Hi all,
just sharing the latest video of the Aeromapper UAV platform in action.
Feel free to comment and share. Your comments and questions are always very appreciated!
Pretty soon we expect to finsh integration and testing of the APM2.0 on the airplane and will do photomapping non stop both for testing and work. Will share results and experiences as soon as we have them available.
Happy flights to everyone!
Some time ago Hobbyking introduced their i86 control board (US$ 21.99), based on a Atmel Mega168PA 8-Bit RISC based micro controller and a single 3-axis MEMS gyro. No mounting holes, you just have to tape it to your frame with double sided tape.
The nice thing about this controller (apart from the powerfull micro controller) is that it comes preconfigured for Tri copters, quad copter (X/+), hex copter/H6 copter and Y6 Copter. You can select your type of frame by setting the dip switches in the correct settings. All of the mentioned modes can be set in "Normal" mode or "Sports" mode (default normal). There is no need (or possibility) to upgrade firmware. See image below for the setting your frame.
Today Hobbyking released a new version of this multi rotor controller, the i86L (Light Edition) (US$ 18.99). Apart from pricing it is not yet clear what the exact difference is or are between the orignal i86 and the i86L light version.
Specifications for both controllers are:
Input Voltage: 4v to 6v
Input signal: 50hz standard PPM
PWM Frequency: 400hz for ESC, 50hz for servos
Gyro scale: +/- 500dps, ODR: 800hz
Operating temp: -40° C to 85° C
Size: 40mm x 40mm
Weight: 8g
Hi Guys,
This is my workmate's entry for the HobbyKing Beer Lift competition. Just for a laugh!
30.05kg payload of beer :P
Read more: SEVEN MINUTES OF TERROR FOR MARS ROVER CURIOSITY
There is creative people at NASA :)
Sure, it's all controlled by a Vicon system that nobody but a big university lab can afford, but look at the lights! Gorgeous robotic choreography from the U-Penn GRASP Lab team, shown at Cannes. 16 quads with mirrors and LED displays. It really takes off around 2:30.
(via IEEE Spectrum)
You may remember our previous posts of Guppy, Hornbill and Kiwit. Well, we now have a fully composite UAV, called SurVoyeur, in production. This aircraft is a sub 4.5kg electric, able to carry up to 600grams payloads for up to 45minutes. It is also a fully autonomous system, with full autolaunch and autoland in harsh terrain. It has been extensively flown here in Namibia, mostly on land surveying missions, photographing up to 150hectare in one flight. We have fitted it with a Samsung 20Mpixel camera, giving us down to 2cm ground resolution on the resulting georeferenced ortho-images.
It is fitted with a Hacker A30-12XL motor and a 12x8 folding prop. 2 Lipo packs are used, 4 cell 5Ah each.
Takeoff in no wind is in 8 meters ground run, climb out at 7meters/sec @ sea level.
We have also fitted the FLIR TAU-2 IR camera and the FLIR QUARK IR camera and are currently busy with flight trials with a view to using the system as a further aid to the Ministry for Conservation here, for anti-poaching efforts.
Here are some pictures showing the path walked to get to the above result......
First the fuselage plug primed then painted :
And a bunch of wings cut and ready for vacuum bagging:
All these parts were designed on a CAD system with a full 3d Model created for all parts. Molds were made for fuselage, horizontal and vertical stabs ( and for the V tail stab) and for the many small parts that go into such a project.
Here are the horizontal and vertical stabs:
And the Vertical Stabs:
The Vertical Stab Molds:
Many Parts:
Here is a PDF of the system, for info.
And some videos:
http://www.eol.ucar.edu/homes/oncley/ebex/planning/RC/MP1000.html
The question is, what is that little bulb in the middle?
Well, technology is developing fast, but one issue always remains: how to config the TX to allow 6 modes...
Here is a 6 modes switch for ANY Transmitter !
Enter for details
The idea is to have 4 trimmers to allow precise setting of the wanted PWM value for every mode, while the first and last modes are directly set automatically.
We have made a package with the smallest mode switch, so it could fit in most transmitters in the market, and four precision trimmers to go along with.
We offer the product in two versions:
DIY version (all parts needed)
They have been tested together to work well, and installed in a Turnigy 9x radio, and gave great results and easy setup with the APM software !
