Blogs

GIF of my close with filter options

As you all know I've been bashing away to create code for cameras whether that be tracking a GPS point or stabilising the camera platform or just clicking the camera button. The code is currently adolescent in nature, everything is in there it just needs wisdom to match the knowledge. This brings me to my own camera, the GoPro HD.

Many here have one as well as a few more thousand around the world. They are great cameras for recording everything we do from FPV fun to scuba diving but hacking them is pretty hard (as shown by the guys on the GoPro forum trying to get the connector to play nice). One of the reasons I bought mine was because it does 1080 video and is pretty small making it great for my plane and quad and anything else I feel I should record but more importantly it is IR sensitive.

Disclaimer: In doing anything mentioned in this blog post or reponses below you are taking responibility for your own actions. DIYdrones nor myself take any responsibility what you do.

Oh no GoPro glue down the lens so you cannot get it off :O That stopped me for about 15 minutes while I googled. YouTube to the rescue. I removed the lens as shown in the video using this grips below (yes that is heatshrink 22mm is not really big enough). This is only half the problem though as the lens contains an IR filter so how do you get out the IR filter? The IR filter is held in place in the bottom of the lens by a thread O-ring of sorts (bolt with hole in it, see below) and because of the gap between the slots (the focus path) what in the jesus could I use. I went to my toolchest (yep chest and still didn't have the right tool any flat head screwdriver the reached both sides was simply to thick so what did I do :D That is right, the picture below shows my bodge. I filed a claw hammer I have to the correct width (9.5mm) and then filed the thickness of the "claw" down to fit inside the slot. Not only had I created a flathead screwdriver but because it was on the hammer I had control over the lens pressure rather than screwdriver pressure when I used it making it less likely for me to injure myself or the lens. I suggest that anyone trying this turns the lens rather than the screwdriver too. There is a little glue on it too so give it a poke with a knife. Once the filter is out screw the "O-ring" back in so it will be safe if you want to return the lens to normal again. Do not reassemble everything just yet, turn on live feed and plug in to the TV preferably over HDTV and focus the lens again. Be warned even with the thread lubricated it is still a patience testing moment but be steady. Once focused you can put it all back together again.

Disclaimer: In doing anything mentioned in this blog post or reponses below you are taking responibility for your own actions. DIYdrones nor myself take any responsibility what you do.

Filtering the light that reaches the sensor is up to you and your choices.

The gif above shows how the picture changes with the filter options I have used so far. I had a video camera visible light filter but in trying to install it broke it so I'll try to find another and adapt the housing to it (as during using live feed it was WAY better than the examples here). Not sure of the uses to be honest yet but night and day recording without worry is kind of cool. I will add a video timelapse of my street as the sun sets to show the difference in light with no filter later on

It's the latest Electric Tethered Observation Platform from Israel Aerospace Industries, photographed at the Paris Air Show, according to km2804.

Basically a long camera boom, as shown in this earlier concept image:

I was looking for some new developments for UAVs and here is what I found accidentally. OpenPilot Open Source UAV Platform seems to be very powerful autopilot, which is very similar to APM. I don't remember that is was mentioned here, so I decided to make a blog post. The link to their official website: http://www.openpilot.org/

Check out the firmware loading screen from the latest Mission Planner (1.013). Have you ever seen anything more beautiful??

Yes, APM is the first autopilot in history to support every kind of flying machine out there! (We already covered lighter-than-air with Blimpduino). Thanks to the great work of team leader Randy Mackay, the Trex 450 (traditional heli) version of ArduCopter is now fully compatible with ArduCopter 2, which means 2-way MAVLink and all the other mission planning goodness.

Randy will be updating the Traditional Heli manual soon with the ArduCopter2 details. One thing he discovered is that the Trex 450 flies a lot better with APM if you go flybarless. A Guai 450 flybarless head can be found for as little as $24.

Finally our new MC-385 arrived! We are lucky to have Manncorp just a few miles away, they have been very supportive with us. Thanks Manncorp!

This little machine is similar to the Sparkfun one (MC-384) but ours has dual head! This is another step forward to fully automatize the assembly process, increase our quality and keep up with the demand!

Check the picture next to our old Japanese pick place the 7722VP (the one to the left), that is exactly the same machine Adafruit has.. The MC-385 (right side) is huge and weights around 1000 pounds, thanks to the super solid metal frame.

