I came a few months ago to talk about VRC-A class, a class for autonomous sailing boats (without crew).
I will come to you today to talk about OpenSailor, the first sailing boat that will meet the VRC-A class measurement rules.
OpenSailor is an autonomous sailing boat - unmanned - capable of covering several hundred nautical miles in complete autonomy (nautical and energetic) ... This is a monohull of slightly more than three meters which has forms similar to an Open 60. Because we are enthusiasts with a limited budget, we build it from a canoe that we have cut and constrained.
From the energy viewpoint, OpenSailor will carry the equivalent of 200 Ah battery wich will be refilled by wind and solar energy.
OpenSailor will carry everything needed to be aware of its environment (wind,atmospheric pressure, wave,...), position (GPS) and its physical behavior (speed, drift, heel, trim,...). It will be able to adapt to weather conditions (sail trim, reefing, cap,...) to go to a point defined in advance.
The yacht is currently under design and construction, and all the design documents (available under a CC: BY-NC-SA license) will be on the site www.open-sailor.com progressively following our steps forward!
We are at the beginning of the project, but here's a first provisional schedule:
July 2012: first navigation in "radio controlled" mode on Lake Geneva
July 2013: first autonomous navigation, probably St Malo -> Jersey -> St Malo or Les Sables d'Olonne -> Douarnenez
A report on my images of local flooding. I haven't gotten an autopilot up and running yet, but am about to install auto-stabilization. Even with the footage I got, the local web news site was happy to get it. Video here.
As you know, earlier this year we released the latest version of APM, the APM2560 board, which has twice as much memory as the older APM1280 boards. This was to allow us to continue to add features and functionality to the ArdupilotMega and ArduCopter code without running into the memory limits of the older 1280.
The dev teams worked hard to maintain seamless compatibility with the older boards, which has proven successful. So, for example, if you use the Mission Planner to upload your firmware, it autodetects which board you've got and loads the right firmware. And the two boards are 100% plug compatible. There are countless other tweaks in the background to make that migration seamless, and it's worked well.
In the meantime, the dev teams have been doing just what they promised in adding cool new stuff and both the ArdupilotMega and ArduCopter code have matured tremendously both in terms of performance and features over the past few months. The result, however, is that we are now nearly out of memory on the 1280 boards and development must shift to the APM2560 board to take advantage of its additional capacity.
Our plan is to, in the next few weeks, release a "final" stable and full-featured version of both the APM and AC2 code that supports both the APM1280 and APM2560 boards. (The code versions will probably be 2.3 for APM and 2.0 [non beta] for AC2). After that, future versions of both code bases will be APM2560-only.The final 1280-compatible code will represent the state-of-the-art of APM software as of mid-2011 and reflects three years of learning and work. So it will be very good indeed. But further innovation will move to the 2560 boards.
If you have an APM1280 board, you can be assured that it will continue to work great and we will continue to support that final code version for a good long time, making bug fixes where necessary. If you're happy with it, you can use it as is for years.
But if you'd like to continue to evolve with the project and participate in the continual process of adding new features and improving performance after our cut-off date later this summer, you'll need an APM2560 board (don't forget to add a couple strips of breakaway headers, too, if you don't already have them). Please note that there is no need to upgrade your IMU shield; it works equally well with both boards. Indeed, this is the reason we made APM modular, so people could upgrade one component without losing their investment in the other. And the good news is that the base processor board is by far the cheaper of the two!
You'll note that this generation shift is right on schedule in our product release cycle. If you look back at our history, we tend to release new hardware versions every six months (dating all the way back to the original ArduPilot board, two and half years ago). As new processors and better sensors become available, we work as fast as we can to make them available to the community, and the pace of that isn't slowing down. We try to maintain at least six months of backwards compatibility, and support older hardware for about a year after we stop making it. (We're no longer making the original ArduPilot, for example, but will continue to support it until the end of the year).