Converted my huge ass octo (1m) into a more manageable hexa (650mm) It now fits in the car nicely!
Flies really well considering the smaller size.
Used bigger Turnigy G10 810kv motors, 60A turnigy Dlux ESCs and had motor mount extensions cut out of 3mm hollow core carbon fibre.
Running 2x 4S 6000mah. Flight time of around 12mins.
Gonna put my SLR on tomorrow :)
G:)
I wanted to bring everyone up to date on where the ESC32 development is at this point. After a lot of testing of the version 1 design, we found that operating under high current situations, current spikes caused by commutation were introducing a lot of noise on the digital side of things. In the worse cases, this could lead to clocking issues causing the MCU to reset or worse, lock up. Of course if that happens you will likely cook a motor.
So, back to the drawing board (CAD actually). After a lot of trial and error, I came up with the version 2 design. It manages to keep the high current paths much shorter and thicker as well as keeping the analog and digital ground planes completely separate. This new approach is now working quite well with as much current as the FETs will handle. I took this re-design opportunity to add CAN Bus support with an optional CAN transceiver chip onboard. Additionally an external shunt resistor was added to improve the accuracy of current measurements over the original internal PCB trace shunt. All of this without loosing any prior interfaces or functionality.
During the same time a lot of work went into improving the firmware's operation and adding new features.
The CLI has been expanded and gives you access to all tunable parameters via the UART port. There is also a binary protocol for high speed machine to machine communications up to 921600 baud. And now Dallas Semiconductor's 1-wire protocol is supported over the PWM IN port. This means that the flight controller can bi-directionally communicate with the ESC over the existing PWM IN lines. This can be useful for setting run modes and parameters pre-flight or downloading operational data post-flight. Anytime the ESC is not in the run state, communications can take place. There is a future opportunity to allow firmware updates over the 1-wire protocol as well.
Closed loop RPM mode has been implemented. The idea is that the throttle maps to RPM directly in a linear fashion and the ESC works to achieve and maintain the requested RPM with a closed loop controller onboard running at 1KHz. The ESC utilizes a feed forward augmented PI controller to get you to the requested set point as quickly as possible but still remaining within the set current limit. There is also an experimental regenerative braking feature which takes excess motor speed and turns it into current flowing back into the battery. Closed loop mode can be very useful when implementing advanced predictive attitude controllers on the FC which will require consistent, predictable performance from the motors.
Another interesting feature is what I call the virtual current limiter. The problem with a lot of hobby ESCs is that they have to be careful of how much current they allow the motor to draw during acceleration events. Most of them use some sort of throttle filtering or smoothing to limit the throttle increases allowed at each time step. The amount of current drawn by the motor depends on the motor's size, RPM and prop load which is not known by the ESC and most do not have a current sensor. Since there is no way to know how much is too much, they have to settle on a conservative approach to avoid frying motors or FETs. This will ultimately limit the throttle response to something less than optimal and for multi-rotors, this is undesirable.
My solution to this problem was to give the user a way to profile the motor and prop being used on the bench. This data can also be looked up from a database that is being compiled of known motor/prop configurations. With this information, the onboard current limiter can pre-calculate how much current a given throttle (voltage) request will take at the current RPM, and if it would result in an over current situation, the implemented throttle request is trimmed to fit under the limit. As the motor speeds up, the current demand drops even if the requested throttle has not changed so the limit is re-evaluated at 1KHz trying to give the maximum amount of acceleration possible with the given restrictions. The results are the fastest throttle response possible while staying under the set current limit. Finally, if the profiling parameters have not yet been set, a regular PI controller is used to limit current. It is still better than throttle filtering methods, but not as good as the virtual current limiter as it is a reactionary strategy.
There are now also a lot of tunable parameters which allow the ESC to be used for non-standard applications. For instance, if you are using PWM IN for control, you can design custom parameters for the pulse width and waveform period. Current limits, start voltages, PWM output frequency many other settings can be made from the CLI, binary or 1-wire interfaces and stored in flash memory for future power ups.
I'm sure the first question will be how much current can they handle. The truth is I don't really know. According to their data sheet, the FETs are capable of 160A continuous. As a practical matter, there is no way you could come close to dissipating the amount of heat that would be generated at those levels. With large heat sinks you could probably run them over 50A continuous, but without any heat sinks the limit will be significantly less. In the end, the limiting factor is simply cooling. If you can get them into some prop wash or rig some sort of small heat sink your results will improve. I've been flying them for for more than 6 months with no heat sink at all, but my machines typically weigh less than 3Kg. As we get more test data in we will be better able to characterize the actual limits.
