Blogs

The $179 "Care Package" version of the new videogame comes with a "MQ-27 Dragonfire Drone" (whatever that is). News here. 

This is the same game that sponsored this fake video that got posted everywhere a few months ago. 

Hi all,

I just want to know your opinion about this page:
http://uniteddrones.com/products/aether-aero/

It says that their quadcopter can fly for 4-8 hours thanks to their propietary technology.

Anyone knows something about this? It it's possible?

Hi guys, the weekend in Montreal was great, really hot out there but we still had a lot of people coming down to the Big O for the Faire.

It was a first time event for the Montreal Maker Faire organization and I think they did a great job.  They will be taking in all that experience and making an even better event next year.  (Better venue? Maybe)

Did I mention that it was hot?  

Here are some pictures of the CanadaDrones boot (note that we changed location, Day 2 location was way better as we had some shade and wind!)

The demo flight part of the exhibition did not go as planned.  When we tried to fly our copters there we were facing several “issues”... First it was an all concrete environment and you guys know that landings might be rough some times to say the least so crashing there would have meant a lot of repairs. Also for some strange reasons the copters were spinning like 4-5 complete turns (yaw) on their axis until you clear 2-3 feet.  I suspected high current wires in the concrete to maybe affect the compass?  Plus there was a lot of “noise” in the 2.4mHZ band, one of the other exhibition was some radio relay stations and they were cranking up the signals.   So ultimately I decided to only fly the QR-LadyBirds for safety reasons.

What a blast, we could interact a lot more with the kids without fear of slashing them apart.  

A lot of people were happy to just see the evolution of the hardware and showing the APM1, APM 2 and APM 2.5 side by side was a great way to explain how fast things are evolving.

Thanks to all the CanadaDrones customers who came and brought some project to work on and show.

(In no particular order and I am sure I forgot someone! Blame the heat)

Bob Roach 

Eric Pichet
Daniel Boivin

Eric St-Denis

Fred O'Donnell

Ellison Chan

David Galley

Dianne Boisvert

I did not manage to take as many pictures as I wanted as it was non-stop busy and hard to just take a break.  Next time I need to plan to get someone else there as a “real” pilot so while he fly I can still answer questions.  This was a great learning experience and I really had a blast!

If you have more pictures please share them, I know a lot of people were taking pictures and recording video so I will see if I can get more to show.

Finally big thanks to Jani and Nin over at jDrones for the special carbon fiber hexa to put on display as well as the cool new pancakes motors and power distribution board (no picture sorry!) 

The 3DRobotics swag also disappears in a blink of an eye, thanks for the stickers!

I will sure repeat the wonderful experience that the Maker Faire was.  Hummmmm there is an Ottawa Mini  Maker Faire in October....  :) 

If you've played with the Syma 107, you'll know that it's an amazingly stable, fun and cheap ($16!) toy helicopter. Maybe a good platform for a micro UAV? Possibly, but you'll need to be able to hack into its control signals first. Kerry Wong to the rescue..

From Hackaday:

[Kerry Wong] bought a Syma S107G helicopter for his son. The flying toy is IR controlled and he reverse engineered the protocol it uses. This isn’t the first time we’ve seen this type of thing with the toy. In fact, we already know the protocol has been sniffed and there is even a jammer project floating around out there. But we took a good look at this because of what you can learn from [Kerry's] process.

He starts by connecting an IR photo diode to his oscilloscope. This gave him the timing between commands and allowed him to verify that the signals are encoded in a 38 kHz carrier signal. He then switched over to an IR module designed to demodulate this frequency. From there he captures and graphs all of the possible control configuration, establishing a timing and command set for the device. He finishes it off by building a replacement controller based on an Arduino. You can see a video of that hardware after the break.

I remember reading someone asking a question about 'follow mode' for rovers, because they wanted their heavy toolbox to follow them around the job site. I'm sorry, I can't find the post or remember the poster right now though. I think it's a brilliant idea.

Last weekend I had a chance to test a proof-of-concept for a harvesting-bucket. I strapped a bucket to the top of my wraith and drove it around all day as I picked blueberries. It was surprisingly easy on batteries, sitting in stand-by as I filled the bucket. It was only manual drive this time, as I wanted to check how the truck handled the ever-increasing weight of the berries.

The truck handled the uneven terrain between the berries quite well, although the bucket did hang-up a bit on low-hanging branches and required 3+-point turns to make it where I wanted. It looked a few times like there'd be a spill, but it never happened, the truck held on just fine.

We of course forgot to film until the very end, so here's a little video of the last run out of the field:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p2ugFCe7Q0g

Hi Guys, (and girls ;))

I've tried today the Moving Average Function for smoothing the Gimbal servo.

