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Wi-Fi Quadraopter with two cameras

Posted by Ty on January 5, 2010 at 7:55pm
I don't know if anyone posted about this before (I missed it if they did).It's on display at the CES in Las Vegas.It struck me, because when I first started playing, I wondered why there weren't any 802.11 telemetry/control models discussed on here. Now I find a quadricopter design, that looks incredibly refined.No price yet (Their website mentions a loaner and developer support for $1200 US)Via EngadgetParrot Website

ar.drone-flying.jpg

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3D Robotics

Come to AUVSI meeting this Friday at NASA Ames

Posted by Chris Anderson on January 5, 2010 at 3:30pm
DIY Drones is a sponsor of the AUVSI Silicon Valley one-day meeting at NASA Ames this Friday (Jan 8), focusing on UAV use for fires and other emergency response. We get a free guest pass as a result, which I'll give to the first person who asks for it in the comments below (you must be a US Citizen or permanent resident, due to NASA rules). Here's the description: "The Silicon Valley Chapter, AUVSI will conduct a forum on Friday, January 8, 2010 to review and discuss the results of the recent exercise held at the Naval Postgraduate School. The exercise investigated the effect of unmanned vehicles on emergency response to wild fires and was modeled after Basins and Indian fires in California in 2006. The exercise involved Forest Service fire experts, government emergency management officials, local emergency responders and unmanned systems experts. The forum will also delve into the wider applications for unmanned technologies in public safety. AUVSI intends to continue these exercises in the use of unmanned system technology in public safety, and they will announce the topic for the next exercise at the forum. " You don't have to be a AUVSI member to attend. It's just $15 and you can sign up online here. If you're a US Citizen, you can also show up and pay at the door on the day.
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3D Robotics

DIY Drones now at 7,000 members!

Posted by Chris Anderson on January 5, 2010 at 10:30am

Today we hit another milestone, with 7,000 members. Over the past year, traffic on DIY Drones has grown more than 3x, from an average of 5,000 page views per day a year ago, to 18,000 today, with a current average of 5,000 vistors per day. We are adding 1,000 members every 70 days, or an average of 14 a day, a pace that is speeding up. At this rate, I expect we'll end 2010 with around 15,000 members, which is kind of awesome. Thanks all!
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3D Robotics

Housekeeping note--blog post or forum thread?

Posted by Chris Anderson on January 5, 2010 at 7:35am
Just a reminder to the community members and especially the moderators: blog posts are for information of general interest to the community. Questions and requests for help should be posted in the discussion forum. Moderators: If someone accidentally submits a blog post that should have been in the discussion forum, do not approve it. Instead, copy it and paste it into a PM to author, asking them nicely to repost in the discussion forum. Then delete the post. If we work hard on maintaining this distinction, we will continue to have a high signal to noise ratio in the center column. Many thanks! Chris
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SPI between ArduPilot, ArduIMU, SCP1000

Posted by Dale on January 4, 2010 at 9:30pm
Finaallly tonight got this to work more completely. SCP baro sensor to IMU was not so hard. Getting IMU and Pilot to work was more trouble for me.The layout I chose is: ArduIMU is spi master, SCP1000 and ArduPilot are slaves.ArduIMU requests airspeed from the ArduPilot, it will be used in combination with the gps based speed in the IMU. It will send the resulting AHRS data to the ArduPilot, as a predefined message, with variables in a certain order. The IMU requests baro from the SCP1000, it will be used in the IMU for altitude, better than the gps altitude. The IMU has the gps connected to it, it will send the req'd lat/lon, etc to the Ardupilot also over spi.As a slave on spi bus, ArduPilot uses the SPI interrupt to trigger shifting each new byte of data in & out of the spi data register SPDR. like this: http://www.rocketnumbernine.com/2009/07/03/using-spi-on-an-avr-3/Even though it's a slave, The SCP1000 uses an extra input to the IMU to tell it when it is ready with a new pressure reading, then the IMU proceeds with asking for it over spi. It could be done other ways, but in higher resolution mode, the SCP only samples about every .5 second. So this way the data is collected precisely when it's available.Pins on ArduPilot:this won't really work with current boards so well, for normal planes. I require only one servo channel. The spi slave requires use of d10, as SS, normally used for servo 2 output. Soldered to a via to access it and get it to a header with the d11, d12, d13.Pins on ArduIMU v1:needed two additional pins, output SS to the Ardupilot, and an input for data ready from the SCP1000. soldered to d8 and d9 (pins 12,13) on the atmega, and brought to a female header. the normal spi pins are nicely available already.Level converter:The SCP1000 is a 3.3v device, don't fry it with 5v lines. made a level converter with a dozen or so discrete components. like this: http://delphys.net/d.holmes/hardware/levelshift.html I even tortured myself with tiny surface mount transistors, oh so fun!Code:If anyone desires a similar scheme maybe this is a starting point. And maybe people will have suggestions for me. I'm sure there are things to improve. With the 1280 based ArduPilot, pins should not be an issue, and this should be faster communication between the micros than UART. But the code may be more complicated, and harder for people to get into.What it does so far is get the airspeed data from ArduPilot back to IMU, in response to a particular message number. And read the pressure sensor. Next will add one larger message from the IMU, with all the data that Pilot would like to have. Should be not too hard, framework is there for messages, just define them appropriately on both ends. There are added .pde files, spi.pde and scp1000.pde that have the relevant code, and some variables and declarations on the main .pde file. should be able to just take the spi and scp1000 files to add in to other code.ardu_100104.tar.gzThis is based on not the latest IMU & AP code, I need to work with that next too. Oh, the IMU code also is modified for 406 gps.Hope this is helpful, please let me know if any questions / comments. Thanks!
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3D Robotics

