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Hi Everyone,

Maybe you know, i'm working on Open Source RC (OpenLRS) project since 1-2 years and we released it in this summer.

Today I just finished the firmware v1.10 with transparent serial bridge!

This mean, you can talk with autopilot or other telemetry modules without any extra telemetry device. Your OpenLRS Rx and Tx can handle this mission.

Download link:
http://code.google.com/p/openlrs/downloads/list

OpenLRS Forum link:

http://forum.flytron.com/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=4&p=1279#p1279

IMPORTANT:
Rx to Tx transmission supporting 750 byte/seconds (not bit/second) without any problem. 
It's handling 9600 baud signals with %80 traffic.
But Tx to Rx (ground to air) transmission sharing the servo communication bytes and we are not suggesting more than 100 byte/second for ground to air transmission.

We are suggesting 115.200 baud serial speed (%5 traffic) for clear serial. If you want to use 9600 or near speeds dont forget; Atmega328(with Arduino) can read the signal with hardware without any problem, but it have to wait for next byte when writing. You must finish the writing before reading next RF package. This is why you need high speed communication when writing something on the serial out. 
As a reference: In this video, i'm using 9600 baud on GPS side and 115.200 baud on computer side.

Thanks

Melih

-----------------------------------
Old Diydrones blog posts about OpenLRS Project

 http://diydrones.com/profiles/blogs/new-opensource-lrs-coming
 http://diydrones.com/profiles/blogs/the-openlrs-project-pcbs-ready
 http://diydrones.com/profiles/blogs/the-openlrs-project-pcbs-ready
 http://diydrones.com/profiles/blogs/openlrs-wii-motion-plus

Hooray!  Finally got the xbee assembled and tested... still seems somewhat miraculous to be logged into to a computer flying around overhead.

Went with copilot Andreas and his friend Reto, (an old schoolmate visiting from Switzerland -- they did their robotics project together), to the park to try fully automatic flight controlled by waypoints.

Had some initial difficulties connecting the xbee.  It turned out that rebooting the vmware windows session on my macbook fixed that problem.  The pre-cached map tiles worked well.

Shiny laptop screen + Full Sun = invisible.... will figure out some boxy thing to provide some shade for the screen.

Video cap of part of the flight is attached below. The waypoints are wrong. Be sure and save the waypoints to a file after you fiddle with them if you intend to play back the log files later.

The main goal was to get the unit in the air, and exercise all the modes.  All of that worked and we finished up with everything intact, so we considered it a great success... Hooray!!

Still need to hook up the magnetometer, pitot tubes, and battery monitor.  But it seems things are so far going not too badly!  Also need to do:  hook up APM to the simulator, build APM from source and fly that.

note: having problems displaying video; post mirrored here:

http://eastbay-rc.blogspot.com/2011/10/first-test-of-apm-auto-mode-drone.html

On october 1st, 2011, my MAJA drone has done successfully a full autonomous flight under flight plan with the ThermoPilot v5, an updated version of the Arduplane v2.23. The video of the flight is recorded with a GO pro HD wide on board. This test flight is a part of my ThermoPilot project (Autonomous Thermal Hunter glider).

The flight of the real MAJA drone is very similar to the simulated flights done with the Xplane simulator v9.7 using the modelized MAJA in HIL mode with the same hardware (APM2560) and firmware (ThermoPilot v5).

You will find below, a video of the simulated flight in HIL mode with X-Plane v9.7 with automatic take-off and landing:

You will find also some photos of my ASW24 Thermal Hunter drone HERE also tested this WE with the MAJA...

Regards, Jean-Louis

This are the pictures from my first auto fly mode wich took place today. I was happy with the results even if alt must be tuned, but I had no crash, and any flight without a crash, for me is a good flight :D

I made 2 passes of the same path and as you can see there are some alt variations, the quad looked like a frog jumping from point to point.

Dear Friends,

in these days we're doing test of stable version of code for Multipilot32 + VRIMU FULL. We hope to release the stable version of code before the end of month.In this video is possible to see how work return to home , I'm very happy of this result ... During the debug is possible to have some problem if the point of return is exactly the same where you pilot your drone :) See video ... It's very nice .. :)

Functionality available tested for two week :

Stable mode work fine .

Loiter is good and affordable precision start from 1x1 m box to 5x5 m box depend of wheater condition.

Retur to home work fine ... have only a problem the quad return to last loiter position instead of starting point.

In the next week we continue to test and improve :

Altitude hold .

Auto navigation.

Configuration of testing :

Multipilot32 V1.0 : http://www.virtualrobotix.com/page/multipilot32-1

VRIMU FULL : http://www.virtualrobotix.com/page/vr-imu-10

Custom Frame by AleBs X Mode Quad configuration.

4x 30 Amp ESC Hobbywing.