The original manufacturer of this machine is Autotronik, based on Germany (yeap this machines came straight from Amberg,  Germany) and this baby including all the accessories cost us a little bit more than 100,000.00 USD, we practically pay it in cash (so no credits so far!).. The main feature of this machine are the smart feeders, that will allow us to program several design's into the machine without the need to reprogram every feeder every time we switch the parts to be placed, the machine can automatically detect what component you inserted into it and will go pick the part and place it where it suppose to be, no questions asked!

The machine is incredibly fast but unfortunately I won't be able to post a video now because we need to setup a 220V power line, the good news are that it's already scheduled for tomorrow. Keep tuned!

Even the company pet Aye-Aye loves it. =)

BTW, if you want to get a sneak peak of cool stuff coming from 3D Robotics (the commercial side of DIY Drones), you can follow its Twitter feed here.

From a piece in today's New York Times on the push for more and better military microdrones:

There are some 4,800 Ravens in operation in the Army, although plenty get lost. One American service member in Germany recalled how five soldiers and officers spent six hours tramping through a dark Bavarian forest — and then sent a helicopter — on a fruitless search for a Raven that failed to return home from a training exercise. The next month a Raven went AWOL again, this time because of a programming error that sent it south. “The initial call I got was that the Raven was going to Africa,” said the service member, who asked for anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss drone glitches.

The results are in, and we have some great reports from the AUVSI student competition. A Paparazzi-powered UAV came in first, and APM made its best showing ever, with APM-powered UAVs in  7th, 15th and 16th place.

Dan Strider reports:

There were 26 teams registered this year, 22 of which showed up to competition and I believe 17 of which had successful flights (two teams had ground troubles and would have otherwise flown). Of the 17 flying teams, I personally saw several autonomous takeoffs and landings and most teams flew on autopilot for a significant portion of the flight. It seemed more teams flew still imagery rather than video, though it still surprised me how many teams did not have in-flight transmission of the imagery. WIFI was quite common, especially the Ubiquity hardware. Several teams were flying 72 MHz, though it seemed most were on 2.4 GHz (some despite the 2.4 WIFI) and several were flown through their comm links. The aircraft themselves were perhaps the most conservative across the field we've had. There was a lone quad-rotor representing rotary wings and one canard (which flew quite well I might add). Many teams flew trainer-style Telemasters/Kadets/Rascals, though the foam and/or composite molded aircraft were popular as well. Sizes ranged from about 4 lb up to 55.0 lb (their quote, heh). There were some crashes on Saturday, but Friday was remarkably a clean day and shows the caliber and professionalism of the teams.


Drumroll please...

The overall winner was Utah State University FOSAM, with a near sweep of the categories. Their flight was fully autonomous: one mouse-click to put it in flying mode and one mouse click to select the landing mode. The in-flight imagery system was second to none, with onboard automatic target recognition and three imagery operator stations on the ground. Utah won two years ago as well, making them the first two-time winner. 

Second place was North Carolina State University, the only team to find all five targets and figure out the acronym A-U-V-S-I. They also did an autonomous takeoff, but didn't quite pull off the auto-landing. Their flight was fully autonomous except for the last 3 feet before touchdown. NC State was the overall winner last year and is the only team to have competed in all nine years of the competition.

Mecha adds:

I'll make a quick mention of some of the autopilots used in the event this year. Overall I saw an increased number of Paparazzi users and ArduPilot Mega.

At least 3 universities including 1st place winners Utah FOSAM team used Paparazzi. Several Piccolo users, NC State and the Air Force Academy amongs them. There where a few kestrels (can't remember the teams). Several teams with MicroPilot including Florida International University. At least 3 teams with ArduMega: Bucknell University, Embry Riddle Aeronautical University and M.S. Ramaiah Institute of Technology. 

There where no teams this years that I am aware off that used Attopilot, Unav or FeiYu Tech.