Modular board strategy for ArduPilot Mega

Posted by Chris Anderson on January 4, 2010 at 5:38pm

In a previous post, I discussed our mainboard approach for ArduPilot Mega. In this post, I'd like to share our thinking about the expansion boards ("shields", in Arduino-speak). As you can see in the above diagram, the core ArduPilot Mega will consist of two layers, just like the current ArduPilot. The core autopilot board will remain constant, while the IMU board will come out in versions, improving as sensor technology evolves. But there is also the option to add a third layer, which is an expansion board for additional functionality. We will break out as many I/O (analog and digital) pins as possible to the expansion board, along with at least two serial ports. Some of the boards, such as the DIY sensor board, will be dual voltage. Some of the boards proposed above may be ones for which there would be enough demand that we'd make and sell them ourselves. Others may be created by the community. ArduPilot is an open standard, like the rest of Arduino, so we'd like to encourage people to come up with their own shields, just as the community has done with the core Arduino boards. So what do you think? Have we missed any obvious expansion board candidates? Any design decisions we should be making with the core ArduPilot Mega board or IMU to allow for more expansion options? (Remember, size is at a premium, so suggestions that require bigger or more expensive mainboards tend not to carry the day)
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3D Robotics

Help AUVSI lobby the FAA for better UAV regs

Posted by Chris Anderson on January 4, 2010 at 3:40pm
From my email today: "Happy New Year AUVSI Members! One of AUVSI's primary goals set by our membership has been to work with Congress and the FAA to move forward implementation of UAS into the National Air Space. While this is an ongoing challenge for our industry, we are making headway. We have scheduled a meeting with the leadership of the Unmanned Aircraft Office of the FAA this week and value your input. I am inviting you, as a member of AUVSI, to have your say on these important matters. If you would like to contribute to the conversation, please email me any topics/questions that you would like us to address with the FAA no later than COB this Wednesday, 6 January, 2010. We are planning to conduct a productive discussion on the challenges our industry faces, so please email me your professional comments and input for consideration at west@auvsi.org. I look forward to hearing from you. Thank you, Gretchen" Please feel to offer suggestions whether you're a AUVSI member or not. (But if you're not, consider joining. It's cheap--$50 for a one year individual membership--and you get the Unmanned Systems magazine each month as part of your membership)
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Moderator

UAV pilots course. Popular Science reports.

Posted by Gary Mortimer on January 4, 2010 at 12:55pm

predator-sensorball.jpg

A dozen aspiring pilots at the University of North Dakota can't wait to never get off the ground. Following a shifting military strategy that calls for more and more unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) supporting troops on the ground, U. of ND is offering the first four-year degree for UAV pilots hoping to take the sticks in a field expected to swell to a $20 billion industry over the next decade.http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2010-01/u-north-dakota-offers-first-four-year-degree-uav-pilotingHow does it affect you at DIYdrones I wonder????Well it means the FAA will have a civilian qualification to ask for when you ask to fly commercially in the future perhaps? Europe is beginning to slowly pull ahead in allowing commercial UAS in regulated airspace, not far not high at the moment, but its starting.Airlaw changed in the UK in December and no doubt similar things are happening in other parts of the EU.I was thinking about adding a post about SOP's we are currently writing ours for UK and RSA, should DIYdrones Ardupilot users not have standard operating procedures that follow good practice and encourage safety??
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3D Robotics

