By popular demand, those cool t-shirts and hoodies that the DIY Drones team wore to Maker Faire are now available in the store. They're black, but we'll be offering other colors in the future.
The t-shirt ($14.99) says 3DRobotics.com on the back, and "DIY Drones" on the front:
The hoodie ($29.99) also says 3DRobotics.com on the back.
It has a drone on the front and says "DIY Drones" on one sleeve;
In March, 2011 there was UAV Exhibition in Moscow which is called UVS-Tech 2011. The exposition was pretty good, however a lot of visitors opine that the number of represented companies reduced comparing with the last year. I visited this exhibition and it seemed for me that there were too few foreign companies.
Here is a short photo report:
Successful 3.5 Km autonomous flight of the MAJA drone with a GoPro HD
The MAJA drone has done a successful 3.5 Km autonomous mission under flight plan on May 2011.
The FPL is composed of 5 waypoints and the MAJA drone autopilot runs the FPL during 2 loops. The full flight have been recorded with a GoPro HD wide camera. The MAJA drone is fully steered with an ArduPilotMega (APM v1.4) autopilot with a 9D0F IMU and the firmware v2.2f (JLN modified version).
The weather conditions was a bit windy and gusty: Wind 13 Km/h from ENE, gusting 20 Km/h with strong thermal lifts.
The MAJA drone setup:
Avionic setup:
- ArduPilotMega APM v1.4 (Atmega 1280 @16 MHz), 32 Mips
- Full 9DOF IMU,
- Built-in 16 MB Data Logger,
- Airspeed and absolute pressure sensors (Bosh),
- triple axis magnetometer HMC5843,
- 10Hz Mediatek GPS MTK v1.6,
- Full high speed telemetry with MavLink protocol,
- Low speed telemetry with M-Link,
- PC Laptop ground station (APM planner),
- Hand-held groundstation (Ardustation),
- XBeePro 900 for High Speed Telemetry (Mavlink).
Firmware: APM v2.2f (modified version by JLN)
Camera: GoPro HD Wide
- Brushless motor: Spitz 30 (BMI) 360 Watts (Max 480W),
- propeller thin APC-E 12x6,
- ESC: BMI #85505 C-45 (45-55A),
- 4 servos Corona CS-929 MG (1.8 kg.cm, 12.5g),
- Propulsion battery: Lipo 3S Turnigy Nanotech 3300mAh 11.1V,
- Avionic battery: Lipo 3S Turnigy Nanotech 2200 mAh 11.1V,
- UBec 5A, 5V for the Avionics (ArduPilotMega + Receiver),
- Receiver: Multiplex RX9 DR with M-Link telemetry.
Payload: Up to 1.5 Kg (Lipo battery included)
Flight time: Up to 1 hour (depends on the Lipo capacity)
More infos at: http://diydrones.com/profile/JeanLouisNaudin
Holy crap. DARPA has just announced a project to use the DIY Drones model for the future of military UAVs. Called UAVForge, which is already up and running (although it crashes Firefox on my machine), it is described in the official request for proposals like this:
This initiative aims to produce a small, affordable, and easy to operate unmanned air vehicle capable of persistent perch and stare surveillance. The successful offeror will empower a diverse community of innovators and emergent design teams by providing manufacturing capabilities and assessments and producing up to 15 units of the winning design. The UAVForge initiative will employ a collaboration website and a fly-off competition, both developed and administered for DARPA/TTO by the Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center, Atlantic (SSC Atlantic), Charleston, SC.
Here's a conceptual video:
Many more details are in the full pdf description here. It's a $2 million project, with $100,000 going to the winning designer.
Some excerpts:
Small unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) have proven important in modern military operations and
show promise for civil applications. Portable UAVs are used by the military for reconnaissance
missions and have been used commercially for tasks such as monitoring oil and gas pipelines,
and tracking wildfires. However, the effective use of state-of-the-art systems is constrained by
cost and performance as well as high logistic support and operator skill and workload demands,
compared to more routinely employed portable military equipment, like GPS and night vision
devices.
