used at up to 120 fps.
The Hero 3 Black is fully capable of being useful in a professional film making role.
All the Hero 3 cameras are supplied with a ruggedized, waterproof case and the combination of case and camera are designed to be used continuously in conditions that would immediately destroy the vast majority of other cameras including many other "Sports" cameras.
The Hero 3 Black also comes standard with a separate WiFi remote that can also program the cameras various modes.
All Hero 3 cameras can also be connected to an Apple or Android tablet or phone and in addition to controlling the camera, they can provide a (limited) live preview.
At the moment the standard definition "Live Preview" option suffers two significant problems.
There is an approximately three second lag between what the camera is "seeing" and what the phone / tablet is displaying, so definitely not for FPV use.
Worse, as of the current release of their Android App they turn off the "Live Preview" screen while actually recording video (at least on my Black).
This was not the case for the Hero 2 with WiFi and is a devastating loss for the Hero 3.
I do very seriously hope a future App release will fix this.
While it is actually on the "Live Preview" does provide sufficient resolution and clarity to be useful even with the delay.
Even though the camera uses a typical 2 button menu set up on a tiny LCD display for a huge variety of options I found it fairly straight forward to set up as desired and the supplied remote mimicked the cameras setup methods exactly.
Because the GoPro is very small, many after market plane and copter mounts are available that will even accept it's ruggedized case and in the simplest use you can even mount one of it's supplied base plates to your plane or copter, right side up or upside down.
Pan and tilt mounts are available as are ones that incorporate yaw as well.
An inexpensive "FlameGear" mount is available for multicopters but at this time the $20.00 more expensive XP version is recommended over the one actually made for the GoPro as it has a wider landing gear and more rugged camera mounting system. A friend got the GoPro one for his DJI Flamewheel F550 Hex and thought it inadequate.
I will probably get the XP version for my DJI Flamewheel F450 Quad and will report back on it when I have had experience with it.
The APM, ArduPilot and Arducopter do provide for automatic stabilization and even automatic camera pointing with servo controlled mounts.
All this having been said, my GoPro Hero 3 Black arrived with a very serious malfunction and I am undoubtedly going to have to send it back.
Every third or fourth time I shut my camera off, the LED on the back of the camera comes on at about half brightness and the battery heats up quickly.
It will not turn back on when this happens and the only way you can get it to work again is by removing the battery and reinserting it.
Clearly something very bad is happening and the mostly shorted out Lithium battery is a very serious fire hazard aside from being really bad for the battery.
As this is from the very first real production batch of these "Blacks" I am sure this is a teething problem, but be forewarned.
You might want to wait a bit, they don't call it the "bleeding edge" for nothing.
Assuming they get it fixed and eventually get live preview to work during video recording, this little camera is a great place to start in setting yourself up for photography or videography.
Sean Headrick of aerotestra.com brought over the latest revision of his thin-shell Hugo quad. He claimed it was fine to fly in the rain, which was convenient because it was raining like crazy! I took some photos and videos of this interesting unit. He gave me a body, which I'll assemble and test out myself this week.
I think it looks very nice, and it flew perfectly in the rain, with no leaks to the interior.
Received my new GoPro 3 Black editions on Friday and spent most of the weekend playing with all the settings and learning the new menus. The iPhone App is awesome. You basically can change and view all the available settings of your camera through your iPhone or iPad without touching the camera.
Unfortunately in my rush to get outside for a few minutes to test some aerial footage and view from iPhone, I forgot that the GoPro transmits via 2.4 just like my Aurora 9 radio. The video shows what happens next...
As is customary and traditional, we celebrate every new 1,000 members here and share the traffic stats. This time it's 32,000!
There were well over 1.5 million page views this month, which is a new record (we get over 50,000 page views a day). It took us just 29 days to get this latest 1,000 members--we're averaging about one new member every 41 minutes.
Thanks as always to all the community members who make this growth possible, and especially the moderators who approve membership applications and blog posts and otherwise answer questions and keep things ticking here. We've got about 60 moderators now, but if anyone would like to join this group, please PM me. If you've been here for a while and have been participating, you'll fit in great.
New product at Hobbyking, which looks like a stripped-down autopilot (just four waypoints, and no GCS) for $159. Fixed-wing only. Does anyone have any experience with it?
Hi DIYDrones!
New video from my multiwii equipped hexacopter:
I have used Virtualdub with deshaker v3.0 on it, works a treat!
Chasing RIB boats with my FPV quadcopter.
I was sitting in the yellow boat. Pretty scary, flying over waves while holding the transmitter.
