Blogs

This weeks' Robots Podcast has a great interview with Alan Winfield, co-founder of the Bristol Robotics Lab. Although it's not about UAVs, per se, it is about the challenges in swarming robotics. He makes some excellent points:

--There are no real swarming robotic deployments in the world outside of lab simulations.

--One of the problems with designing swarming strategies is that in the absence of natural evolution and selection pressure, we can't measure how "good" they are.

--My favorite line: "There are no robot ethics. Only ethical roboticists." Like him, I've always thought that Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics were silly. Robots aren't people and can't have ethics. Robticists can.

"These aerial images of White Sands National Monument [top] and Glen Canyon Dam [left] were taken by a Canon SD30 carried on a radio-controlled model airplane [right], using CHDK to operate the shutter."

IEEE Spectrum magazine on the great CHDK software, which allows you to control Canon cameras remotely. The whole piece is long and interesting, so read it all, but here's a bit about what CHDK is:

"The CHDK firmware resides on the camera's memory card, but the original Canon firmware remains on the camera's internal flash memory. So you're not likely to "brick" your camera by using CHDK inappropriately. Indeed, you can return your camera to its stock configuration merely by restarting it without CHDK on its memory card or by switching the locking tab on the card to its unlocked position. (CHDK loads only if the card is locked, and once this firmware is loaded, the camera can still record images.) The CHDK firmware is described fully on the wiki athttp://www.chdk.wikia.com, which includes a "CHDK for Dummies" section and plenty of pointers for getting up and running."

(via Adafruit)

I've updated the APM Beta code (zip file version) to roll up our latest bug fixes and tweaks. The most noticeable one is that we've moved back to the excellent circle algorithm that we had in ArduPilot2.7 (we were experimenting with a different approach with APM, but the ArduPilot one turned out to work better in the real world). You can see some results from one of my flights yesterday above (using a SuperStar--moderate wind).

Overall it's flying very well and has been tested on a large and growing number of aircraft. It almost invariably works right out of the box with the default gains. All you should need to do is change the DIP switches to get your servo directions right and use elevon mixing if that what you need.

This is the last beta update. We expect to release the 1.0 code (not beta) this time next week. As always, you can follow the progress here. As you can see from that activity tracker, the APM Dev Team has been busy.

Hi, I'm wondering if there's a way to obtain AoA and sideslip angle information from GPS speed data? There is vertical speed and 3d speed so this would probably be able to give me an estimate of the angle of attack, but for sideslip, I would have to have the y-component of the speed. Is there a way to get this from GPS or the IMU unit?

I have also tried it for one whole day but am at a loss of how to get the information to be passed from ArduIMU V2+ to ArduPilot so that I can use XBee to transmit it wirelessly to my GCS. Any clues from any good samaritans out there?

Otherwise, I think I am left with integrating acceleration information from the IMU which will probably be susceptible to a lot of errors, and also since it depends on the 'initial conditions' the errors will accumulate continuously.. :( Any ideas on whether this is a feasible option at all?

Here's what I'm flying with ArduPilotMega:

--EasyStar (default settings work fine)

--SuperStar EP (default settings work fine):

--Skyfun (default settings work fine)











--Skywalker (picture at top)

... where you'll be able to set the takeoff pitch and altitude, as well as add CMD_LAND_OPTIONS entries. Fill in the boxes and click Add Landing Option, and it'll be automatically added to the list. The list is held in sorted order. To delete an option, select it and hit the 'Delete' or 'Backspace' keys on your keyboard.

Finally, You can export your mission to a waypoint writer file. I've only exported to the mission[][5] array, so you'll need to create the file and then copy and paste it in.

If you're using the GPS Simulator with this, and suddenly see the CDI (lowest instrument on the left) needles suddenly jerk around, just ignore it for now. I'll add in functionality so that the CDI will show your deviation from the plotted mission soon.

The updated .AIR file can be found here: http://zhiquanyeo.com/apm-gcs/APM_GCS_ControlStation.air

JYNX 4.0: This is JYNX glider designed by RCPLANS.nl . Now a days I am working on it and modifying it for electric motor powered. I am attaching whole plans of this glider. Totally made of depron foam and low cost plattform for APM.

The JYNX is a depron flying wing glider, designed for sloping. It's a simple build, which took me a week to finish in the evening hours. The JYNX has a 15% symmetrical airfoil, which is created by folding the wing from the leading edge around a depron spar. there are no carbon fibre reinforcements used, yet the wing is very strong and stiff. This plane is light on the budget too, as it uses just two cheap 5 gram servo's, a 4 channel receiver and a small battery.So far the prototype has flown a few hours, in which I've experimented with the center of gravity, control throws and reflex. You can find the results on the plan. Keep in mind that reaching the indicated center of gravity will mean you have to place the receiver and battery at the back of the fuselage.The JYNX has had a good number of pretty rough landings, but I haven't found a single scratch or crack. This is a very durable plane.Finishing has been done with clear packing tape used for masking, acrylic paint applied with a brush, and a dry paintroller to absorb and spread the paint. The results can be compared with airbrushed paint.The available space in the fuselage is quite limited. I'm still working on a version with a brushless motor, and might release a new plan for a slightly bigger fuselage soon.

Click the file below to download plans

jynx.zip

I noticed this book on the bargain shelf of Barnes and Nobel and picked it up--I haven't been able to put it down since. It's a terrific romp through 150 of the worst aircraft designs in history, but what it really is a catalog of all-too-common engineering errors, such as:

• Solutions looking for problems (such as jetpacks and the Hillar hovering sniper platform)
• Engineers designing planes with no sense of what pilots wanted
• Dependencies on exotic fuels that aren't available
• The "Gillette problem" of adding more wings than the last guy, including some crazy 8-wing things
• Delivering so late that the need is gone.