The UAVForge initiative will use a collaboration/competition crowdsource approach to produce
a small, affordable, and easy to operate UAV capable of persistent perch and stare surveillance.
Novel manufacturing concepts and resources will empower a diverse community of innovators
and emergent teams to deliver a superior UAV system solution relative to state-of-the-art
systems. The overall objective of UAVForge is to develop an aircraft that costs $10,000 or less
per unit, can be carried in a rucksack by an individual, can fly to and perch in useful locations at
several kilometers range for periods of several hours, and provide continuous, real-time
surveillance without dedicated or specialized operators.
In this solicitation, DARPA is seeking innovative manufacturing services to facilitate the
UAVForge initiative. The selected manufacturer will support collaboration and produce the
winning design from the UAVForge competition.
UAVForge is a DARPA/TTO initiative supported by the Space and Naval Warfare Systems
Center, Atlantic (SSC Atlantic), Charleston, South Carolina, to leverage the unique potential of
crowdsourcing. SSC Atlantic will develop and maintain the www.UAVForge.net website, which
provides participants with the virtual environment and tools necessary to organize and
collaborate independent of geographic location, education, profession, or experience. The virtual
environment features collaboration tools including shared and private information spaces,
message boards, mailing lists, and other features that enable effective collaboration.
Collaboration will focus on an objective list of small UAV capabilities (Appendix 1). A series of
multimedia-based milestones (Appendix 2) will encourage the formation of ad-hoc teams around
promising solutions. These teams will develop functional design prototypes. DARPA will select,
based on published criteria and crowd/manufacturer input, the top ten designs to participate in a
fly-off competition hosted by SSC Atlantic (Appendix 3). DARPA will select one winning
design based on the results of the competition and crowd/manufacturer input. The winning team
will receive a $100,000 prize and an invitation to participate in an exclusive overseas military
demonstration exercise.
The selected manufacturer from this solicitation will provide the winning team with a subcontract to produce an initial lot of up to 15 UAVs for government experimentation. The selected manufacturer will play an integral role in the evolution and execution of the UAVForge initiative. For planning purposes, award of the manufacturing services contract will occur four months after the start of UAVForge collaboration and four months before the fly-off competition.
Good clear explanation of the power side of a brushless motor control and how to build one here. Stay tuned there for a second post on the processor/code side.
Hackaday's description:
He constructs everything on protoboard from components he acquired at RadioShack in order to demonstrate the ease of sourcing parts and building a brushless motor driver.
While he skips most of the theory behind brushless motor control itself, he does touch on the signaling these motors require for movement as well as how motor position is determined. Specifically, he expands on how half-bridges can be used to create the sine wave signaling required by a single motor input, as well as how three of these can be combined to drive a brushless motor.
Arduino compatible shield simplifies the programming required to get GPS data while improving speed and flexibility. From Hack a Day
Maker Faire was awesome. More than 100,000 people attended over two days, and it felt like almost all of them came by the DIY Drones booth! We had 12 team members manning the booth, and it took all of us to handle the crowds, which were usually two or three deep. Our cool t-shirts and hoodies were as popular as our electronics. Thanks to all who came to say hi!
Highlights included hanging out with the Google Cloud Robotics team (who worked with us on the PhoneDrone board) and Arduino co-founder Massimo Banzi coming by to meet with the team to coordinate our work with the Arduino roadmap (I can't say much more about it, but you're going to be blown away by what Arduino is capable of. Look for news later this summer, but the short form is if pro-level hardware and development tools are what you want, you won't be disappointed. The DIY Drones team is going to be a big part of it).
Shown above: Banzi with some of the DIY Drones and Udrones teams. From left; Jeff Taylor, me, Massimo Banzi, Jordi Munoz, Guillermo Romero, Sam Kelly, Lorenzo Lopez.
We did tons of demos, including one with Miles O'Brien from PBS's Newshour, where we filmed the newscast from the air while they were filming ArduCopter from below.
Here's a demo at the main stage, with Massimo and live GCS:
And towards the end, when Gigio was feeling really brave, he even did demos in the booth!