Here is my result with 300 Hz refresh rate and a windy condition. I'm happy because this average really help.

I still have vibration but less than before. i've notice that the CG need to be well center to have better results.

Is someone have tried the Gimbal on APM ? i wanted to compare with Multiwii.

My IMU is the most simple with Nunchuck and WMP.

Some advise to have better results ??? i'm using Flyduspider frame.

PS : you can cut the sound ! to lazy to edit that one.    Enjoy !!!

Dev Team member Pat Hickey, who works at Galois, let us know about this cool opportunity to work on advanced UAV software work and the ArduPlane/ArduCopter 32-bit evolution. 

If you're looking to get into the UAV industry and have the software skills (and are willing to move to Portland), this is a great opportunity to work with a top-notch team of engineers including members of the APM dev team.

****************************************
*          ANNOUNCING:
*  INTERNSHIP AT GALOIS, Inc.
****************************************

Galois, Inc. <www.galois.com> has an internship available in Portland,
Oregon, USA.

PROJECT OVERVIEW:

The project is a 4+ year research project on build high-assurance
autonomous vehicles.
Galois will be working on three aspects of this problem:

 * Synthesizing software components from Haskell-based embedded DSLs.
 * Building/porting a hardware platform for testing our prototypes.
 * Performing static/dynamic analysis on C/C++ code to detect vulnerabilities.

We intend to release open-source most (if not all) source code developed on the
project and we will be publishing on our research results.

Being an intern for repeated terms is a possibility.

LOGISTICS:

The length and start date of the internship are all negotiable: anytime from
this fall through next fall is acceptable.  Ideally, you can be at Galois for at
least 3 continuous months.  The internship is paid competitively, and the intern
will be responsible for her own living arrangements (although we can certainly
help you find arrangements).  Galois is located in the heart of downtown, with
multiple public transportation options available and world-class bicycle
infrastructure, so living here without an automobile is a viable option.

QUALIFICATIONS:
  * MUST-HAVES:
    * The ability to be geographically located in Portland during the
internship.
    * Good knowledge of C/C++.
    * Some experience with low-level/embedded design.
    * Excellent software engineering ability and aptitude.

  * NICE-TO-HAVES (not necessary, but let me know if you have these
qualifications!):
    * Experience with Haskell and particularly embedded DSLs.
    * Experience with microcontrollers (particularly ARM Cortex M).
    * Experience with control systems.
    * Interest in/experience with real-time systems and RTOSes.
    * Interest in/experience with software security.
    * Interest in/experience with static analysis.
    * Experience with ArduPilot <http://code.google.com/p/ardupilot-mega/> or
      other autopilot systems.
    * Good writing skills/experience in writing technical papers.

  * DO NOT NEED:
    * A specific degree (we're interested in hearing from anyone from post-docs
      to undergrads).

ABOUT GALOIS:

Galois, Inc. is located in Portland, Oregon with a mission to create
trustworthiness in critical systems.  We're in the business of taking
blue-sky ideas and turning them into real-world technology solutions.
We've been developing real-world systems for over 10 years using
Haskell.

To get a sense of life at Galois, one of our previous interns documented his
internship here:
<http://blog.ezyang.com/2010/08/day-in-the-life-of-a-galois-intern/>.

TO APPLY:

In one email,

 * Please attach a C.V. (PDF, plain text, or markdown only).
 * In the body of the email, include a brief non-HTML note stating your interest
   and experience and any other relevant details.

Send this to Lee Pike (leepike at galois.com) with the subject line "Internship
2012".  If you follow these directions, you'll get a confirmation.

It has been a while since our last update! The biggest news is we now process up to 25 geo-tagged images into high resolution Orthomosaics, DEM, DSM and 3D Models for free. The site now only accepts geo-tagged images and will only process imagery with the correct EXIF metadata/geo-tags.

ConservationDrones.Org:

Lian Pin Koh and Serge Wich are doing some really interesting work with Drones. They have created a non profit organization called Conservation Drones (conservationdrones.org) with a mission to develop low-cost tools for conservation and research workers in developing countries! We mapped a large jungle canopy with an active Orangutan nest. More information on DM News and here.

Full orthomosaic of Orangutan Nest tract

3D Model of Danau Girang for ConservationDrones.org

Remote Sensing:

Using the geo-referenced orthomosaic that DroneMapper creates and opencv we can detect certain features and create shapefiles from them. Here the algorithm is looking for round objects of a certain size and attributes. If detections occur, a geo-referenced shapefile mask of the target is created! I am working to add different routines to count and classify different objects in the final orthomosaic.

