Hello, I'm a filmmaker and writer, working a new project about drones called "Unmanned." I'm interested in interviewing DIY drones enthusiasts, learning about what you're working on, how you got started, what motivates you, and how you see the relevance of what you're doing. If you find this interesting please email me at jcrandall@ucsd.edu. Thanks, Jordan
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Photo Credit: Kevin Peterson/UC Berkeley
Science Magazine published an article suggesting that a project motivated by the recent DARPA push for small, quiet UAVs may be providing support for theories about the origin of flight in animals.
Besides being an interesting evolutionary and biological theory, it also raises two questions here.
1) Could mini-ArduRover or ArduBoat projects benefit from wings?
2) ArduBird, anyone?
IEEE has published an interesting overview about Google's self-driving cars.
The advances in this field should be of interest to our ArduRover community. The article mentions that Nevada has updated its laws and has become the first US state to allow for these vehicles to legally share the road. No details about the process to "license" the "driver" is mentioned, but I'm certain that interested parties could find out more.
The article talks about some of the challenges unique to this area of robotics. Specific behavior was coded into their 'autopilot' to communicate intent through action. The example of drivers at a four-way stop is used, where other drivers are not strictly following the rules of the road, and no driver moves, the car will first "announce" its intent to cross the intersection by moving more visibly, just like a human driver in the same situation. This is a domain-specific layer of complexity beyond that required for general robotics, related as it is to interaction with unpredictable agents sharing the robot's space.... such as humans, animals, and moving but "inanimate" objects.
This highlight a possible problem area in the design of our APM projects based primarily on DCM and PID controls. Our APMs have little "understanding" or modeling of the world, but for two-dimensionally-locked robots (well, we usually *hope* our ground and surface vehicles remain locked on the two-dimension plane... it usually means bad things when they leave it...) many which are successful have at least a basic method of modeling the world, its obstacles, and the physics involved. Beyond this, and outside of controlled environments, the robots also need to predict future conditions and the effect of its actions, and refold that information into the ongoing sense and avoid process, comparing and adjusting the whole time.
So where do we go from here, with that knowledge? And is there, perhaps, merit, to adding a "physics sensor", perhaps using a modern graphics chip created for the gaming industry? These are challenges which, perhaps, may take the "ArduSurface" projects in vastly different directions, but I suspect much of that work would subsequently be valuable to their flying counterparts.
BBC has a nice little video news story about the new computer-controlled passenger transport pods at Heathrow. It includes some nice shots of the video monitoring, computer map, and of the pods in use, and also includes a brief history of this form of transport, and a sound bite by a hopeful business owner about deploying this in smaller cities.
You can view the full video news story at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/click_online/9613795.stm
NASA Develops ACAT Auto-CGAS Smart Phone App
A small hobby-type radio-controlled model aircraft is being transformed into a
high-tech flight research aircraft at NASA’s Dryden Flight Research Center and
will be used to develop such a ’sense-and-avoid’ application for smart phones.
Andy V.
I like to spend my time in the field actually flying and not spending hours plugging things in.
Here is the latest upgrade to my Ground Station which provides a single wire from my antenna to my laptop.
All I need to take to fly is the antenna, laptop, plane and an XBox controller.
A single USB cable goes from the laptop into the case on the back of my XBee Patch antenna.
This cable goes into a USB hub.
Plugged into the Hub is:
- Xbee for Telemetry
- XBox 360 PC interface which turns an XBox controller into a wireless joystick.
- WinTV usb capture dongle
Also in the case are my 5.8 Ghz Video RX. I have put the antenna connector on the outside of the case so I can either use a small rubber duck antenna or connect it to my 5.8Ghz patch antenna which also fits on the stand with a short extension cable.
The Video RX outputs to the USB capture card which sends live images over the same USB cable as Telemetry to my APM planner where I overlay the picture.
There is a 2200mAh LiPo which provides power to the video RX. So I don't have to keep opening the case, there is a charger inside the case with a power input on the outside so I simply plug in a power pack to charge it up, or connect it to a power cable I have in my car.
The second photo shows it with the antenna on and you can see the power switch for the Video RX.
The stand it is mounted on is an aluminium commercial speaker stand so it is light, extremely durable and folds up very compactly to sit on the back seat of my car.
On the other side, you can see the long USB cable that enters the side of the case and runs to my Laptop. The Video RX charging connector is underneath.
The tray holds my notebook so that I can use the mouse while holding my plane.
The 900Mhz patch antenna is 14dBi so you don't have to point it directly at the plane unless you are on a long distance mission. The whole center piece swivals and the patch antenna also tilts up and down for more precise alignment.