Dear Friends,
this month we have a lot of news and update on MP32 board and project :
http://www.virtualrobotix.com/page/multipilot32-1
This is a fly of Ardupirates32 NG for Gaui 300XS : frame , esc motors and propellers.
1) VRIDE 0.0.4 is available : http://code.google.com/p/multipilot32/downloads/list
the new feature available are :
- i2c lib at 400 khz.
- new bootloader available with security feature when you are in flight , jumper for activate bootloader.
- update firmware using usb .
- update APM_ADC for support VRIMU.
- update APM_RC for support PPM SUM reciver as Jeti duplex 2.4 ghz.
- update APM_RC for support i2c ESC.
2) Ardupirates 32 NG on mp32 work fine , main loop is limit to 800 hz i have tested :
- acro mode.
- stable mode.
- magnetometer , gps and barometer.
- GPS hold work fine .
- Altitude hold could be better.
3) VRIMU is available : http://www.virtualrobotix.com/page/vr-imu-10
- Sensor board with two option : inversense and analog device gyro , accelerometer and magnetometer.
- Navi Board with gps , barometer and differential pressure sensor (Option) , analog and digital input output available.
4) First Revision of Arducopter 2.0 available as starting point for checking functionality :
- All Low level library ported to new MP32 in pre alpha revision.
- Firs revision of code compile .
- The ide is available on repo as VRIMU 0.0.4.5 ready for start to test it.
5) RTF firmware for Gaui 330XS available. contact me at : lasernav@gmail.com for more info.
6) A lot of people start to fly with mp32 ... some video ...
Original post (Virtualrobotix) : http://www.virtualrobotix.com/profiles/blogs/multipilot32-ap32-monthly
I joined DIY Drones in August last year, and have been one of the Moderators since December. The Moderators are members of the site who approve new joiners, Blog posts, etc and generally keep an eye on the site content in accordance with the published guidelines:
http://www.diydrones.com/profiles/blogs/updated-site-policies
With a few months experience under my belt, I thought I would publish a few points about the mistakes people tend to make. This is meant as nothing more than a guide, and is written with the sole intention of saving you time and effort.
Why didn’t you approve my membership application?
Spammers will attempt to join the site in an effort to Spam the forums and blog posts. Sometimes, filtering the real applicants from the Spammers is very tricky. The spammers will use acronyms such as UAV in their application, but as soon as they are approved they are leaving comments all over the place. If you do not fill the application questions clearly, this can cause a problem. Sometimes we see responses such as “etc, etc” which could be anything. If you are recommending someone join, please ask them to answer the questions accurately, they are reviewed by a human.
Why didn’t you approve my blog post?
There are a few reasons that this happens, almost always one of the following:
Luckily for me, my job as a Moderator is a pleasure. And I honestly thank you for the civility and consideration that the members show their peers.
August 3-5, 2011 • San Diego, California
WaveForum Developers Conference
Join them in San Diego in August for the sixth annual WaveForum developers conference. The three-day event will feature over 25 different technical sessions covering a variety of technical topics.
There's 1 big demo reel, containing highlights from the last 4 years.
Not nearly everything, but we got tired of editing.
In the process of researching the demo reel, found this oldie but goodie from 2007.
It was a 2 way data connection, using the
audio channel on a 2.4Ghz TV transmitter + a 72Mhz RC transmitter. We
already had this gear & didn't want to invest $80 in radio modems, so
spent most of that year on this problem. After making it work perfectly,
inside, it completely failed outside, so we spent the $80 anyways.
MARCY 1 FLIGHTS
A very short break in the weather allowed us to make some progress on Marcy 1 airframes.
2 years of studying monocopters has shown that no-one really knows how
they work. Our most stable design spins at 300rpm, a wicked low speed,
has a huge coning angle, has wing pressure at the CG, & has a winglet.
Shrink the wing diameter & it gets unstable. Reduce the RPM & it gets
unstable.
Decent one. 12 minutes of flight time on a dead battery. Balanced
wing pressure. CG in the lighest area. Horrible coning angle.
Most stable configuration ever. Flight time of 11 minutes on a dead battery. Very low RPM & very little oscillation. The winglet is the key.