Going forward, you should expect this six-month pace of hardware releases to continue. If you'd rather not be on a continual learning curve, you can always choose not to upgrade (or go with commercial autopilots, which evolve much more slowly). But the spirit of DIY Drones is constant learning, experimentation and innovation. These are early days yet in the UAV world, and we've just gotten started with all the cool things we want to roll out. Thanks for joining us in the spirit of this collective adventure and exploration of the future of aerial robotics.
In these years we're doing a lot of experience to develop , electronic board , frame , esc , imu .
The last products was dev product only for hobbist .. now we decide to join force with other partner and start to work on professional platform , improve it and put all our experience in drone used for professional application. The first product is VR Dragon Y6 . This is a Hexa Coax developed by my friends Antonio CEO of FlyCam Italy that ask me to improve his original idea. This platform can support a heavy lift payload , you can put on it professional HD cam and fly for more of 15 minutes , with the coax conf is possible to lost a propeller and landing without big problem. For develop this kind of product we develop professional custom electronic board , firmware frame and gimbal , this product will be optimize during the professional service doing for filmaker service.
Can be finetuned via software, but has 3 knobs to adjust gain in field.
Bad
ESC: Got problem starting the BL motor, but when motor are running it's pretty powerfull. (Need slow startup)
Navigation mode: (hold position and RTH) need more testing. Not working very well.
Some drift: (maybe better prop or balancing motor/prop could help)
All in all: Nice little Y copter. The FY91Q can easily be intergrated in much bigger frame with bigger motor /ESC or be used in other configuration (like X frame).
Need for work with the RTH or Hold position function, too early for me to say it's rock solid.
Dear Friends, in these days i'm starting to test a lot of configuration using MP32 + VRIMU and Ardcuopter NG 32 and Arducopter32 2.0 .
The main problem is to set PID , in my revision of code i add Mixertable for fast Setup of different configuration. In this video you can see my Heavy Lift Configuration ... we are working on complete RTF Hexa that include professional Gimbal with Pitch Roll and YAW stabilization.
What do you think about our last creation ? :) This is only the begin ...
"[T]hey are using Kinect to monitor their joint positions, mapping a handful of actions to the operator’s movements. Once the quadrotor is aloft, it can be directed around the room using the operator’s right hand. The gesture recognition system responds almost instantly, guiding the vehicle in all directions with ease. When the user’s left hand is raised, the quadrotor does a mid-air flip and awaits its next command, while a quick clap of the hands brings the machine to rest on the ground.
For the protection of anyone testing out the system, overhead motion tracking cameras are used to keep track of the Kinect’s position, creating an invisible midair barrier through which the quadrotor is not allowed to pass."
Today, Bask Aerospace would like to announce the introduction of a new product, AeroCase.
This ABS Plastic bulkhead case has been designed to work perfectly with the ArduPilot Mega System (including MediaTek GPS Module and 900MHz Xbee Telemetry). It features; CNC Machined Servo Pin and USB Holes, pre-mounted PCB stand-offs for easy ArduPilot Mega mounting and everything else you need to help protect your system. We use the same case for our popular AeroPilot so we know just how good this little case is.
For just AUD$24.95, you get everything you need to help protect your ArduPilot Mega and make it simple to integrate into many aerial platforms. Find out more >>
Today we are beginning to work with depron foam for the construction of one of many test airplanes to come. In the previous days, we have built insulation foam models at a small and large scale. After testing both insulation foam models, we have collectively decided to keep our basic design, but to scale it smaller than 3 feet x 3 feet. The center of gravity was consistently in the center of our models if we tampered with weighing down some parts of the aircraft, which was a positive aspect of our design. Some models that we tested flew many meters on a light toss. In progressing to using depron, we are spending a lot of time working with the thinness and dimensions of the material to maximize the amount of the resource we have. Although sometimes it is tricky to strategically build the planes out of the 13 in. x 39 in sheets, we are having success.
Beginning this week, we plan to attach the ArduPilot Mega to a pre-built model airplane to experiment with its functions. Once we have a good, working depron model with control surfaces and a propeller, we will begin experimenting with our plane and the autopilot. We are excited to see how it will function!
we doing fly test of HexaCoax developed by Daniele A. based on MP32+ VRIMU. The video is the first flight test . We need to finisht the work on PID.