Round object detection routine. Layers: Bing Aerial, DroneMapper Ortho, Round Objects Shapefile

Original geo-referenced orthomosaic and Bing Aerial layer

Line Detection Routine on Golf Course in CH.

Shapefile results. (modifications and improvements needed in order to adapt to a road detection scheme)

The uDrones RTF ArduPlane, which is a very good deal at $599, now comes with the new APM 2.5. You can add telemetry and FPV video options, too. Just add your own RC and LiPo and you're ready to go. 

The RTF ArduCopter Quads and Hexas have also been upgraded to APM 2.5

I was hoping that someone could explain why the Throttle PID's are designed like this.

This is like a feed forward controller design that is then stabilized by the PID feedback loop. That is ok.

Why is the feed forward gain based on to desired rate squared? (propeller static force is proportional to (delta RPM)^2 from what I can find on the net but ESC's aren't very linear anyway)

Why is the limit on the output set to 3200 when the output of the throttle should be only 0 to 1000? (I may be wrong here but I have done my best to check this)

Why didn't we get rid of the rate squared term and just use the PID loop?

Why didn't we get rid of the Throttle Cruze offset and just use the PID loop and not reset the I term? This approach may stop that "my copter dropped out of the sky when I switched to altitude hold mode" problem. Even if the I term is zero to start with at least it can correct it's self while in this flight mode instead of having to fly in Stabilize Mode for 10 to 15 seconds.

I just want to reassure everybody that I am not having a go at all the hard work the developers have done on this project so far. I am just enjoying working towards helping improve the code. Before attempting to improve things I want to understand why things are the way they are.

I would really appreciate any help and discussion that people can contribute.

Edit:

Ok, I was slack and didn't put the control input into the diagram. Here it is.

It is a bit complicated to work out from the code because the throttle control is very non linear. Navigation control does something similar but it has set THR_ALT_P to 1/4, limited from 100 to 180,if going up and 1/6 if going down, limited from -10 to -100.

It was a fair certainty that Chris Anderson couldn't make it on August 23 to the local radio club and discuss the state of the art of DIY drone technology. On the other hand, he would have raised many smiles at the thought of attending the Anderson Radio Club monthly meeting! My best effort was applied though and everyone in attendence left with more knowledge than they arrived with.

My mostly home-brew AC Quad definitely peaked everyone's interest. Very few were aware of the capabilities of these aircraft and once a 3D lock was achieved by the GPS board, they were very impressed with Mission Planner showing exactly where the aircraft was located. I then explained that the APM2 and related software gave the vehicle the ability to execute a flight plan and if there were cameras or other instruments on board, they could be employed at the various waypoints entered in the mission plan.

The audience was diverse and was made up of a graduate student in CompSci (at Clemson - he was very interested in the code), retired College Professors, former servicemen, business owners, and others I have know for years in the local community. As nearly all were Amatuer Radio operators, I tied community service use of the AC Quad into our ham work by suggesting we could provide eyes in the sky in areas we often go such as disaster stricken locations. With professional relief agencies usually overwhelmed, we could use FPV to look over into neighborhoods with blocked access due to fallen trees and other storm debris. Another idea was to use the Quad to lay out the pull lines/cables we often use to drape over trees for wire antennas. How about a small radio repeater that we could deploy onto the top of a high building as a temporary communication node? We could drop FRS radios or other communications devices into areas where cell and land line communications were down. The lists will grow as others realize what can be done with this technology.

I discussed the current legalities of the technology and how the FAA is collecting information about their mandate to decide what will be done about non-hobby/volunteer uses of the technology. A tour of DIYDrones.com was provided and I am certain that hits to the site from this area of the county went up for the next 12 hours or so.

Also discussed, as the display on the screen shows, is the lack of 6M Amateur band radio gear for RC. There is a minor ripple in the ocean by the MS2K folk employing classic old RC TX cases and gimbals with new electronics. Alas though, there is little motiviation to use that segment of the spectrum anymore with the overwhelming advances in Spread Spectrum radio gear at 2.5GHz.

The presentation was wrapped up with the short video my friend John helped me edit. HERE is the link.

Once, I was giving a presentation on the history of drone technology and I showed a group of high school teachers the APM 2.0, and a teacher asked me "how big of a drone could you make with that?" I didn't know how to respond at first, because really there are practical limits on the size of a drone one builds in one's basement. That's not to mention the size of recreational, RC aircraft flying in national airspace is regulated by the FAA, and also the aerospace modeling associations to which it defers some of that decision (i.e., the IMAA).

But she didn't ask me about regulations, or the capabilities of a basement UAS developer. So, I gave her the best answer I could at the time: "I'm not sure there is a limit." Because really, if you had the time, the cash, and the skills, I'm not sure there's a definable ceiling for how big you could make these DIY drones, based on the current state and availability of the technology. It's just a matter of scaling it up.