Here's is the final list, with autopilots in bold where known:

1- Utah State University FOSAM -- Paparazzi
2- North Carolina State University -- Piccolo
3- Sherbrooke University (Canada) -- Paparazzi
4- United States Air Force Academy -- Piccolo
5- California State at Northridge
6- University of California at San Diego -- Kestrel
7- Delhi Technical University (India) -- APM
8- Kansas State University -- Piccolo
9- University of Arizona -- Piccolo
10- M.S. Ramaiah Institute of Technology (India) -- Paparazzi
11- Utah States University ROSAM -- Paparazzi
12- Cornell University
13- Virginia Commonwealth University
14- Mississippi State University -- Piccolo
15- Bucknell University  -- APM
16- Embry Riddle Aeronautical University -- APM
17- Florida International University  -- Micropilot
18- Great Mills High School --- Micropilot
19- Rutgers University  -- APM
20- University of Texas at Austin -- APM?
21- University of Texas at Arlington -- APM?
22- Wentworth Institute of Technology
N/A - University of California at Los Angeles
N/A- Illinois Institute of Technology
N/A- Hampton Roads Area High School -- Homebrew
N/A- Cal State Poly Pomona

[Picture at top from Dan Strider]

No, thats not the light at the end of the tunnel, that is a time exposure of a spinning UAV DevBoard (UDB) during some research that I have been doing recently.
The goal of the research was to push the envelope of the sustained rotation limits of the direction-cosine-matrix algorithm. The idea is to be able to maintain highly accurate estimation of attitude during sustained (meaning forever) high speed rotation (maximum rating of the gyros) around any axis, such as a continuous turn, or multiple barrel rolls, or a spin, without  sacrificing any performance during straight-line flight or interfering with
any other function, such as wind estimation.
So, I put a UDB on an old record player spinning at 78 RPM (468 degrees per second), let it spin for 20 minutes, and measured, analyzed, and corrected various sources of errors that arise during high speed, sustained rotation, including:

Accumulation of numerical errors in the drift integrators.
The linear approximation to the rotation matrix in the DCM algorithm.
Latency in magnetometer measurements.
Gyro calibration errors.

The first picture was taken during measurement of magnetometer latency, in which a special test program flashed an LED on the board as it spun. The test was inspired by the strobe light method of measuring engine timing. By photographing the pattern at both low speed and high speed rotation, it is possible to determine the latency. In the first picture, the board was spinning very slowly, so this picture was a benchmark. The board was rotated a little more than two revolutions. The "dot" points to true north.

Then the board was spun at 78 RPM, and a similar picture was taken, only with more revolutions. It was easy to determine that, in the case of UDB + MatrixPilot, there is a delay of 0.085 seconds (40 degrees at 78 RPM) between the time the magnetometer makes a measurement, and when it is used in the yaw calculations. It was a simple matter to compensate for the delay in software, and another picture was taken at 78 RPM to verify the improvement:

Similar tests were performed to measure the other sources of error and to verify that the methods I developed to eliminate them actually worked, including a method for automatically calibrating the gyros in flight. I plan to explain these techniques in reports to be posted here, when I find some time to write them up.

Once everything seemed to work ok on my record player, the next step was flight testing. I turned to Ric Kuebler, (thank you, Ric) who did the following flight test on 4 separate flights, 2 with EM406 GPS, and 2 with uBlox GPS, without magnetometer, with his FunCub:

Circle 30 times at 12 RPM.
Spinning vertical dive at 90 RPM, 30 complete revolutions.
Pull out into level flight and switch to waypoint mode.

Telemetry showed that attitude estimation tracked perfectly the entire time, and then the controls transitioned smoothly into waypoint mode immediately after the spinning dive. Here is the track while Ric was pulling his plane out of the spinning dive:

Coincidentally, Ric's flight was a good test of the "dead-reckoning" algorithm that is used in MatrixPilot. Here is a portion of the reported track from the EM406 at 12 RPM:

Here is the track reported by the "dead-reckoning" algorithm:

Anyway, version 949 of MatrixPilot in the code repository contains the improvements that have been made to compensate for the errors that arise during sustained high rate rotations. With it, you can spin around any axis at 500 degrees/second for as long as you like.

Best regards,
Bill

Note that Marcy vision is our quadrotor's fuselage with a board from an
abandoned ground rover, complete with H bridges, servo headers, & a
900Mhz radio.

So the Logitec C510 has fixed exposure.  Search through the kernel for
V4L2_CID_EXPOSURE_AUTO.  Unfortunately, there's no way to manually set
the exposure & it picks a value which is too bright, but it does get
30fps.