When this comes floating down from the direction of your aircraft, it's
going to be one of those days. Definitely pushing the limits of
structural margins. She didn't get very far without it. Surprised how
important it is for stability.
Wind was howling for this one. Got a lot of oscillation when applying
cyclic, but it settled after releasing cyclic. Needs to be repaired
after every landing. Coning angle may indeed have a limit, with
increased lift only being available from the inner diameter.
Weather closed off again, by the time this was built. Got a few flights in, between wind gusts. It didn't have any more landing damage & it seemed to be the most stable. RPM was down to the 250 range. Definitely getting to where weight is above optimum.
SPECULATION
Tying 3 monocopters together to make a super long duration VTOL has intrigued us. It would need 3 batteries. Motors that size are super expensive. 1 radio beacon would contain throttle for the 3
rotors, but they'd have to take turns broadcasting return packets with telemetry.
Then there's the issue of torque with 3 monocopters. They don't make
enough torque to turn a quad rotor. You'd need a big, heavy servo.
Also looked at coanda effect copters for Marcy 2.
Looking over coanda effect copters, people are obviously more interested
in the flying saucer shape than the efficiency. We've been wondering if
3 couldn't be used to make a tri rotor more efficient.
Coanda saucers never made sense, because they use airflow from 1 surface
of the aircraft to pull up another surface, like a fishing pole pulling
itself up. They deflect air horizontally & then deflect it vertically
again. The extra lift is supposed to come from the propeller exhaust
inducing a flow in the ambient air.
They also need 1 more servo than a lift fan, to control yaw.
Hi all,
looks that with the spread of processing methods and technology,
we can make things that were available only to national security agencies, once upon a time.
Take a look at the maps of the flight made May 18th:
one day to fly, one day to upload, one day for processing, (one day for grill party), one day to download.
Few of you might remember the 3km long flight with EasyStar (a single line), stitched with Microsoft ICE.
The map above is 2.2x2.2km. It took 746 photos to make this map.
Funny fact: if the aircraft would fly straight, the surface covered would be >16km2 instead of just 4.5km2 (null side overlap).
The overlap used was 70% side, 80% along.
I recently received my Ardupilot mega, but I could not find instructions on how to get it working on airframes like Twinstar, which have separate servos for each aileron. One related blog post here in diydrones mentioned, that feature is being implemented (although I did not find an open issue about it) but I was too impatient to wait for proper fix.
Here's my ugly fix for this:
1. Disable aileron mixing from transmitter and make connections to ardupilot as you would do on 1-servo aileron case.
2. Connect 2nd aileron servo to ardupilot output 5
3. Open ardupilot sketch in arduino ide and open "Attitude" file
4. Insert these two lines to place marked in picture:
g.rc_5.radio_out = g.channel_roll.radio_max.get() + ( -1 * (g.channel_roll.radio_out - g.channel_roll.radio_min.get()));
APM_RC.OutputCh(CH_5, g.rc_5.radio_out); // send to Servos
5. Compile and upload
Remove "-1 *" part, if 2nd servo does not need to be reversed compared to 1st servo.
Note!
Since failsafe mux only operates on first four channels, on event of failure, 2nd aileron can't be moved.
I hope this feature will be implemented properly in the near future, but this should do at least for now and at least for me. Hope this helps others too!
Speaking of Chinese companies selling open source hardware for half price, Multicopter News reports that HobbyKing is preparing to sell the popular KK multicopter controller board for as little as $50. Note that this is just a RC controller board, not a UAV autopilot, but it's excellent by all accounts and IMHO this wide and inexpensive availability is great news for the community (although note below that they may not have made the best hardware choice on the microprocessor).
The price (based on the facebook page comments) is to be under $50USD , under half the price the KKuk boards are currently selling for
They quote that they have spent alot of time testing and on QC…… interesting to note its using the older atmega 48 chip, which will limit its software options to the originals done by Kapteinkuk .KKuk Official Site which is a shame, as the Atmega 328/168 is the chip of choice, allowing bigger firmware code to be run, such as that done by Mike Barton XX Rc Groups Thread and also Minsoo Kim from KKmulticopter.kr which includes H6 and airplane configurations.