New MicroUAV from Theiss, but stymied by regulation

Posted by Chris Anderson on January 4, 2010 at 12:10pm

Here's an interesting lifting body design for a MAV (Micro Air Vehicle) by Theiss Aviation. Its autopilot uses thermopiles, so you won't be using it indoors. From Robot Living: "The new model TIC costs around $6,000 and can potentially be launched from the trunk of a car. It contains chemical as well as biological sensors and could also be outfitted with a small color camera. These vehicles are designed to fly in ventilation shafts, tunnels, small quarters and even dense woods. Using a 72 MHz radio, the TIC has a range of 1.5 miles and can be run in basic radio controlled mode, auto assist mode or completely autonomously. Theiss Aviation is now seeking to sell these aircraft to police departments, search and rescue crews or other emergency personnel. Unfortunately the FAA seeks to treat these tiny craft just like regular planes. The owners of a TIC must register the aircraft with the FAA and give 60 days notice of flight plans to the FAA." Here's more about Shawn Theiss, from Fortune Small Business, discussing the regulatory problems for UAV entrepreneurs. We should have him on as a podcast guest! From FSB: "Here's what every TIC owner must do to be certified: submit detailed drawings of every part of the plane, wait three months, answer any FAA questions, then wait another month for a registry number. Finally, the tiny drone must be cleared to leave the ground by FAA officials every time it flies. For drones, most flight plans must be filed 60 days ahead of time. "The size of the unmanned air system doesn't matter," says Alison Duquette, an FAA spokesperson. "Any size could pose a danger to private or commercial planes." Also, officials point out, the TIC is too small to be tracked via radar. Critics argue that the agency is being squeamish about a technology that would help public safety more than harm it. "Small unmanned planes are not rocket science," says Dave Nestic, entrepreneur in residence at JumpStart TechLift Advisors, a Cleveland incubator that studies the propulsion market. Theiss, stymied in his bid to sell to anyone but the military, is still fuming. The FAA is "not aviation-minded," he says. "It's regulation-minded."
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New 6 Degree Of Freedom IMUnext from Flytron

Posted by Melih Karakelle on January 4, 2010 at 5:00am
Hi Guys,I just finished this new IMU. :DIt is a new year gift for myself and i will use it on the project of my univercity(analysing the forces on the automobile chassis).img_0221.jpgIt's including LPR530AL(pitch and roll) , LY530ALH(yaw) gyroscopes and MMA7260QT triple axis accelerometer with analog output.This IMU's name IMUnext and i designed a controller board too that called IMUcon. I will test it in first days of 2010 and i'm plannning to using it for Airplane, Helicopter,Quadrocopter and camera mount stabilisation.img_0210.jpgIf you planning to design your own motion control system, please contact with me on this thread.Product link is: http://www.flytron.com/50-imunext-6-degrees-of-freedom-imu.htmlThanks for readingMelih
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USBtoPPM generator for PC based control applications

Posted by Melih Karakelle on January 4, 2010 at 4:30am
Hi Everyone,This is last project of this year :DI designed USB to PPM generator, this device generating PPM signals like TrainerBox for your Transmitter.This mean, you can fly with your PC joystick or your own software based autopilot(if you can develope your software)This is my test joystickimg_0236.jpgThis is USB PPM generator device's insideimg_0237.jpgThis is genrated 9 channel positive PPM signal(it can generate negative also)img_0238.jpgAnd this is finished product's outside. It is similar size with USB stick and including 1.5 meter cable for your transmitter. I will sell it with compatible plugs for Futaba,Hitec, Jr, Multiplex, Sanwa, Airtronics, ESky.img_0239.jpgFeatures;
  • DirectX Based Joystick interface
  • 9 channel PPM generator with compatible all RC Transmitters
  • Cunfigurable PC based driver software for all joysticks or keyboard features.
  • Point of View stick suport for looking around without headtracker(like simulation games)
  • External plugin support for PC based autopilot applications
  • Compatible with all Windows versions
I'm working on software alreadyThanks for readingMelih
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3D Robotics

An excellent EasyStar alternative for half the price

Posted by Chris Anderson on January 3, 2010 at 10:30pm

I had a great day today testing MatrixNav 2.0 on the UAV DevBoard, and part of the pleasure (along with the excellent performance of the autopilot) was my new cheap EasyStar substitute, the Dynam Hawk Sky. Basically it's an EasyStar clone, but with ailerons (yay!). Even better it comes in a $110 ready-to-fly kit that includes everything. You get the plane with brushless motor, prop, servos and ESC already installed. You also get an 1800mah 11.1v LiPo battery and AC charger. It even comes with a 4-channel RC radio (FM sadly, and since it's just 4 channels, you'll have to replace it with 5 channel or better RC gear to use an autopilot). It would cost you at least $200 to assemble the same around an EasyStar.