Decided to see if locked exposure was possible on our other webcams &
sure enough, the oldest one, a ZStar ZC0301 cam, had a fixed gain
option.  It picks an exposure which just happens to work.  It could
track the LED in ambient light.  Its framerate could only reach 15fps.

Unfortunately, after all that hype, the shutter speed on all the cameras
in fixed exposure is too fast to get the continuous ring out of Marcy 1
the object tracker needs.  So fixed exposure without any adjustment
isn't very useful.

With the useless fixed exposure & the lack of clockcycles to process
1280x1024, the Logitec isn't the best camera & we blew $44.  For that
money, we could have built a 3D 640x480 camera.  Still forging ahead
with the Logitec because it cost money.

The Logitec was a squeeze play.  It was drastically reduced & we didn't
expect it to last.  The $16 webcams would probably have been better.
Maybe the CPU power to do object recognition at 1280x1024 will come,
someday.

There aren't many stories about how the iPhone is doing object
recognition.  It must have a hardware absdiff comparer & use very low
resolution images.

Well, highschool geometry applied to the imaging gets very good X, Y, Z
coordinates of the object.  The main problem is the weather.



Got separate servo mounts for every camera.



Swapped in the ZStar.



Tracking the LED with the Logitec.

The 1st campaign with machine vision was a real pain to set up & a
complete mess at tracking.  It locked on to the moon & lights.  The
servos jittered like crazy.  The weather was actually calm enough to get
some good data.  Spent most of the battery trying to get vision to lock
on to the vehicle.  A camera pair would definitely aid in separating out
the background.

The 2nd campaign went better.  Put in different PWM code for the camera
turret, which is very precise.  Pointed the camera at a dark area.  It
locked on the vehicle & never lost it.  Someday, the algorithm should
weed out ambient lights.

Never spent much time on PWM code, since it's obsolete, the real
solution is making all the servos & ESC's use I2C, & the fail safe modes
are real busters.  Suspect most people use a single timer & alarms for
the PWM loop.  It's noisy when 2 alarms get too close together.  For
camera pointing, a dedicated timer for each servo is required.

We could swap out the electronics for servos.  Developing ESC's is a lot
more complicated.  That takes over current detection, loss of signal
detection, stall timeouts, hand tuning back EMF voltage.

Camera turrets which automatically track objects are cool.  There's 1
more camera mount which could use some object recognition.



Made during the 1st period Major Marcy deleted us.  Always knew whatever
caused that judgement meant She would never see us in real life.
Indeed, She never talked to us in real life, had 6 suitors, broke up
with all of them, & moved away.  You were weighed, measured, & found
lacking before the 1st pitch.






Anyways, have some video of the 1st flights, from the camera turret. 

1st autopilot tests show real stability & real feedback to the machine
vision.  Marcy vision is producing better position information than
we've ever had before.

Tried 1 & 2 LED's.  1 LED at 3.3V worked just as well as 2.  Haven't
used chroma keying because it lowers the framerate, colors all saturate
to white on the camera, colors are less different from a black
background than white.

A camera turret made out of servos is way too expensive to ever be a
viable product.  If you could get it to recognize objects in daylight,
it could be a superior alternative to GPS.

The main question is how to track objects which don't spin & how to
handle ambient light.  We're looking at building databases of objects in
every possible angle & distance, with low resolution proxies,
compensating for differences in exposure, & using the 20MB OpenCV
library.

The only problem is the Goo Tube videos of OpenCV don't show the
accuracy we need.  Hard to believe the other machine vision guy died, a year ago.

With all the talk of balloon projected images rounding the blogs, maybe
sonar has a future in some future blimp which is small enough to fit in
the apartment.

Sleep schedule is pretty screwed up from flying the Marcy special in the
most stable, early morning hours, then spending hours wondering why our
flight controller didn't work.

From News 3 in New Zealand, news that engineers are using a Parrot AR.Drone to inspect the inside of the Christchurch cathedral damaged in the earthquake:

It's a type of toy called a ‘quadricopter’ and was bought from Dick Smith. Controlled by an iPad, it can fly and film. Opus engineers have put a polystyrene reinforcing around it. The drone recently crept its way inside the cathedral for a test flight. The whole area's too dangerous for engineers to get close.