Propeller 10x45.

Battery 3S 4000 Amp.

Radio: Hitech Aurora 9 with standard 9 channel receiver 2.4 ghz.

Firmware Pre requiste :

This revision of code is derived of original Arducopter 2.0.42 i add some new feature for have more flexible configuration parameter for example is possible change the frame configuration only changing a parameter in Mission Planner. Is available also mixertable and receiver that support 1 wire ppm sum .

Last Revision of IDE : http://code.google.com/p/multipilot32/downloads/detail?name=vrobotix-ide-0.0.4.6.1-laserlab-.rar&can=2&q=#makechanges

Last Patch of stable code : http://code.google.com/p/multipilot32/downloads/detail?name=Firmware.rar&can=2&q=#makechanges

Original Blog Post : http://www.virtualrobotix.com/profiles/blogs/arducopter32-test-of-rtl-and-loiter-mode

What's going on in China now is very impressive. From SUASNews:

It's thought at least 100 teams took part in the AVIC Cup International Unmanned Machine Innovation Contest in Beijing  at the end of September. Six Teams came from the Northwestern Polytechnical University Shaanxi Province alone.

 

The prize money was good and the main challenge, a carrier landing difficult. Very few reports have emerged so far but there is this tantalizing video clip. Some very competent looking entries  performing autonomous landings on a simulated carrier deck.

GroundControl and MAVLink have been improved substantially behind the scenes over the last months. The most obvious new feature on the user level are custom user widgets. You can configure yourself parameter sliders and buttons and even export this widget into a *.qgw file, which other users can import. The video shows how to create a custom attitude control widget for ArduPilotMega. Most of the other improvements are speed and stability improvements which are not directly visible, but improve the user experience a lot. Since we wanted to make sure to get some testing done this is the first preview of the new version. Before end-users can test it, it will also require porting all autopilots, e.g. APM, to MAVLink v1.0.0, which is already scheduled and will happen in a few weeks. Porting is straightforward, as the C-API is mostly unchanged, only a few message signatures were updated.

Thanks to Andrew Tridgell and Paul Grobler for their contributions on the protocol. And Andrew Tridgell completely rebased the protocol generator on Python, allowing to now generate C and Python code from a single generator.

A porting guide for autopilots will be available soon.

This was my ArduPlane F22 Twin 70mm EDF on it last 2 flights before I stalled it trying to do a high alpha fly by.  The crash is at the end of the video, but a totally awesome take off is at the start, I got vertical straight after rotating.

http://www.vimeo.com/29904029

I made following modifications

wing span increased to 74 in

root cord 12inch

Tip cord 9inch

Tested with 2x8000mah Tenergy pack

got 1hr endurance

Di-hedral 4inch from wing tip 

IT is very hard to turn from aileron will reduce the di-hedral to 2inch

Prop apc 1407E will test 1412E

Takeoff weight was 4000grams

So today i tried to make a movie with the GoPro and the OCTOV platform and it seems to be stable.

Next step is to put caoutchouc under the motors to absorb more vibration.

This Plateform is really dedicaded for movie !! enjoy Guys !!

From this week's New Yorker

After several crashes my frame has finally evolved into something I'm fairly happy with. It uses all standard AC2 kit electronics, but custom built frame/arms, etc. It has a modular base so I can easily change out Camera mount for just plain, centralised battery mount. The camera mount has an offset battery position to keep COG towards the middle. The camera mount base has silicone dampeners (from CD-Rom drive) to minimise vibes, as well as velcro on the final mount.

The pictures show the wooden prototype and then final 3mm Acrylic flying example (above and at the bottom.)

Some specs:

-1280 APM, 850Kv 2830/12 standard motors, and 20Amp ESC's from jDrones

-5000mAh 3S Lipo Turnigy

-GoPro HD, outputting to 1.2Ghz Tx for 7" TFT & Fatshark goggles on ground for FPV flying.

-2.46 Beta code

-Current sensor, sonar, Turnigy scale light kit

-12mm Aluminium arms, (Carbon ones on way from Hobbyking) PDB in middle of frame sandwich with ESC's.

-Laser cut 3mm Acrylic double sandwich long legs to keep GoPro clear of grass

-Frame plates are 3mm laser cut acrylic (wanted Alum, but quotes too expensive to get cut so far, still looking)

-Modified Motor mounts to allow 4 rubber o-rings on screws for Anti-Vibes.

-Droidworx PetG dome

Here is a video of it:

I had a fully tricked out with every options ArducopterMega I purchased fully assembled from jdrones last year. I usually assemble all my own stuff so it figures that I crashed it *hard* on the first or second flight and basically destroyed the frame. This sent me down the rabbit hole and since then I have built 8 multi-rotors by hand including a few quads, a Y4, a Y6 a hex a TRI and some other aborted experiments ;) I used many different control boards so now I have an extensive collection of different motors, ESC's control boards and other gear.

