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Drones to help track US border in summer

Posted by Mark Willis on May 19, 2010 at 3:09pm

On a visit to El Paso this weekend, I noticed this article on front page of the El Paso Times concerning US border drone use.

One interesting tid bit, "Perez said the Department of Homeland Security and members of Congress have been frustrated with the FAA because it has been slow in approving the department's request for the drones." Sound familiar?

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3D Robotics

Best BlimpDuino mod ever. iPad control!

Posted by Chris Anderson on May 19, 2010 at 5:30am

"New York-based BREAKFAST fitted a BlimpDuino with on-board video and wireless control system and took it out for a spin at a party to interact with the crowd. Everybody's favorite controller du jour, an iPad, was employed to orient the dirigible and act as a augmented display medium."

Plus a live onboard video feed and headlights!


[From Makezine]

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ArduIMU for Quads !

Posted by Earl on May 18, 2010 at 4:00pm
Here is my contribution using a lot of other peoples code and help.
I did find how to interface the Parallax Ping sonar sensor to the IMU board.
Jose has code but for a different sensor. I only had a Ping sensor laying around.
I also read all 8 RC channels to be able to use any for control etc.
Zip file here also.Quad_mini_1_30_rangefinderPINGch8.zip

Earl



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Cheap keychain camera

Posted by CrashingDutchman on May 18, 2010 at 12:00pm
Back in december there was this blog-post about a keychain camera. Today Hobbyking has launched a similar camera: . It does 640x480 at 30fps and co
mes with a 2GB SD card included.

RD16.jpg


Now, the camera in the blog post from December has a higher resolution than this new Turnigy camera. Hobbyking mentions that too, but says (fwiw): Other similar cameras have software AVI formatting to 720x480px,reducing clarity of the 640x480 native image from the lense. While this
sounds good on paper, it makes the movie less clear and enjoyable.


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Hobbyking 's new PPM Signal Mixer for their Head-Movement-Tracker Gyro.

Posted by CrashingDutchman on May 17, 2010 at 2:30am
Hobbyking release today a PPM Signal Mixer version B fortheir Head-Movement-Tracker Gyro. This will help people with entry level Futaba transmitter to use the HT. Basically, from what I understand from the description, it adds channels to the ppm stream generated by your transmitter. If your transmitter has 6 channels, it becomes an 8-channel TX (you need a 8 channel receiver to really use it, of course).

From the website:
PPM Signal Mixer is specifically designed for those who own low end Futaba transmitters (such as the 6EX), allowing you to also use thehead movement tracking system. And even can be used with JRtransmitters. (soon available)

This version B is designed for 6EXtransmitter which comes with 8 channels receiver.
Just connect the PPM signal mixer inbetween the Advance Head-Movement-Tracker Gyro and the Transmitter and PPM signalmixer will map new channels special for X-GYRO 1000 via the transmitter.Then it maps 2 channels, and put them after the transmitter channels,now it’s 7 CH and 8 CH, that ‘s why you need a 8CH receiver. Connect theservos to 7CH and 8CH.
Note: Only works with Futaba transmitters.

Spec.
Weight: 4g
Voltage Supply: 8V-12V

PPM-Mix-1.jpg




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3D Robotics

Tip for ArduPilot 2.6 users: disable the Z sensor for now

Posted by Chris Anderson on May 16, 2010 at 10:05pm
Jason Short and I were testing 2.6 today and discovered something funky with the Z sensor calibration (he doesn't use one; I do). Until we sort it out, it's best to disable the Z sensor. Just set this line to 0, as shown below

#define ENABLE_Z_SENSOR 0

Although the code will eventually auto-calibrate without the Z sensor, you can calibrate it immediately on the ground before flying. Just hold the plane vertically and rotate it all the way around so each window of the XY sensor gets pointed at the sky at least once. This has the effect of setting the max readings for each side (which is actually all the Z sensor does). Once you've done that you can launch and it should be calibrated right off the bat.


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Developer

Quick Post: ArduPilotMega Shield/OilPan Photos!

Posted by Jordi Muñoz on May 16, 2010 at 10:30am

Is not ready yet, has tiny mistakes, but the tweaked boards is under the last hardware performance test's , as soon as i get an answer, I will start the mass production... ETA two weeks! (Maybe sooner).

The shield can be bottom placed (oil pan) or in the top (Shield). I would suggest the bottom side so you protect the IC's and have a lower profile!