“Even if we lost it in the building ‘cause we're never quite sure with the wi-fi range or the battery life, but if it turned out to be a suicide mission it's a $500 one not a far more serious one,” says Opus engineer Nicholas Dawe.

Apart from a little bother getting in, the drone was able to fly round inside and show the heavy dust that's fallen on the seats below.

Video from inside the cathedral is here.

[via Multi-Rotor news]

This model is big! 2500mm is impressive by any standard, yet the model is very practical, for instance the highly efficient balsa wing is removable for transportation. This model is highly unusual being both a scale model and a purpose built FPV/Camera platform. The Reaper UAV is a development of the Predator and represents the latest in cutting edge military technology, it is also much more than a mere surveillance aircraft, with its armament of Hellfire missiles and laser guided "smart" bombs, it is a hunter/killer with an impressive combat history.

Specifications:
Wingspan: 2500mm
Length: 1080mm
Wing Area: 32.5dm2
Wing Loading: 76-83g dm2
Airfoil: Eppler 374 Mod
Weight: 2500g~2700g

This MQ-9 comes as ARF, the following is required to complete this plane:

5~6 Channel TX/RX
36~42 Outrunner or Inrunner Brushless Motor
40A~60A ESC
2 x Standard Servo and 4 x High Torque Micro Servo
3500mAh~4000mAh 3s or 4s Lipoly Battery

For FPV use, this model obviously ticks the boxes, its difficult to argue with the design of the Reaper! There is plenty of room for FPV/Camera equipment, the scale under-slung camera pod is supplied in such a way that it can be fixed or made rotating with a little effort and comes with glazing. For FPV use obviously the model weight will increase and you may want to consider a 4s set up, prop range is 11"-12". However you fly it, this is an impressive model in every respect and is bound to be a talking point wherever it is flown.

Available from Hobbyking for US$ 100.36, see the product page for details. If you stay on the site for a while, a one-time offer window appears to budy this plane for US$ 94.96. Price may depend on your membership level at the shop.

An amateur/educational group called Quest For Stars plans to lift a glider to the edge of space with a balloon to film the last Space Shuttle launch. In future flights, the glider will be then released and navigate home, broadcasting FPV video the whole way. It appears that they're using standard Eagletree and Rangevideo gear, including the basic Rangevideo return-to-home autopilot.

Here's their description of the project:

Everything minus the airframe and ballistic recovery failsafe will fly on our July 8th launch. We have designed a ballistic recovery method to return our UAV to FAR 101 parachute flight as a failsafe.

Our July 8th flight will TX 1.2GHZ FPV down from the heavens live during the launch of Atlantis STS-135. Anyone within RX range will be able to see what our nearsat will see. We are trying to get eagletree and rangevideo to provide additional demo gear that we can loan to the local news media so they have a feed for rebroadcast. On that same note, we are also looking for local FLA volunteers to recieve and stream the video over the internet via ustream. That way you all can watch FPV history live as we see the SpaceShuttle zoom by! 

Another day, another spectacular upgrade of the APM Mission Planner by Michael Oborne. Today's cool new features in v1.09 includes datalogging, so you can record your missions from the ground and replay them for analysis afterwards. No need to download logs from the board itself; just click one button and you can record as long as you want!

Also, speech synthesis is enabled. No need to watch the screen while your UAV is in the air--your GCS will speak to let you know about waypoints hit or other events. This is a lot like the similar feature in HK GCS except you can't define custom phrases yet they way you can in HK GCS (but at the pace Michael's going that will probably be in by next week!).

You can also set the interface to English or Chinese for the growing Chinese APM user group. Note that the manual has also been translated into Chinese, French and German, all by community members! Yay open source!

Just click update in the Mission Planner to upgrade to the newest version, or you can download it afresh here.

I'm building my own inertial navigation system --- one that isn't super complex, doesn't involve fancy filters, yet will provide plenty of accuracy. It's all about purposeful building... designing and building for what it WILL do, not what it MIGHT or could possibly be able to do.