But when the good folks here ay DIYDroones came out with the new 3DR carbon frame for ArducopterMega I figured it was time to resurrect my original copter that got me started in this hobby., 

So far the build is coming together nicely, here are some photos. I will update soon with maiden voyage video!

First image is the remnants of the crashed frame from my first arducoptermega ;)

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Successfully maiden'd the third version of my Modular Testing Platform. My eventual goal is to scratch build an airplane that carry and utilize FPV and UAV components, but I wanted to start small and basic first.

Overall it flew well, had plenty of power, and wasn't as "pitchy" as the last MTP, however I'm going to have to strengthen my motor mount or have some other total new solution to landing (different method, prop location, etc.) I may start relying more on my Easy Star which has well over 100 flights with zero crashes while I figure out this scratch building thing....

Today I spotted this "Digital Addressable RGB LED with PWM waterproof flexi strip" from Adafruit.

Each LED in this strip is individually addressable, meaning you can set the colour and brightness of each LED separately.

Imagine the display wonders you could create with these on your arducopter.

Here is a video

Also available at www.pcboard.ca

hi friends, whenever we fly in automode using APM there is always some chance of a bad crash. we do lose some expensive equipment. APM is quite expensive for almost $400 and not counting the mid night hours that go in debugging. so i have worked on a aluminum APM housing which is quite strong with 1.5mm thickness and is sufficiently large to house the APM and the Rx. The external dimensions are L112xW53xH38mm. Weight is 106gms. The APM fits snugly into the width with enough space to place a Futaba size Rx. I place a Thomas Scherrer 12Rx inside which is quite large. The slots are CNC cut into  PCB grade aluminum anodized channel. slightly heavy but quite strong. he cost works to be high since it is not mass produced and the CNC guy charges lot of money for each piece. would find a way out to bring the cost down so our DIY Drones community can beniefit.

One of the cool things about the 3D Robotics factory in San Diego is that it's near the Naval air station and there are a load of cool military aircraft flying by all the time. Today, the Blue Angels were practicing while the 3D Robotics team was testing some new ArduCopter hardware. 

(via 3D Robotics engineer Allen Sanchez's Twitter feed)

One of the biggest challenges in an open source development project is getting the "architecture of participation" right. Like a great game, contributing should be easy to pick up but hard to master, giving people of all skills and experience an opportunity to engage. Right now we have scores of developers working on dozens of projects, but a lot of it is behind the scenes on private email lists, Skype calls and IM threads, Google Docs and 3D Robotics project trackers.  You can see the tip of the iceberg in the change logs, but that's just a hint of the activity that goes on every day.

If you'd like to get involved with the DIY Drones dev teams, here are a few places to start:

• The Dronecode Project (part of the Linux Foundation), which is the umbrella organization for the APM, PX4 and other DIY Drones software projects
• The DIY Drones Developers site
• The GitHub code repositories
• The Drones Discuss developers email list
• The Documentation Editors User Group
• The ArduCopter/Plane Issues List

The 3D Robotics PhoneDrone Android/RC interface board is finally in production! Pre-orders are starting now and it will ship on Oct 17th. From the product listing:

It's a way to connect any Android device (2.3.4 or higher) to the world of RC and UAVs.The board has 8 channels of RC in and out, with PWM-to-PPM conversion and multiplexing between RC and Android control. You just plug the Android's phone USB connector into the board and you have two-way communications with RC gear and any other board, such as APM.

 That means that you can switch between RC control and Android control or mix the two. An example would be "fly/drive by wire". You steer your vehicle via RC, but an Android phone does the actual control using its onboard IMU. On a car, that would allow every turn to be a high-speed controlled drift, for instance (we may show something like that at Maker Faire).

Or, with a UAV, you might have the Android phone doing high-level image processing and object tracking, sending mission commands to an autopilot board such as APM. You might also want to use the phone's long-distance wireless instead of an Xbee for two-way telemetry.

 This can either replace APM if you've got equivalent code running on Android, or compliment it with the Android device doing image processing or long-distance wireless comms.

It took a while to get a pick-and-place smart feeder for one of the components on this board, so apols for the delay. We're good now ;-)

APM Mission Planner is adding more support for the AttoPilot Voltage Sensor. Thus the Open Hardware Store has introduced a voltage sensor kit that is ready to be used and you just need to plug it in and configure Ardupilot. It comes with XT60-connectors and a 15cm long servo cable to connect to the IMU.

HIGH RESOLUTION IMAGE

The kit is called the OHS APM Voltage/Current Plug-in Kit and compliments the other OHS APM Plug-in Kits. Using the OHS APM Plug-in Kits you don't have to solder anything on the electronics. They are tested and ready to be used.