I'd like to thank all of the people who have helped test and even blown up motors to make this ESC possible.
ESC32 v2 specifications and features:
- STM32F103 72MHz 32bit ARM
- All N-FET design with gate drivers
- 2S through 5S battery voltage
- Option to power logic side via UART or PWM IN +5v
- CAN transceiver hardware support onboard
- Firmware written completely in C
- ARM Cortex SWD connector pads for real-time debugging
- Communications ports: PWM IN / UART / I2C / CAN Bus
- Communications protocols: PWM IN / CLI / binary / 1-wire / I2C** / CAN**
- 4KHz to 64KHz PWM out
- Current sensing / limiting with real shunt resistor
- Closed loop control modes
- Virtual current limiter
- Regenerative braking (experimental)
- Lot of available RAM / FLASH for experimentation and development
* rendering by Max Levine
** I2C and CAN drivers have not yet been written
Finally I have decided to release the source code under an open source license. Hopefully talented individuals will be able to help design new features and functions that everyone can use:
Ok, well Im working on a body for the AruduCopter 3DR-B frame and keep in mind that I don't have one here at my house. Its at my brothers house. He is the Tec wizard and is doing all of the FPV hookup and other mods for it. I am more of the artist and felt that I had to do something for this project so I wanted to do something that looks cool and is functional. I didn't want to have a CD case covering, not because I didn't like it but because it wasn't a big enough project for me. ;) I have built planes and other projects with balsa wood before and that was fun. I have never built something this "round" before so putting on the monocoat will be a challenge. Im pretty sure I can do it but we will see. I built a mock frame out of wood using the files on line for measurments and then built the body onto the mock frame. Im not going to show the mock frame because its kind of embarrassing. ;)
I will try to post more pics when I get to the monocoating processes.
Here is the frame at about half stage:
Here it is all built and a good coat of primer on it. (helps the monocoat stick better)
Im taking it over for a "fitting" tonight and then I can make some adjustments before the final stage.
BTW the front is the round side and the back is the pointed side. It will be coated with a carbon fiber pattern skin and there will be a nice thick bright yellow stripe going along the high point on the rear. There will be a small FPV camera mounted in the front with the mount made from plastic (3-D printer) and finished to look like the rest of the body. The antenna for the FPV camera will probably be mounted in the rear of the body with the antenna pointed downward.
Believe it or not, this weighs about the same as a plastic CD case....
More to come later.....
Kyle Gluesenkamp from the School's mechanical engineering department, hand-cranking and pedaling like his life depended on it, managed to keep the huge quad-rotor craft aloft for 50 seconds, an impressive new world record that's currently awaiting validation by the National Aeronautic Association (NAA).
“Spoofing a GPS receiver on a UAV is just another way of hijacking a plane,” Humphreys told Fox News.
In other words, with the right equipment, anyone can take control of a GPS-guided drone and make it do anything they want it to.
“Spoofing” is a relatively new concern in the world of GPS navigation. Until now, the main problem has been GPS jammers, readily available over the Internet, which people use to, for example, hide illicit use of a GPS-tracked company van. It’s also believed Iran brought down that U.S. spy drone last December by jamming its GPS, forcing it into an automatic landing mode after it lost its bearings.
It looks like we have something more than radio jamming to worry about. Although the military drones use encrypted signals, I believe that it can be cracked just like any other encryption.
My wife was nice enough to let me bring my quad and FPV gear on vacation :)
This is the result.
http://youtu.be/pYzNKglo5os?hd=1
Had dozens flights using Multipilot32 with MPU6000 and latest ported Arducopter32 2.6 firmware.
Unfortunately the quad had some vibration problems and wind was always quite strong.
I think it's time to change motors and frame....
Had a lot of fun. This is my first edited video so please be nice with comments :)
Cheers,
Emile
Thanks to Roberto for his MP32 + NAVI2012
and thanks to the Arducopter dev team for their great work!
This is a video of my browser-based map module for mavproxy.
I had trouble using the map code that's currently checked in to mavproxy, so I wrote this alternative.