The KKuk board started here Original Thread on RCG
This will be interesting to watch, to see if it is a positive for the KKuk community, making hardware more affordable, or if it is a negative, as the programmers loose the incentive to improve their product
From the Google Earth blog:
When discussing the new Ovi Maps 3D a few days ago, one interesting point about their maps are how they are generated -- hundreds of aerial photographs, automatically converted to 3D.
It's apparently growing into a popular technique, as Pix4D is showing off some similar technologies.
In the article they mention using the Swinglet CAM as a great way to capture the imagery for uses like this. The "4D" part of the equation is time; you can view the progress of 3D buildings through time, assuming you've done enough captures of a particular area.
We love our beta testers. They help us find bugs, fix them and test all those variations of hardware and configuration that no single dev team could test themselves. Much of the sucess of APM, ArduCopter and all the other DIY Drones projects is due to a large and incredibly supportive group of beta testers.
But beta testing is not for everyone. The code is, by definition, unfinished and probably buggy. It changes by the day, and sometimes by the hour. The documentation may be lagging. And when things go wrong, you can lose your aircraft.
Here's who should consider being a beta tester:
--Experienced users
--People with well-tested hardware/airframes, so we can differentiate between hardware and software errors.
--People familiar with Arduino, so they can deal with code if need be.
--People with loads of patience who want to contribute to making something awesome.
Here's who should NOT consider being a beta tester:
--New users
--People with airframes and electronics that have not already been tested and flown on non-beta code
--People who don't want to geek out a bit with code
--People who just want to fly NOW
--People who don't want to risk their expensive equipment on experimental software.
We love both groups, but my advice to all of our users is to think carefully about which group you're most comfortable in.
APM 2 is out of beta, so this is not an issue there. But ArduCopter 2 was just launched in beta two weeks ago, and although it's improving at light speed, I'm concerned that new users are using the beta code without being prepared for what beta testing means and requires. It helps nobody when new users who have never set up their hardware before swamp the beta testing feedback process with basic setup issues. It's understandably frustrating for them and it's frustrating for the dev team, too.
So, if you don't fit the criteria for the first category above, please use the tried and true ArduPirates software for ArduCopter. It's very solid. Please only use the AC2 beta if you DO fit the first category above.
As always, you can get the latest status updates on the ArduCopter news page. When AC2 comes out of beta and is appropriate for everyone, we'll let you know there and here on DIY Drones.
Thanks!
Don't do this at home with other planes! ;-)
In the first episode motor, rudder and tail servos are not yet installed.
Plane is home made, there is no ready kit available.
- Wingspan 150 cm
- Length 120 cm
- Empty weight without batteries 1.3 kg
- Maximum load with batteries is about 1.2 kg
- Maximum takeoff weight is about 2.5 kg
- Flight speed is about 50 km/h, maximum about 80 km/h
- Flight travel with one 2100 mAh battery is about 7 km, flight time is approximately 8 minutes.
- In plane there is space for 4 batteries, so flight time is more than 30 minutes
- Space for autopilot, batteries and payload is about 30 x 7 x 5 cm.
- Wing is made from EPP foam, it is made with CNC hot wire cutter
- Fuselage is made from EPP foam and PVC pipe or fishing rod
- Price of the plane frame without servos and motor is less than 100 euros
- Price of the plane with good servos, motor and wires, but without batteries and remote control is about 395 euros in Finland, in other countries much, much less...
- The building time is about 8 hours
Plane homepage in Finnish: http://sites.google.com/site/taigacam/
Mode switch setup for Turnigy 9x
First thanks to tiger in the ardupirates thread at RC Groups who not only supplied me the files to reflash my radio back to standard, but included a model in the eeprom file with the mixes already setup. I just had to tweak the numbers a little and write a story.
I am an AC2 user so there may be some APM differences I have missed.
Some things in this tute may be a little obvious as I have tried to aim this one at novices. I figure some of you more advanced users will have upgraded this radio to ER9x firmware.