Even better, the motor is plenty powerful enough, so you won't have to replace it the way you do with other Chinese RTF kits, which are often underpowered. Like the EasyStar, the Hawk Sky has loads of interior room in the nose, thanks to the elevator and rudder servos being outside under the wing. Below you can see my setup. The RC receiver is in the back of the cockpit, under where my EM406 GPS module is mounted, and the battery is in front. That leaves loads of room for the UAVDevBoard, and you could easily fit a camera in there too.

How does it fly? Pretty well! It's not quite as inherently stable as the EasyStar, which you would expect with an aileron plane, but otherwise it's quite similar in performance. My only complaint is that the motor, on a plastic pylon, is noisy, since the plastic doesn't dampen vibrations the way the foam-mounted EasyStar's motor does. I may end up trying other props to minimize that. The plane is made of EPO foam, not Elapor like the EasyStar, so perhaps it won't handle crashes quite as well. But at this price, that's not much of a concern. Given that I've got two EasyStars, why am I flying the Hawk Sky? Because having ailerons is MUCH better for autopilots, especially IMU-based ones like the UAVDevBoard. If you've been wanting to get an EasyStar but were put off by the price once you added a brushless motor upgrade, or just wanted to upgrade to a plane with ailerons, the Hawk Sky is very worth considering. It's got all the anytime-anywhere appeal of the EZ, handling any kind of terrain with its hand launches and short belly landings. And because it comes already assembled with everything you need, it's faster to get into the air. Highly recommended! BTW, we've discussed the plane before on DIY Drones here.
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Developer

JR/Spektrum 9Ch for only $249 dlls?!

Posted by Jordi Muñoz on January 3, 2010 at 10:00am
If you want the most reliable technology with the possibility to add a 2.4Ghz signal booster for long distance missions well... That will cost you around $600 dlls plus shipping and tax!! (without the booster). But.. You can get the same by buying this Turnigy 2.4Ghz that is COMPATIBLE WITH JR MODULES for $69.99. Yes that right! You can just buy the Spektrum module for JR and you are done! You will have 9CH plus the possibility to mod it for long distance range and the best 2.4Ghz technology on the market .If you only need 7CH just buy the Spektrum version that includes the 7CH receiver (cheaper), all for just $179 dlls.Also exist many other super cheap options for the 2.4Ghz (you only care about the wireless technology no the radio itself, the transmitter box is just a bunch of potentiometers and switches converted to PPM, except in helis) just to mention some other cheap options like the Corona 2.4Ghz with 8Ch's or the X8. In both scenarios you can still plug the booster.Important Note: Spektrum and JR are the same company, you can use Spektrum receivers with the JR 2.4Ghz transmitters and vise versa. I heard that Spektrum is just the test bed for new technology's (like 2.4Ghz they were the firsts), when the product or technology become really mature they switch it to JR brand.
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3D Robotics

Sneak preview of ArduPilot Mega board development

Posted by Chris Anderson on January 1, 2010 at 10:30pm

Jordi spent the holiday well, laying out the physical ArduPilot Mega board. The last bit of this process is the routing of the traces, which will ultimately determine the size of the board. In the picture above, you can see the progression as the board gets smaller and smaller through each revision, finally ending up with the release candidate ("RC"), shown next to the current ArduPilot. It's surprisingly small, despite us using a much larger core processor with twice as many pins as the current Atmega328. The main chips you can see in the board printot are the Atmega1280 (main processor), an Atmega168 for the PPM conversion/failsafe, and a multiplexer chip (failsafe). You may not have realized it, but you've been watching much of the ArduPilot Mega development already: The IMU, which is modular and will plug on to the top of this board, is functionally the same as the current ArduIMU+ and will use the same code. If you already have an ArduIMU, we will release an adapter board that will allow you to use it so you don't have to buy another one. But the custom ArduPilot Mega IMU will also have a differential pressure sensor (airspeed) and an onboard FTDI chip and USB port so ArduPilot Mega will have native USB support (hurray!). If you're not using the custom IMU board, you'll be able to program ArduPilot Mega through the usual FTDI cable, like regular ArduPilot. The core ArduPilot Mega code will be built on the current ArduPilot 2.5, but with extensions for the new functionality that comes with 2-way communications, more memory and eight channel control. We'll also be adding more powerful mission scripting and event triggers, now that we have so many spare I/O pins and channels. The PPM/failsafe circuit is based on our current 8ch PPM board. The result of all this parallel development is that ArduPilot Mega will move pretty quickly now that we have a release candidate board, since so much of the tricky stuff like the IMU is already done, tested and mature. I'd predict a release in March or April. FYI, the board is also build for expansion, and one of the four serial ports will be available to expansion boards, as will several I2C/SPI pins. So, for example, adding magnetometer, absolute pressure sensors (altitude), or ultrasonic sensors could be an option.
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