My favorite run of the day was Team Tobor. He was having some problems in the first two runs (I can relate) and finally ran a spectacular race in the 3rd run.
Just at the start, Viator (I think) and Minuteman tangle up in a wreck, but Tobor escapes, heads for the curb, and follows it brilliantly, making a perfect turn through the barrels.
Though missing the hoop, Tobor's buggy rounded the second and third turns. There's a giant pothole on the northwest corner of the building just before the 4th turn...
Tobor went right into it... crashed, rolled... and kept going! The GPS unit flew off the vehicle... but Tobor continued on, made the 4th turn, headed right for the finish, crossed it, flipped... posting the 3rd best time of the day up to that run.
Seriously-- robot loses a primary sensor but still finishes. Now that is some crazy robust software. Scott's got a nicely set up Extended Kalman Filter pulling data from many sources to estimate heading and position. Really amazing!
So far the only video I've found is this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2WqCozoDSyo
Excerpted from CNET:
MONTEREY, Calif.--Imagine an aerial dogfight of epic proportions: Fifty aircraft on a side, each prowling the sky for advantage over dozens of adversaries.
If Timothy Chung has his way, such a battle could take place over Southern California by 2015. But before you worry that war is coming to American soil, you should know that Chung's vision is really about a high-tech game of Capture the Flag played by as many as a hundred small, lightweight unmanned aerial vehicles playing their role in a grand challenge of an experiment.
Chung is an assistant professor in the Systems Engineering department at the Naval Postgraduate School here, and one of his long-term projects is figuring out ways to help the U.S. military maintain an advantage in a world where aerial drones have dropped so much in price and complexity that there is substantial concern our enemies could soon have the ability to use them as weapons against us in combat.
That's why Chung's Advanced Robotics Systems Engineering Lab -- ARSENL for short -- has been working for some time now on developing a swarm of low-cost, lightweight autonomous flying vehicles known as Aerial Battle Bots (see video below) that are designed to work together against a common foe.
Already, Chung and his interns and master's students -- have pieced together a small swarm of about a dozen UAVs -- essentially commodity radio-controlled flying machines called Unicorn that have been retrofitted with onboard computers and other gear in order to take their places in the larger group. He hopes that by this August, he and his team will be able to get the vehicles flying and be able to start experimenting with getting them working together, as well as facing off.
...
Back in Chung's lab, he explained that as he and his students work toward his eventual goal of putting opposing swarms of battling UAVs in the skies, they've realized that though the Unicorns can be launched by hand, it's wouldn't be at all practical to require a team to get 50 of them up in the air that way.
That's because the vehicles have short-lived batteries, and by the time the 50th was airborne, the first would probably already be ready to fall back to Earth.
But that's no problem. One of his students, it turns out, has devised a launching mechanism made out of PVC pipe and bungie cords that could be set up in advance and used to quickly get dozens of the UAVs up and flying.
Lots more pictures here.
The scary headline below should be a warning to all of us who travel with drones in our checked or carry-on luggage. Here's what I do, and it's worked well for me so far:
Anybody else have other good drone travel tips?
From the article:
It was just as the three performers were disembarking from their Dublin flight in London that their suitcases were swarmed in upon by customs officers at the new London Southend Airport.
"We were returning to London with our suitcases full of drones, batteries and wiring equipment. Customs scanned through the suitcases and their eyes widened," said Young.
He said the officers then decided to call in the special branch, whose officers began questioning the three performers about their projects and asked them to describe what the electronic drones were all about in layman's terms.
"They asked us what electronic countermeasures we were trying to achieve! They took all of our materials and asked us for weblinks and references. Then they went away and Googled the project."
After that, Young said each team member was taken away for individual questioning. "They were also quite interested to know if we had cars."
Robotic ballet in the sky
Young said they told the special branch that their performance was a robotic ballet in the sky to show how communities in cities can use technology to gather and share information.
"My concern was they might have thought we were going to incite terrorism with the upcoming Olympic Games," he said.
But, after two hours of repeated questioning, the performers were eventually allowed to continue on their way. That wasn't before their conversations were recorded under the UK's Terrorism Act.
"Our stop and search is now on their file. We're now in the system, so they told us they would be checking us against our case file if we pass though the airport again," added Young.
(via Makezine)