We will be using the 3 position F. MODE switch and either the 2 position GEAR or THRO HOLD switch in this example to be able to get all six flight modes for the APM/AC2.
Ch6 from the receiver will be used to supply the APM board. We are aiming to get pulse widths of 1165, 1295, 1425, 1555, 1685, and 1815. Remember that 1815 will put APM into hardware manual because it uses the ch8 input, so you may as well assign manual mode to that position when you setup your chosen flight modes in CLI. AC2 uses the ch5 input for mode control, so you can choose whatever you like.
Use the PWM(AC2) or RADIO(APM) test in CLI to read the pulse width numbers for ch5 on AC2 and ch8 on APM.The pulse-width readout is now conveniently located on the Radio Calibration page of the Planner. I have used a servo programmer here as it is convenient for photos. Remember the inputs are ch5 for AC2 or ch8 for APM. Don't confuse receiver outputs with APM inputs.
Please don't just blindly copy my values as your radio may produce different pulse widths. The Turnigy is not as accurate as my 12fg and the pulse values seem to vary slightly every time I cycle power. Hey, it's a $55 radio :)
Remember to use the MENU key to exit the menu you are editing. The EXIT key does not save changes, ask me how many times I kicked myself.
1. Clear any flight mode mixing you may already have.
2. Start with end points at +- 100 and subtrim 0 for ch5 and 6.
2a. Use the ch6 output from the receiver for the APM/AC2 mode selection. Ch5 from the receiver is left unconnected.
3. Go to the AUX-CH menu and set ch5 to either THRO HOLD or GEAR. Choose whichever you find most convenient to use in conjunction with the F. MODE switch, you can come back later and swap if you’re not happy with your choice. You can also assign switches/dials to any other channels now if you like, but do not assign anything to ch6.
4. Put the F. MODE switch in position 2 and THRO HOLD/GEAR switch to the rear.
Go to the PROG.MIX menu and then setup MIX1 to look like this. Adjust the DNRATE value to get a pulse of 1555.
5. Leave F. MODE in position 2 and move the THRO HOLD/GEAR switch forward.
Adjust the UPRATE value to get a pulse of 1425, then hit Menu to save and backup to the PROG.MIX screen.
6. Put the F. MODE switch in position N and THRO HOLD/GEAR switch to the rear.
Setup MIX2 to look like this. Adjust the DNRATE value to get a pulse of 1685.
7. Leave F. MODE in position N and move the THRO HOLD/GEAR switch forward.
Adjust the UPRATE value to get a pulse of 1295, then hit Menu to save and backup to the PROG.MIX screen.
8. Put the F. MODE switch in position 1 and THRO HOLD/GEAR switch to the rear.
Setup MIX3 to look like this. Adjust the DNRATE value to get a pulse of 1815.
9. Leave F. MODE in position 1 and move the THRO HOLD/GEAR switch forward.
Adjust the UPRATE value to get a pulse of 1165, then hit Menu to save and backup to the PROG.MIX screen.
10. That’s it. If you flick through all 6 combinations, it should be pretty close to what the APM/AC2 expects to see. I ended up with 1165, 1297, 1425, 1555, 1683 and 1814.
If something has gone wrong, you probably hit the EXIT key to back out of a menu instead of the MENU key. Remember EXIT doesn't save, stupid firmware.
Once in a while a need a new copter, this time it had to be a very small Y6 copter. It is meant for FPV flying, and that really works very good! It fits through really small holes, and it flies very precisely. It is my first Y6, and I am pretty much convinced by this concept. Ok, well, flight time is an issue.. I get 6:30 min with 1000mAh, but that is still reasonable for such an aerodynamic disaster.
Some more pictures can be found here:
http://shrediquette.blogspot.com/p/shrediquette-bolt.html
Some data:
Max. dimension 21cm
Roxxy 1815/25
Airace propellers
"CCD-Killer" CMOS FPV camera
mGUIDE controller
Turnigy Plush 6A ESCs + I²C->PWM micro converters
3S 1000 mAh battery
274g icl. battery & FPV equipment