This setup is for my new Ritewing Zephyr which has almost finished construction. Once its done I'll post pics of it and hopefully I'll get around to making a video of the whole system in operation.
Below you can see the GS being used in the field prior to the latest upgrade (shows the laptop stand in action).
Thanks to Michael for adding Elevon mixing to the Joystick control in the APM planner. That was the final piece of the puzzle to getting this up and running.
Thought I'd share my progress so far on an X-plane model of the Skyfun. I'm still struggling with PlaneMaker at the moment, so I've not flown it and have generated the data purely from scaling photographs knicked from t'interweb.
If you can help out with dimensions (metric please!) of things like the tail fins, chord lengths etc, that'd be great.
When it flies to some level of satisfaction, I'll release a version into the wild.
Yesterday when I found this group I was quite surprised with the whole project. One thing in particular I noticed was there are people that think like me. These people have come up with a device than can do the things I have wanted to do for at least twenty years.
I am not an engineer, I am an idea guy, I do a lot of research, trying to find a different way of doing things, not necessarily better just different. I have "reinvented the wheel" 4 or 5 times, know what?, it still looks like a wheel.
Last evening I uploaded a picture of the latest incarnation of my rover. Although it is pretty much the same as it's predecessors, 4 wheels, a drive train, a body for protection of the components inside it. This time I added a panel PC and some illumination devices.
Within a few moments I had a comment on what I uploaded. He brought up an important point about a suspension system, I replied with a "been there done that" comment, but it got me thinking again. There must be a way to "steal" a suspension system from another, existing, available vehicle to start with. I was thinking a quarter-scale RC chassis, perhaps 4 wheel drive, front steer, electric. Well I didn't find electric, but all the other things I wanted I found.
Being me, I started thinking, mods. How hard could it be to mod this thing, with, an electric motor, and how much cash would it take, but I could have reverse, (a handy thing to have on a vehicle). The ICE it comes with is a 30c weedeater type engine, two stroke I think, at least the engine used in the demo video sounded like one. Now the model is fast, very fast, and very agile, perhaps too fast and too agile for my purposes.
Fast forward>>>
I just looked again I found a 1/5 scale electric, 4 wheel drive, full suspension. Perfect!
Check it out here
Ok folks I need to get ready to go to work, have a great day!
BTW I write about what I am thinking about, at the time I think about it, so don't expect literary continuity. My thoughts are all up there waiting to get out, so when they do...you have ramblings, it is an ADHD thing.
Well,
here are a 1.8 year old video that i edited to show how are the video footage of high stability rotorcraft.
This is one of me first test with full-HD video cam.
As you can see, this platform is much more stable as ardupilot.
No wooble or vibrations.
Some balance in the video are due gimbal servos. I am using nicoleto gimbal.
This setup are using default PID.
OBS: from 2:00 to 3:00 the video are post processed to remove some wooble.
Today the platform is much more stable and using high speed servos on the gimbal
octo - gimbal and stability test from Eduardo lavratti on Vimeo.
This idea has been around for a while I have seen it done before but this is a more elegant solution than the previous one.
Just imagine not thinking about a pan and tilt set up.
The Gorgon stare on a budget.
http://jonaspfeil.de/ballcamera
How to contribute on ArduCopter project.
There are a lot of great talents out there but how to get them involved on different projects is always a question. Chris already had few weeks ago a great overall post on "How to contribute to a DIY Drones project?". Here we concentrate more on ArduCopter project and issues related to it.
As many of you know ArduCopter is separated to two sub projects: ArduCopter multirotors and ArduCopter Traditional Heli. Both of them are using same codebase and libraries but as the devices are highly different it is easier , we need more people to test, program, give ideas and so on.
Now that all Arduxxxx software are under one single easily maintained repository under Google code on address http://code.google.com/p/ardupilot-mega/ is it easy for people to do Clones and start working on their own (Look under source / clones). After user is happy with their modifications, posting patches and code snippets to main code is easy from clone repository.
Current version management what whole project and project members are using is Git. If you are not familiar with Git, please take a look on following wiki pages on ArduPilot Mega wiki
- http://code.google.com/p/ardupilot-mega/wiki/Guide - Programming guide
- http://code.google.com/p/ardupilot-mega/wiki/Git - Introduction to Git
- http://code.google.com/p/ardupilot-mega/wiki/GitCLI - Using Git from command line
- http://code.google.com/p/ardupilot-mega/wiki/GitTortoise - Using Git on Windows
Issue tracking
Tracking issues and proposing them is one important feature on how we communicate internally and especially externally with all our users. Everyone are welcome to take a look at those and propose more issues for core teams and outsiders. If you think that you have a solution for one of the issues, make a close on main repository and start working with it. After you are done, you can post either patch or link to your close and let repository masters to know about your work.