With that said, I'm using the Razor - 6DOF Ultra-Thin IMU from SparkFun. So far so good! I've got a basic program written on my Arduino, which includes a complementary filter. I've been very impressed with it so far. Prior to beginning, I had done a lot of researching and video watching to see how others were going about such projects. There's some very talented people out there! Many of them reside here, on DIYDrones (and I'm sure you all know who you are!). There were a few avenues I considered going down in terms of filtering methods..... A Kalman filter of course is very nice, but not having a complete understanding of how it works, let alone any idea how it would be programmed, kept me looking. I love the DCM 'algorithm' Bill and Paul have developed. From my physics and calculus background I've got a great understanding of vectors and such. I still may go down that route. I had found several code examples of the DCM, but I couldn't get them to work quite right. And besides, part of this whole project, for me, is coming up with an even more simplistic, yet effective method. I don't need aerobatic capability. Just normal flyinig abilities. No need to get fancy.

I've also been developing some simple, yet useful and fun software for display the output data. My "Attitude Indicator" program is just that, a simple attitude indicator, which can read serial data from my Arduino (or any other source for that matter), in terms of Euler angles, and accurately display them.

I'd like to continue to expand this program into a complete Primary Display unit.

It's freely downloadable from my site, listed below. I encourage others to play with it and let me know what needs fixing/improving.

Next step for my INS is to incorporate a GPS, which I'm awaiting delivery of. I've chosen to go with a MT3329 based device. This particular unit is produced by 4D Systems and comes with a simple (I like simple) break-out board:

I'm documenting this entire project on my site, which I also have the attitude indicator program.

Site: NuclearProjects.com/ins

Jesse

The DIY Drones telemetry kit, which proved more popular than we were ready for and quickly went out of stock when we released it back in April, is now back in stock. It now offered at a lower price ($150, a savings of $15 from the previous price) and includes a cable to connect the airborne Xbee module to the APM board.

This kit works great with both APM and Arducopter. Both modules are pre-configured and ready to go, right out of the box. Orders placed now will ship on Monday.

I have several of these, all shipped free in two or three weeks from DealExtreame

EasyCAP Model DC60 (DE# 8005707, SKU 5707) $8.60 black case, Windows ONLY. Has worked great for 2 yrs+

Device Manager reports "STK1150". CD has License Key for Ulead VideoStudio 10 and drivers install OK.

EasyCAP  Model DC60++ (DE# 8026319,  SKU 26319) $19.90 white case. Had it for 3 weeks now,

Mac OS 10.2 + & Windows XP,Vista

Working great on my Mac (OS-X 10.5.8 works with 10.6.3 too) & Win (VIsta SP-2)

AMCap and Debut VideoCapture work great and it was Plug-n-Play with EasyCAP DC-60 drivers

Mac unit is twice the cost @ $20. and you need to buy VideoGlide 1.4.1 @ 30$ as no License Key is on CD, Purchased to replace SKU 11267, Drivers installed OK.

GEMs so far, kind of..

Now the stinky stuff..

EasyCAP Model DC60 (DE# 4011267, SKU 11267)  $10.91 black case 6 weeks old now (CD has Ver 3.1c Win 7-64 Model DC60-2021) $11 with STK-1160 device inside but, I can't get it to work (for both mac & win) It looks for a USB7 device and fails to install driver on PC, Fails on mac too.

The included Install CD is blank !  I found a CD image on line but no luck so far, I will not return it as I think it will work with proper drivers, HID etc..Device Manager reports "STK1160"

GEM vs CRAP

So I paid $20 for Mac option without $30 software License key so $50 on Mac vs $9 for Win. Crap!

But still cheaper than any other Mac solution.

Next worse is SKU 11267 with a blank CD!  Double Crap!

Device seems to work?, I will update here if I can get It working on either OS

Real Gem is original EasyCAP DC60 for window for only @ $9

Next is DC60++ for Mac & Win @ $20. A little Crappy as NO License Key for VideoGlide 1.4.1

Very Stinky Crap is DC60-2021 (SKU 11267) @ $11

Just Say NO! Please DO NOT buy it, Save your cash and time...

Maybe someone has a good driver for STK1160 EasyCAP DC60-2021?

I have not posted up anything in a month so thought I should give an overview of what I've designed. Unfortunately I have hit a LARGE snag in that BatchPCB is basically broken for international orders as no shipping options appear and so you cannot buy anything (its been like this since January). 5 months of waiting to produce these (no international shipping) and I'm pretty fed up, frustrated, shocked and losing faith so here for at least a quick look are my current plans.