Poll: Do you prefer the Shield in Red or Blue?

See ya!









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Flight Control Board trial run. part2

Posted by Ho-Chung Chang on May 15, 2010 at 7:15pm
I had got sensor board yesterday, and assembled it to FCB. It's disappointed that GPS can not receive the satellite signal. I think maybe SC-1513 GPS module's antenna layout is difference with MSTAR GPS modules.(I don't sure.XD).

But the 6DoF IMU run very well.


Bug Fix:

1.Gps antenna layout.

2.5V-->3.3V , 3.3V --> 5V level shift modifidy.

3.Add MPXV5004 Differential PressureSensor for Airspeed.


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FPV Skywalker

Posted by iw28 on May 15, 2010 at 12:11pm
Hi


I just saw other RC FPV webshop where they also sell the new FPV Skywalker made of EPO, so if there is any of you guys who are looking after the Skywalker,,

there is the websites. lowpricerc.com and fpvhobby.com
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SKY WRITING RETURNS

Posted by Jack Crossfire on May 14, 2010 at 3:30pm
SHORT WAVE IR, GROUND VS. EMBEDDED, MARCY 2 NOTES,





Not to be outdone by Navy Aviator Heroine, Vika 1 made a UAV sky writing
video. The last video of skywriting was in 2008, using 1Hz GPS, no
barometer, & the T-Rex. It's the most technology ever thrown at a
single word. To this day, no-one else in the world has done it, believe
it or not.




Note ground station in bottom center.


SHORT WAVE IR

Also of interest are some short wave IR cameras if you're having trouble
seeing through haze. They look small enough to put on a model. If you need to know the price, you can't afford it.

http://www.sensorsinc.com/index.html


GROUND VS. EMBEDDED

Well, we've been using ground based autopilots since Fall 2008. It's
been much cheaper than embedded autopilot. Crashes don't destroy
anything expensive. Every vehicle shares the same ground based computer
& uses a real simple board. Regarding convenience, would say it's
equivalent to embedded autopilots.

You've got easy configuration, a full development environment,
potentially more neural network capability, but have an autopilot in 2
halves. Sensor acquisition & rate damping can only be done on the
airframe. Getting high bandwidth, reliable, realtime communication is
still complicated. Radios haven't evolved.

2 different runtime environments are required to do the job of 1.
Communication isn't perfect. Some data is lost & flight is not as
stable as it could be if all the data was getting through, especially
with GPS where 1 lost packet is .25 sec of data.

Now that ArduMU or ArduShield or whatever is flying quad rotors, it's
tempting to switch to that. If we were just starting now, we would have
just bought Ardu parts. The main problem is the extra stuff for
commercial RC transmitters & fixed wings we'd never use. The cost is
also still much higher & it still doesn't have C language flight paths.

Then there's the lure of 32 bit ARM. Reverting the ground based
autopilot to embedded is a lot easier with 32 bits.


MARCY 2 NOTES



Rebuilt the 900Mhz ground station radio with a single sided board after
it started getting flaky & Marcy 2's double sided board failed completely. It's still flaky.

The 900Mhz FSK chips have become too flaky to fly recently. An unknown
state change is happening on the PIC which can only be fixed by
resetting it, not the FSK chip. Other problems seem due to the
inaccuracy of home made boards. Marcy 1's flight board has been
perfect, ironically.

With all the problems with 900Mhz FSK chips, we're leaning towards
abandonning indoor projects, especially Marcy 2, & just focusing on a
large outdoor monocopter with the complete XBees, GPS, & SCP1000. Want
to fix the problems with Marcy 1 as an indoor, manually controlled
monocopter 1st.

She's leaning towards reverting to a bicopter to fit indoors, but the
advantage with monocopters is having the most airfoil in the highest
speed air for the least weight. That leads to longer wings.

Chord length & balance beam size are related. Wider chord length
requires longer balance beams. That leads to long, skinny designs.







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Developer

Meditek MK3329, 66 channels, 10Hz for just $34.95!

Posted by Jordi Muñoz on May 13, 2010 at 10:30pm
With my endless effort to keep everything cheap and I'm just starting (I just got a pick and place machine!). If you want a cheap GPS here is the best deal you can get, pretty good actually:

Click Here!