ArduCopter specific issue tracer can be found from address http://code.google.com/p/arducopter/issues/list
ArduCopter projects that we need volunteers for:
To separate Traditional and Multicopters please use following tags on summary line.
- Multi - means all ArduCopter multitorors
- TradHeli - means traditional helicopter
Some startup lists that you might be interested to see:
- 1) Multi - Automatic PID computations. How to teach correct or close to correct PID settings while flying
- 2) Multi - Failsafe conditions. How to recover from several failures and allow pilot to land with minimal damages on severe failures
- 3) Multi - Navigation tests and complex multi waypoint missions
- 4) Multi - Takeoff/land tests with and without external sensors
- 5) Multi - Scripted acro / stabile flying
- 6) Multi - Barometer/Z-axis accelerometer algorithms for better altitude hold
- 7) Multi - Verify proper operation on all conditions, throttle reversing, aileron/elevator reversing
- 8) Multi - Better failsafes for low battery/lost signal cases
- 1) TradHeli - Determine best PIDs for LOITER for Trex450 and add to standard conf...
- 2) TradHeli - Make a simulator available to ease tuning and reduce the danger of ...
- 3) TradHeli - Get tail control working sufficiently well to remove the need for a...
- 4) TradHeli - Add better control mixing
- 5) TradHeli - Allow full range of radio channel 3 (collective) to be used even wh...
- 6) TradHeli - Move swash properly when user is setting up swashplate movement ran...
Other important links to start and to remember are:
- http://code.google.com/p/ardupilot-mega/ - ArduPlane and electronics issues
- http://code.google.com/p/arducopter/ - ArduCopter wiki pages
- http://code.google.com/p/ardupilot-mega/issues/list - ArduPlane issue tracker
We had a great time at the East Bay Maker Faire today, with Jason demoing autonomous ArduCopter functionality to constant crowds. Once the throng thinned out, he started doing stunts like this one, where he drags the ArduCopter away from home and lets it find its way back, terrain following the whole way, and then throws it away like a Frisbee and watches it stablize itself and return home. Later, he proved that it's possible to throw it a little too hard, but we'll save that for another day ;-)
Team,
The above picture shows an interesting side effect of magnetometer misalignment: complete reversal of the measured horizontal component of the earth's magnetic field.
The effect was discovered by Peter Hollands during his analysis of the data from one of Ric Kuebler's flights. Ric was using the UAV DevBoard (UDB) with MatrixPilot autopilot software. The airplane icons in the picture indicate the estimated orientation of the plane. The blue arrows indicate the estimated direction of the horizontal component of the measured magnetic field, in the earth frame of reference.
The magnetometer is mounted separately from the UDB. It turns out that there was a small roll misalignment of the magnetometer in Ric's setup. Ric aligned his magnetometer more carefully, and the flipping disappeared on subsequent flights. But there was a nagging issue.
Because of the large vertical component of the earth's magnetic field in many parts of the world, magnetometer-based yaw information is particularly vulnerable to misalignment. In my neighborhood, the vertical magnetic field is three times as large as the horizontal field. As a result, a little bit of mechanical misalignment of the magnetometer, and certain attitudes of the aircraft can cause complete flipping of the measured magnetic field.
It is not all that easy to align a separately mounted magnetometer. Even a 5 degree misalignment is too much. I wondered if there might be a way to solve the problem with software....
While I was analyzing the data from Ric's flight, on a hunch, I plotted the measured horizontal magnetic field against the heading:
The plot told me two things. First, it told me that there was a misalignment issue. But it also told me how much the misalignment was. If that could be determined from the flight data from a post-flight analysis, it should be possible to figure it out in flight as well. So I set out to find a way to determine magnetometer misalignment in flight, and automatically compensate for it. The theory, implementation, and testing are reported here.
The method works much better than I originally thought it might. It will automatically and exactly compensate for any amount of roll, pitch, and yaw misalignment between a magnetometer and its partner IMU, including 180 degrees.
Best regards,
Bill Premerlani
The Ardustation is an excellent piece of equipment. It allows you to see important information about your UAV at a glance, along with the ability to change parameters or issue straight forward commands on the fly.
There are, however, some additional features I wanted in my Ardustation. So I set to making my own.