Some specs:
NTM 1200kv 250w
5000mah 3s lipo
Turnigy Plush 18 amp ESC
DJI NAZA
9x4.7 slow fly props
GoPro HD hero
1.2Ghz 600mw video transmitter
Dragon link for control
600 tvl WDR security cam 2000 for fpv
10 min flying time
The little vibration in the video is now sorted with some earplugs and silicon.
Enjoy the video!
Any questions? Feel free to ask.
Greetings from The Netherlands.
I have tested strongly APM2.0 2.8.1 with my hexa.
On the left is the plan. On the right the realization.
Attached is the flight video:
Couple of "circles" around few waypoints + one bigger loss of direction. Looking forward on ways how to make it even more "tighter"
Wind was gusty and strong (around 6m/s). Temperature -6 degrees.
In total I am happy with the waypoint performance, but there is still room for tuning (as I am running with standard parametres)
I will also update ESCs with simonk firmware. That should smoothen the flight generally.
2.8.1. APM2.0. Talon Hexa. Turnigy 2217 kv750, Turnigy Multistar 45A with orginal firmware.
This week we used one of our Drones (this time skyjib6 since its smaller than our cinestar8) to film a mining company here in Brazil, This company is the fourth largest zinc producer in the world. One of the things they wanted us to film was the Murici Deposit. In the 60s a lot of rejected material (after zinc processing) was placed very near (100 mt) the Sao Franscisco River, one of the biggest rivers in south america (almost 3000km / 1900 miles long) and now over 50 years after the initial place the company started a US$250 million project to remove ALL the material to a new and high tech deposit, a very big one, it has over 50 ha of size and can receive over 15 million tons of material.
After removing the material, the old area will be recovered with the best reforestation technology avaiable and in 20 years it will be indistinguishable from the native forest. Right now the deposit and the reforestation is the biggest envirolmental project in Brazil.
-----------
We are editing the video, but here's a picture of the hexa flying near the deposit. Its so big that we were able to get all the deposit only when we went over 180 meters / 590 ft the highest altitude we achived with this drone, it was SCARY...
This picture is not ours, its from an airplane but is to show the size of the project.
The other picture is from inside the mine, that has over 7km of galeries at 2km deep, since at 2km it has 100% of humidity and a temperature of 35C we decided not to go below 200 meters, and using a NEX5n and a lot of light we flew inside the mine. :)
Thanks for reading!
I have posted the second video in the series as the first is REALLY basic stuff!
The great thing is that they have a virtual Arduino uno which you can experiment with to start understanding the code.
The virtual Arduino uno application can be downloaded from http://fritzing.org/download/ (Source + Windows, Mac and Linux binaries are available)
BUG=(Butterfly Unmanned Glider)
Please Leave Comments and Suggestions for other DIY Modifications
This is part 3 of my DIY Modification Project to my F-117 I hope you enjoy!
Blog Part 2:
Blog Part 1:
http://diydrones.com/profiles/blogs/f-117-hybrid-glider-project
THINGS NEEDED TO DO:
- Paint wing black(Wing is 24Inches in length)
- Add Camera
- Work on mods suggested by users
- Make CAD 3D Model of Plane
- Make Video Part 3 when wing is finished
From Gizmag:
Ever wonder how fish can find their way around so easily in murky water? Well, most of them use something called their lateral line – a row of hair cells down either side of their body that detect changes in water pressure caused by movement, or by water flowing around objects. Now, scientists from Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University and MIT have copied the lateral lines of the blind cave fish, in a man-made system designed to allow autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) to navigate more accurately and efficiently.
Ordinarily, AUVs use cameras, sonar, or an underwater acoustic positioning system. Cameras aren’t much use in murky water, however – and a lot of the world’s water bodies are murky. Sonar and acoustics are better in such situations, but the hardware can be expensive, and taxing on the AUV’s batteries.
By contrast, the blind cave fish-inspired sensors can reportedly be made for under US$100 per array, and use little power. Additionally, they don’t produce audible sonar “pings” that can be harmful to aquatic animals.
Instead, the system utilizes an array consisting of two rows of five sensors (yes, we know there are four rows in the picture – it's presumably two joined arrays). Each sensor measures just 1.8 x 1.8 mm and consists of a microscopic sensory pillar surrounded by hydrogel, that bends with changes in the water pressure. Combined with a computer vision system, the arrays reportedly allow Nanyang’s AUVs to create 3D images of nearby objects, and to map their surroundings.
Besides their use in AUVs it has also been suggested that the sensors could find use on military submarines, that don’t wish to announce their presence to enemies via sonar pings.
The scientists now hope to create a piezoelectric version of the system that generates all of its required operating electricity from the movement of the water. They are also investigating ways in which the sensors could detect submerged objects even when there’s little or no current.
Another later line-inspired underwater sensing system is being developed by scientists from the University of Illinois and Northwestern University.
Source: Nanyang Technological University