Features:
-Basedon MediaTek Single Chip Architecture.
-Supply from 3.3V to 5V!
-Dimension：16mm x 16mm x 6mm
-L1Frequency, C/A code, 66 channels
-High Sensitivity：Up to -165dBmtracking, superior urban performances
-Position Accuracy：< 3m CEP(50%) without SA (horizontal)
-Cold Start is under 35 seconds(Typical)
-Warm Start is under 34 seconds (Typical)
-Hot Start isunder 1 second (Typical)
-Low Power Consumption：48mA @ acquisition,37mA @ tracking
-Low shut-down current consumption：15uA, typical
-DGPS(WAAS, EGNOS, MSAS) support (optional by firmware)
-USB/UART Interface
-SupportAGPS function

You can watch it in action here, i got 9 satellites during fly, taking in consideration a 1.3Ghz@1Watt video transmitter very near to it:




The heading and the altitude is not that bad! Soon i will release an easy to solder interface board with EM-406 "like" port.
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3D Robotics

Monocopters on the move

Posted by Chris Anderson on May 13, 2010 at 9:58pm

I'm still a little fuzzy on the advantage of the "maple-seed" style monocopters, but BotJunkie has an update on Lockheed Martin's Samurai UAV:

"We heard some rumors back in 2009 that Lockheed Martin’s SAMARAI UAV project had been killed off. In fact, Lockheed Martin themselves apparently confirmed that they had stopped developing the UAV since AeroVironment won DARPA’s nano air vehicle development contract to put some polish on their robot hummingbird. So, I’m not entirely sure what the background to this video is, but it shows a much more recent (and smaller, with a wingspan of only 12 inches) version of the SAMARAI.

The SAMARAI is certainly simple (at least, compared to AeroVironment’s UAV), and as the video shows, you can just chuck it into the air, and it can land on the ground and then take off again without needing much in the way of space or infrastructure. On the other hand, I’m not sure exactly how you’d go about mounting something like a camera on a spinning airframe (maybe sync the shutter speed with the rotation speed?), and in order to operate effectively indoors, the SAMARAI would benefit from some level of resilience to impacts. At this point, it seems as though a collision with a wall or doorframe would probably knock the SAMARAI a tad askew, causing it to spin out of control and decapitate everyone in the room.

Or maybe that’s a feature."

[Paper on the project]
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ArduPilot Ground Control Station ready for public beta testing

Posted by automatik on May 12, 2010 at 9:30pm

3689352689?profile=original



LabVIEW based ArduPilot Ground Control Station ( GCS) is ready for public beta test.

GCS wiki: See wiki for installation and configuration instructions (read through it, or at least watch video )

Requirements:

- Windows OS
- LabVIEW run time engine 9.0
- Google Earth ( if you already have it you don't have to re-install it. Google Earth version prior to 5.1 ( newest) should be fine)


- Ground Control Station application (zip file) - Updated May 16, 2010 !


Optional: Code for GCS can be found here ( you will need LabVIEW 8.6 or higher)

New Features of ArduPilot GCS :
  • Data logging
  • kml logging
  • voice synthesis
  • (UI has been redesigned, code architecture has been changed, etc.)

Short introduction video explaining how to start and stop GCS:

http://vimeo.com/11772440



more comprehensive GCS video ( worth watching ! ) is here:

http://vimeo.com/11608873

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Our humble build carries on...

Posted by Irfan Mohamed on May 12, 2010 at 11:30am
For the very few of you who were interested, here are some more pictures from our project, which when compared to the hundreds of amazing things you guys do on this site, seems pretty low:

3689352538?profile=original




3689352613?profile=original









In case anyone's wondering, the material we use is twinwall, kind of like the plastic version of cardboard (two plastic sheets connected by flutes running between them). The thing is, I know they're used alot for SPADs but not so much for slightly more complex things - is there anything about twinwall we've massively overlooked?

I know this has taken ages (we only get an hour a week to work on this :( ) but we've nearly finished the wing and the fuselage, but there's still so much to do - at least it'll keep me occupied for the next few months at least.

If you want to see more pics or whatever, visit our blog: http://uavkes.blogspot.com
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Laser Power Beaming Aimed At UAVs

Posted by DougB on May 12, 2010 at 10:00am

A company that won a NASA prize for beaming power to a climber in a space-elevator competition is targeting unmanned aircraft as an initial application for its laser-based technology.


LaserMotive says power beaming could extend the endurance of electrically powered UAVs. The company plans to fly a small internally funded demonstrator by year’s end.




The rest of the story

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