The main features I wanted to improve on were
- Not be required to unplug the XBEE for programming (really slows down dev time)
- Not using a linear regulator for power
- Bring the buttons up to the level of the LCD
- Be as slim as possible
Then nice to haves were
- USB to serial onboard
- Run from single cell LiPo
- Onboard USB charging
- Integrated power switch
- Arduino Mega chip
- Graphic LCD with touchscreen
I realise that I could modify my existing Ardustation to implement some of these features, but I wanted to keep it neat as I could. My design that I am writing about here includes all but the last two points on the nice to haves, which shall have to wait for another revision.
There are, however, some additional features I wanted in my Ardustation. So I set to making my own.
The main features I wanted to improve on were
- Not be required to unplug the XBEE for programming (really slows down dev time)
- Not using a linear regulator for power
- Bring the buttons up to the level of the LCD
- Be as slim as possible
Then nice to haves were
- USB to serial onboard
- Run from single cell LiPo
- Onboard USB charging
- Integrated power switch
- Arduino Mega chip
- Graphic LCD with touchscreen
I realise that I could modify my existing Ardustation to implement some of these features, but I wanted to keep it neat as I could. My design that I am writing about here includes all but the last two points on the nice to haves, which shall have to wait for another revision.
I only got my etching kit about six months ago and this is the first PCB I’ve etched that wasn’t a breakout board. So I’m pretty chuffed with how it came out. I purposely made all of the pins like for like with the DIY Drones Ardustation such that the software remained compatible. I would also like to mention Adafruit’s shared schematics helped out a lot with the additional components.
The unit takes a single cell LiPo for power and has a 5v boost regulator. A 3v3 LDO powers the XBEE, with a logic level shifter providing the interface to the Arduino chip.
The Arduino has the Uno bootloader and is programmed via the onboard ATMEGA8U2 chip. The switch on the side of the unit can disable the XBEE during programming.
The buttons are on a separate board, which could be mounted to an enclosure or directly to the side of the LCD as shown here. All LEDs are SMD and so are hidden. I mostly used them for debugging the hardware rather than being useful in the field- so they never made it onto the button board.
The Arduino has the Uno bootloader and is programmed via the onboard ATMEGA8U2 chip. The switch on the side of the unit can disable the XBEE during programming.
The buttons are on a separate board, which could be mounted to an enclosure or directly to the side of the LCD as shown here. All LEDs are SMD and so are hidden. I mostly used them for debugging the hardware rather than being useful in the field- so they never made it onto the button board.
I’m very happy with the finished product, and the USB interface with XBEE switch has made developing the software much much easier. This has been in part a proof of concept for a future design I wish to create with a bigger chip and graphic LCD, but it will certainly last me for a while.
If you want to see the design, or even etch your own, you can find the files on my GitHUB page.
If you want to see the design, or even etch your own, you can find the files on my GitHUB page.
Shes all done, dont those microdan 2510's look purty
full house this puppy, ardupilot, magnetometer, gps, sonar and 900mhz telemetry, plus red and white LEDs
just worked it out, she has about 2.8kw of power on tap !
Running 2.047 with a custom mix (5 channel for 8 motors)
Alt hold on barro is OK
Alt hold on sonar is "jumpy"
Loiter is OK,does circle every so often, then regains composure
all up (with camera DSLR) is abut 5kg, and runs 4S 12000 lipos (6000mah per bank) esc's are turnigy 30 amps, and a sbec to run everything
Alt hold on sonar is "jumpy"
Loiter is OK,does circle every so often, then regains composure
all up (with camera DSLR) is abut 5kg, and runs 4S 12000 lipos (6000mah per bank) esc's are turnigy 30 amps, and a sbec to run everything
Motors are 2510 microdans 970 kv spinning 10 by 3.8 apc's
VERY responsive, had to drop the gains down by 30% over the RCtimer 750's i normally use, the 25mm diameter stator makes these a tourque monster, 14 magnet DLRK wound
LEDs feed on a seprate 3S lipo
Alright, enough narrative, let's talk mission and setup!
| In the air Plane: Multiplex Cularis (heavily modded) Motor: Hacker 30A12L Props: Graupner CAM 12/6 and 10/6 ESC: Castle Creations Phoenix ICE 50 Battery: 4000 mAh Nano-Tech Rx: Hitec Optima 9 Telemetry: Xbee 900 Camera: Sony WDR600 VTx: Lawmate 1.2-1.3 gHz VTx Battery: 850 mAh Servos: Hitec 2x 4x Weight: 1.9 Kgs / 4.2 lbs. (serious cable shortening left to do) | On the ground Tx: Hitec Aurora 9 Netbook: HP Mini 311 running Win7home Video-USB dongle: Yet to come in Telemetry: Xbee 900 with high-gain ducky antenna VRx: Lawmate Tracking station: tdb Antennas: tdb Tripod: tbd |
Mods:
- Rx in a slot cut into the Elapor at the back of the cockpit. (Frees up space for battery, shortens cables)
- 2x Rx BODA antennas have channels cut from the back of the Rx slot to the wing slots where they come out at the bottom of the wings
- Extra space for APM aft of ESC in the cockpit (packing foam on sides and bottom against vibration)
- Vtx ducky cut into the tail to reduce drag and balance the plane
- Low-pass filter and xtv into the fuse (stock heatsink still in the air, I may go for a larger one to dissipate better).