Ciao a tutti, ieri abbiamo collaudato e fatto volare l'hexa coax di Daniele, una bella realizzazione in aluminio . Il video e' del primo volo e Daniele stava prenderndo familiarita' con il mezzo. Di solito pilota riproduzioni aeree , ma si e' trovato subito a suoi agio con il suo nuvo drone , bisogna ancora lavorare sui PID , specialmente sullo YAW ancora un po' molle.
This is the configuration of HexaCoax.
I componenti sono :
Firmware : Arducopter32 NG Scheda CPU : Multipilot32 Scheda IMU : VRIMU Regolatori Motorius 30 A Motori Motorius 2217
The source code , lib and ide snapshot is available here :
The T6EX doesn't have a 3 position switch channel, so I had to combine channel 5 and 6 to get four modes. I made it work with a pot that has double terminals for each knob position, so that way there is always 2 pins to connect cables to for a single position.
Think of this knob as a bridge between same terminals: A to A, B to B, etc, closing the circuit to ground.
Channel 6 is connected to a terminal A and a terminal B from the opposite side.
Channel 5 is connected to a terminal B and C.
This is how the pot look like:
I got this switch at the Home Hardware in College st and and Spadina Av, Toronto, Canada. Sorry I don't have to much information about it. It's just a position knob.
Later, in the radio, I set up 2 PMIX mixes. they appear as PMX 1 and 2. PMX 1 it's at +70%, MAS (for master) is channel 6, SLV is channel 5, SW is channel 5.
PMX 2 is set to -60%, MAS ch6, SLV ch5, SW to ch5.
The final look:
Let me know what is not clear and I will edit this blog!
We played around with a Kinect as a way to more naturally interact with the quadrotors in the Flying Machine Arena and made a short video of the result. Since there is a bit of saturation of Kinect-ish videos out there, we tried to include a short explanation of how this demo works. You can find more info about the Flying Machine Arena here.
In these video you can see the results of first flying doing by Stefano that is a member of our community . He use MP32 + VRIMU , congratulation for this flight . This is the first example of Radial Hexacopter , this is only the first test but the results is very good :)
in questi video si vedono i risultati dei primi voli di Stefano con Multipilot32 + VRIMU , complimenti per questo volo anche perche' e' la prima realizzazione di un Hexacottero radiale , sono i primi test , ma se il buongiorno si vede dal mattino siamo a cavallo
Configurazione:
MultiPilot32+VRIMU Motori Keda 20-22L Eliche APC 10×4.7 Regolatori HobbyWing Pentium 30A Stable mode : Active Magnetometer : Deactive
Just how important vibration isolation is with an APM become clear to CanberraUAV this week. We were testing flying Jacks SkyRaider (a low wing sports plane with a 0.5ci engine) on Sunday, and found that we got severe gyro drift. The first minute or so of flight was OK, but the plane quickly developed severe roll and pitch drift when it stabilize mode. We were recording the flight using a mavlink log which showed that the roll went from -2.97 radians to 3.09 radians, when in fact we were flying fairly level!
We tried swapping out various APM components with known good bits from my SkyWalker, with no luck. Chris Gough then suggested that the problem may be vibration, given that the SkyRaider has a glow engine, and the only vibration isolation was some double sided tape between the APM and the fuselage. On Wednesday we tried again with a thick layer of foam beneath the APM (see the above picture), and it worked fantastically! We would quite surprised quite how much vibration isolation mattered.
I've mounted the APM for my Senior Telemaster with an even thicker layer of foam:
in last month we working on Multipilot32 platform , we develop library and porting ArdupiratesNG and Ardcuopter 2.0 firmware on this Arm Platform. It's compatible with standard Diydrones accessories ; Oilpan , Magnetometer Sonar and GPS.
But we're working on improve our Board this is the result of our work :
Mukltipilot32 "Build your Dreams" BYD support some upgrade the main is that can use two micro controller :
Stm32F103 72 Mhz 512 K flas 64 K ram or new revision of this micro STM32F205 , this is the first board available on the market that support this powerfull micro 120 Mhz 1 mega of flash and 128 kbyte ram.