If you're like me, you've seen some pretty cool YouTube videos of large-scale RC aircraft. My favorites are the big, multi-engine replicas of propeller-driven bombers from WWII and the Cold War. Though there are some pretty cool videos of large-scale replicas of modern transports like the C-5 Galaxy, powered by small turbine engines.

Having seen those videos, I was pretty excited to learn that my local RC club would be having a large-scale fly in today. There weren't any of those multi-engine behemoths there, but I did catch a picture of this: a giant-scale J-3 Piper Cub.

Some quick specs on the beast:

J-3 Piper Cub

60% Scale

21' wingspan

Twin 135cc gas motors

I'm not sure how much you could lift with this scale aircraft, but I think you could at least loft a small dog. The pilot didn't stress the "miniature" plane too much, flew it rather slow, but did show off by doing some one-wheel touch-and-gos.

I can't say that would fully support the general public making huge-scale drones that operate over people, cars, houses and that sort of thing. At least not without some kind of certification process. Having said that, this was a controlled, insured, private field, and it does make you wonder about the limits of home-built drones.

Some more pictures from the event:

tech specs at the end of the video

Hey all, here's a very quick edit of some random flying and shooting, all with APM and our SteadiDrone systems, enjoy.

Fly from Motion Pixel on Vimeo.

 
On this episode of MyGeekShow we mobilized our ground station and took the Shrike for a fly and drive - Trent drove the car while Nick flew the Shrike. It went really well! We've got more improvements before we're ready to try our first flight where we take off and then fly to another location.
 
See you Wednesday!

See http://www.mygeekshow.com/watchmygeekshow/episodes/Episode_92_Flying_While_Dr... for forum comments and more information!

This my version of seeing everything working together without an OSD.   I used this video view to tune the Bixler from the stock parameters, and to get a good idea of how everything all works together. 

This video focuses on way point missions (auto) and geo-fence breaches (guided).   Please note that everything is not as smooth as I would like it to be as the plane tuning is a work in progress.

From Hackaday:

One of the common mods that popped up on the internet were ways of extending the range on the AR Drone. It normally uses a local Wi-Fi connection to your phone or tablet for control and video signals. Many found this quite restrictive and have gone pretty far in extending that range.

The first and easiest was just to set up a higher power Wi-Fi Bridge where you’ll be flying. The Drone only has about 15db of wi-fi magic in it, so anything stronger than that is an improvement. There were too many variations on this to delve into the details, but as you see, there’s not much too it.

The second method is to completely replace the Wi-Fi control system with a nice R/C controller. This will greatly increase your range as well as give you extra channels for triggering different attachments (usually lights).  I’ve seen two main methods used. One is called “MacGuyver mod”. This one is a plug and play kit that doesn’t seem to have much info along with it.

The other is called “MiruMod” and the creator has shared all the information they can.  You can find a parts breakdown as well as schematics, wiring diagrams, instructions, and software. [Miru] uses an Arduino Pro Mini or an Arduino Nano as a go-between from the receiver to the serial port on the AR Drone. You can see in the wiring diagram below that it is a fairly simple install, and all [miru] asks for is that maybe you donate some beer money if you appreciate his mod.

On 5/18/12 North Texas Near Space (NTNS-2) achieved a maximum altitude of 87959 ft over a sparsely populated section of North Texas. The flight was partially successful and full duration telemetry and camera data were recoverd. 

I found it necessary to stretch the Bixler fuselage 2" in order to accommodate the wire bundle that comes out of the APM 1 while using the electronics tray.

it was not possible to connect the battery with the tray installed prior to the mod, now I can install up to a 5000Mah battery, set the tray in position and then connect the BEC and battery leads.

A 2" U-shaped foam plug made out of 1/4" blue skinned depron on the outside and 1/4" EPP on the inside was used. A foam hatch covers the gap behind the tray.

Flight test showed a small change in CG that was corrected by placing the battery slightly farther aft in the fuselage.

Hey everyone !

  Finally got all my ducks in a row , got my video together

Techpod Kickstarter page

Your support is very appreciated . I am here to answer any questions .

feel free to pm me if you want . checkout hobbyuav.com for even more info .

Get it while you still can and thank you all for your support and words of encouragement !

 also , went to the annual MAR-C  electric fly in at Marymoore r/c park in Redmond Washington . Had a blast , met dan durbin there . he also had an fpv setup although he was running a cool IP downlink and of coarse an APM2 running telemetry only . Got some cool video for the kickstarter video . They liked the techpod so much the gave me this cool award :-)