- Single pitot tube in right wing (sensor as well)
- GPS in enlarged switch bay on right hand side of the cockpit (I was worried about reception, but it works like a charm)
- Transparent canopy
- (ignore the wires on the wing, it's the very unfortunate result of what happens when Cularis wing holding mechanism and the servo connectors don't like each-other).
Maiden flight for GE: 2011-10-15%2005-39%201.kmz
I'll be using this blog to share progress, lessons learned (foam lost) and ideas as well as to hopefully illicit some suggestions on how to improve the setup further, so please feel free to chime in.
Before signing off let me just pay my respects to: Chris for his fantastic work and willingness to help, everyone who has helped develop the APM, Trappy for putting cameras on RC aircraft, and RC aircraft in places they really shouldn't go, Pedro for getting me into this hobby in the first place, and Laura for putting up with the fact that our home looks like a factory floor ;-)
This is an update from the original blog post in October 2011:
I've updated the Ardustation 2 source code to allow compilation with Arduino 1.0 Relax and the latest libraries for ACM 2.5.3 and APM 2.3.0. This update also includes a modification of parameter names for PID editing that match ACM and APM. The updated version is 2.0.12.
The download zip file also includes the libraries used to verify compilation of the software. The software has been lightly tested with ACM and 2.5.3 and has not been tested with APM 2.3.0. If you find any issues feel free to comment here or post an issue at the Ardustation 2 Google
The software is available here:
http://code.google.com/p/ardustation-ii/downloads/list
Download 2.0.12 for ACM 2.5.3 or APM 2.3.0 - compile with Arduino 1.0 Relax
Download 2.0.11 for ACM 2.0.48 or APM 2.24 - compile with Arduino 0022 Relax
Heino R. Pull
The original 10/2011 info follows:
With the help of Jeff E and Hai Tran, I've updated the Ardustation 2 Antenna tracker code to support the detection of the UAV platform from the Mavlink heartbeat. Parameter download and editing is automatically configured for ArduPilot 2.24 or ArduCopter 2.0.48 when Mavlink connects. The key parameters available for editing is modifiable in the source code with the PID gains set as the default for both platforms. A number of bug fixes have been made to previous versions of Ardustation 2 including a more standard Mavlink interface for the latest libraries distributed with APM 2.24 and ACM 2.0.48.
This version has been ground tested with APM 2.24 and ACM 2.0.48 with parameter editing, but testing is still needed to verify that the appropriate parameters are changed correctly. Please be cautious if you try this software out and verify the parameter changes with the Mission Planner. I don't have a fixed wing setup to test APM in the air, but I plan to test ACM 2.0.48 while tuning my loiter values on my quad this week. I've included the libraries used to compile the code in the zip file.
A video describing the original antenna tracking functionality is available here: Original Ardustation 2 Antenna Tracker Post and Video
The updated code is available here: Ardustation 2 ACM/APM Version 2.0.11
This software is based on Phillip Anthony Smith's Mavlink Ardustation. Thanks also to Jeff E and Hai Tran for their code additions and suggestions.
hi friends, on 14 October 2011 there was an exhibition organized by some 20 UAV manufactruing companies in New Delhi, India. It was wonderful to have something like this in India. The technology dispalyed was amazing. there were fixed wings and rotary winged UAV's. The show was won by this twin cylinder rotary engine designed for UAV's. The manufacturer claims to having nil vibrations in the engine. a very important issue for IMU's in the autopilot. beautiful engine with circular cross section and excellent cooling fins and fuel injected. runs on petrol as well ATF. amazing. Weight? only 2700gms with air intake and muffler. from outside looks like a turbine engine. more details on www.cubewano.com. It's a british company. a dream engine.
As I work towards building the GeekStar (My Geek Show's version of the Easy Star) I decided I needed a better building technique. This week I built a demo/sample of the EasyStar's nose section to see if 3/4 inch EPS foam would be a suitible build material and to see if a "layered" building approach would work, and in both cases: Yes!
The thicker foam is very hard to cut out with a knife, I'll have to build a hot wire cutter, but when it's all glued together, it can build great looking shapes that are very strong and very light.