First off I've been designing a quad to be smaller than ArduCopter but still hold everything so I can develop my camera stuff more quickly. It changed from basically a clone of ArduCopter to a slightly bare version to its current incarnation which is basically board holders with arm holders. The entire design has mounts for everything in the ArduCopter kit as well all the extras (pan and tilt, optical flow sensor(s), sonar, magnetometer, telemetry). As I progress with the build (or hopefully finish it with ease) I will update on here but the picture above is the progress so far including the 360° pan and 120° tilt bracket with sonar mount.

Now for my designs that I seem to be perpetually waiting for. All pictures are animated GIFs that ning apparently hates.

Optical flow boards

1. ADNS - 2610 with ATMega328 for translational and I2C communication with APM
2. ADNS - 5050 with ATMega328 for translational and I2C communication with APM
3. ADNS - 5050 with ATTiny85 for translational and I2C communication with APM
4. ADNS - 3080 with ATTiny85 for translational and I2C communication with APM

5050 seems to be the best sensor for our needs compared with the other two as the 2610 isn't available in the UK and the 3080 is 20 pin rather than 8 and only marginally better.

4 of these on my quad should hopefully stop it hitting walls. I'm hoping to create a library for these so they can be called for navigation easily like the rest of the I2C hardware for APM/ACM.

ACM distribution boards (4in² each).

2x two layer boards

1. Power distribution below
2. ESC distribution separating out the BEC 5V supplies to use for other things

Nothing new here but anyone fancying a smaller quad might find it useful.

ArduSlave boards (pictures aligned over I2C pins to compare size).

1. I2C controlled ATMega328 with PWM outputs only
2. I2C controlled ATMega328 with all pins broken out
3. I2C controlled ATMega2560 with all pins broken

I am hoping to get the PWM only board done so it can be used as camera control circuit over I2C. The idea being to offload the computation to the 328 so the APM can do what it does best and keep your plane/copter safe while the ArduSlave will sort your pictures. Of course the other boards could do this and much more given the extra channels.

Synthetic aperture radar system (I did say I was working on a different imager).

1. Bottom board is the analogue section for it with power regulation, ramp generator and amplication leading to stereo jack to plug into a laptop.
2. Top board is the RF section using SMD devices instead of coaxial devices to save space.
3. Combined board to show how it fits.

2.4GHz with 240Mhz bandwidth in a FMCW configuration. Record the "audio" and process with MATLAB.

I intend to record the audio onto an SD card after finding a suitable ADC as described in the picture. I already know this as a coaxial system works but as I'm using SMD I've probably borked something plus having a laptop in an Easystar isn't easy so once I've found a good ADC to save the "audio" that will deal with the laptop problem. I'll just need to develop a system on a different frequency so it won't make my plane crash :D

Interested in SAR? Think I'm mental? Want to see why I think its possible? Follow the links HERE, HERE, HERE and HERE.

Here is an edited version of the MITLL IAP course lecture powerpoint (it now includes the bill of materials).

The FY21AP is a stand-alone autopilot system with FY-AFSS algorithm, GPS receiver and barometric sensing equipment. It is fully upgradable with OSD, telemetric digital communication, Data Modem and Ground
Station Control (GCS).

The flexible layout makes this the most versatile autopilot system in the market, designed for beginners, UAV operators and professional RC aerial photographers.

Features:

Internal use high-performance ARM processor, high stability.
6DOF IMU (3 accelerometers, 3 gyros)
10Hz GPS accurate location
Combining GPS and the barometer fix altitude accurately
complete OSD telemetry information display
Optional GCS software , monitor flight trajectory in real time
LED display for flight mode
strong anti-interference ability
Auto return to base in case of signal lose

There are 2 versions available, one with OSD and one without OSD. For more information, see the the specific product pages (price that you find on website maybe lower, the price depends on your membership level at Hobbyking):

FeiYu Tech FY-21AP with AP117 OSD module - Price: US$ 355.00

FeiYu Tech FY-21AP (no OSD module) - Price: US$ 258.00

Feiyu Tech AP117 OSD (With GPS) - Price: US$ 138.00

http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/store/catalog/HKY-21AT.jpg

All in one (4)ESC's and PDB,  $89

Get all that messy wiring out of the way.