You can reserve your sample and join us to port library and ACopter firmware on it. In the next week will be available a limit serie of board with 32F205 , for more info about this micro this is the link :
Set rate: to 19% and 31% ( these are the rates for gear sw pos '0' and gear sw pos '1')
Set Sw to gear 1
Leave Offset at 0 %
leave Trim: set to Inh.
Then to check go into mission planner, connect the arducopter .
Go into Terminal
Type in 'test'
Hit enter
Type PWM
Hit enter
The numbers will start streaming, Channel 5 is the one to look at .
select each mode and check the PWM is between the upper and lower limits.
You then need to hit enter ,come out of terminal
Go back in to terminal and type set up
hit enter
type modes
hit enter
With both gear and aux 1 away from you this is mode 5 ( down 1) this should be set to stabilise this way in a panic situation it is easy to remember to push both switches away from you to get control of the copter.
Set the switches to the down 2 position
Push the aileron stick to the left to scrol through the modes when you reach the required mode for that sw position select the next sw position and so on.
The way I find it easy to remember the six modes is to think of it as down (gear) Aux1 1,2,3 and up (gear) aux 1 1,2,3.
This is only what I have done I hope it is useful, feel free to tell me if there is anything esier to do.
full set up including sonar, gps, and magnetometer.
5000 mah battery
DX8 Tx, Rx system.
900 mhz killer cam osd system, (future upgrade to GoPro)
Custom 3d printed motor mounts
Carbon fiber + Pool noodles for shroud (because I didn't want to break the props or hurt anyone)
I just graduated from Aerospace Eng, at Ryerson University in Toronto, Canada. This was build for the UAV team to compete in the USC UAV competition. At that time we were runing PiratesNG code.
The first day was very windy(35 kmh!!), yet for some reason we decided to take off. and we had a scary water puddle landing, where the battery was partially submerged in water. We were lucky that the Lipo was undamaged.
The second day we learnt of a very important flaw in our system. I had a 20 amp rated switch on the main power line.... which lead to a serious power drain and a crash. Luckly, the night before we had created a frankinstien of a landing gear using carbon strips.This saved the crash (the carbon strips too most most of the impact and broke). So we removed our switch and beefed up the wiring.
The third day the weather was gorgeous, and all was looking good. We took off and went off into the wilderness. Our pilot has never flown the copter out in the open for too long so this was his first time. after we did a few circles and failing to see any targets. ( we were limited on the range for the camera) . A sudden gust forced the quad to loose altitude and plummet into some trees. But we quickly recovered it and found that we had a branch stuck on the quad. so we had to do an emergency landing and that was the end of our adventure.
Unfortunately for us the arducopter 2 code released the week after the competition, so we missed out on the autopilot code.
Here is Carlton University's Videos of the event, our quad copter is in it,
After we got back from the competition, I started to upgrade the firmware to 2.0.xx. During the water puddle landing we busted up our sonar. So right now i have no sonar. Our frame has warped. Jakub's frame uses very thin G10 plates so there is some serious flexing on the legs. The aluminium legs are pretty good though. Our department just got a laser cutter so I'll be busy building a new frame in the next few weeks.
Have only flown in Stabilize mode, simple seems to go crazy with yaw.
Does it need to get a gps lock for simple mode to work? and should my magnetometer show north correctly without a GPS lock?
The 2.0.28 code was really good. I was relying heavily on the auto trim flight to get it to stop drifting. With the old labview based configuration the accel offsets were changeable through xbee. That feature has been removed which is making it hard for me to get the quad level.
If i save the parameters using the planner, will the offsets also be saved?
I'm having a lot of fun working with the ArduQuad, even though sometimes i feel like is should throw it at a wall. As for the Ryerson UAV team, we are building a Fixed wing plat form, as well as a tricopter, to engage more students into the world of UAVs and ardupilot. hopefully we'll have a fleet of arducopters, helis, and planes within the year.
I'll leave you with a funny video of us trying to fly the Arducopter through a coat rack... feel free to LoL..
there are more videos of us at on our you tube channel.
