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I asked my District Website if they would post info about the AMA elections since nominations are due June 16. As an AMA member I thought it was an important issue.

Response from Bob Brown, AMA District VP:

"The following gentleman is the one we want nothing to do with...right?"

Hope this proves I am not lying about what is going on.

Do not trust the current leadership (District VP's are the leaders),

In as much as the AMA may become the only way to fly for fun in the future, this needs to be known by everyone here who is a recreational flyer.

Full email received includes my question:

"The following gentleman is the one we want nothing to do with...right?

Bob Brown


On Apr 24, 2011, at 11:23 PM, Duane Brocious <dbcisco@hotmail.com> wrote:

>
> This is an enquiry e-mail from Duane Brocious (dbcisco@hotmail.com)
> Follow up on previous question; from AMA:
> Nominations Due for AMA President, Executive Vice President, and Vice Presidents in Districts III, VII, and XI
> Nominations for the offices of president, executive vice president and vice presidents in Districts III, VII, and XI are due at the Headquarters of the Academy of Model Aeronautics by June 16, 2011. Any AMA Open Member may submit a nomination.
>
> Can this be posted on our website.
> Thanks
> Duane

I finished my SkyWalker build last night, and went out to CMAC to take it for its first flight. All the ground tests looked good (including the new 'system check' in mavproxy) so we took it for the first flight. About 60 meters into the flight I heard "MODE STABILIZE" from mavproxy, and I lost control. Jack and I watched as the SkyWalker glided gracefully to a perfect landing in the grass while we wondered what had happened.

After looking at the mavlink logs, we saw that the APM had started to receive failsafe values from the receiver soon after takeoff. Jack thought the antenna on the receiver might be a bit dodgy, so we replaced it with a 2nd receiver I happened to have in my box of spares, and we tried again. It was almost an exact repeat of the first flight, losing transmitter control soon after takeoff, APM going to STABILIZE mode, and the SkyWalker landing perfectly in the grass.

We then started to do more extensive ground tests and found that the Turnigy TGY 9X transmitter had failed. It has previously had good range, but for some as yet unexplained reason it now doesn't do more than 60 meters or so.

We had a good look inside the transmitter module, and we can't see anything wrong. The antenna cable is a little bit abraded on the transmitter, although it isn't clear if that is the cause of the issue. Strangely, the range test button doesn't find the problem. I get the same range with the range test button pressed as when its off. When I got home I checked the range test switch in case it was faulty and it seemed to be working fine (at least as far as my multimeter can tell). It looks like I might need to buy a more expensive transmitter. Pity, as otherwise the TGY 9X has performed well!

The real hero of the flight was the APM. The failsafe values in my receiver had the mode switch set to STABILIZE, and it glided the plane down to a perfect landing both times. I don't have it set to RTL for failsafe as it would be a breach of the club rules to circle above the takeoff point (you'd be going over the clubhouse).

Tomorrow we're going to try a different transmitter and see if the SkyWalker can live up to its reputation as a great UAV. We've got a "mow the lawn" search pattern setup to simulate the type of search we will be doing for the outback challenge. If that goes well we will put the pandaboard and ptgrey camera in the plane and get back to testing our algorithms for finding Joe.

Once things look OK with the SkyWalker we'll see about putting all the equipment in our CyberHawk UAV, which is what we plan to use for the OBC next year.

Here is a video clip from Paul Mather and my last minute entry into the SparkFun Autonomous Vehicle Competition.



The day before the competition I realized that the DIYDrones community had an unused entry into the competition and I had a second UAV ready to go, so I recruited Paul Mather as a teammate and we became team "Plan B", flying a SkyWalker with ArduPilotMega. It was quite windy and gusty as you can see. This is the conclusion of the first round flight, conducted 100% autonomously, which would have scored well. The plane was getting blown around badly on final approach, but would have made it around the pine tree and right into the landing zone had it not been for impact with the light pole visible around 0:15 :(

Some other details from the event: I believe that Paul and I, and Chris Anderson, were the only competitors flying APM powered planes - Paul and I had two teams, one with the SkyWalker and another with a SkyFun. Wind was a problem for the Skywalker. It certainly could have flown much better, but we were flying it pretty slow (ranging from 15 to 9 m/s) due to the small course and small landing area. The first run we clipped the light pole as shown in the video which was heartbreaking because it could have been a 100% autonomous landing into the very small landing zone on a windy day. On the second run the SkyWalker went into the pine tree that shows so prominently in the video and lodged very high. Fortunately a brave Sparkfun employee climbed up and dislodged it. It was no longer pretty after two crashes, but tape and lots of CA glue got it airworthy. On its third run we skipped the auto landing and got it on the ground quick enough after crossing the finish line to secure 2nd place.

The SkyFun performed great, but with all the pressure and chaos of the event I accidentally messed up the mission planning for two of the three runs and had it trying to climb over 1500 meters. Confusing absolute and relative altitudes in Colorado makes a big difference. That was embarrassing. The one successful run was really fun. We used a catapult launcher that was actually controlled by APM - having APM control the catapult was necessary to qualify for the autonomous takeoff bonus. A quick release connector on the back of the SkyFun was connected to a cable on the catapult controlling the release mechanism. After the release was triggered APM sensed the high acceleration of the catapult and as soon as the acceleration stopped APM fired up the motor. It worked flawlessly all three rounds. Unfortunately, on the one fully successful flight (100% auto from catapult launch through landing) the wind shifted around and we had a tailwind for the landing. A SkyFun with a tailwind will only come down so fast, and we glided past the landing zone and didn't get the big bonus.

Many thanks to Paul, and to my brother David, for all they did!  They both just made things happen.

Flew my quad for the second time today. I decided to skip the acro mode with which I had so much trouble keeping the quad stable last time and give it a try in stable mode. With the default PID setting I was able to flight it pretty stable under light wind. I made a few hard landings and finally broke my landing gear and a prop but overall I'm pretty satisfied with the performance I got from it. Last time kinda discouraged me but now I feel more comfortable controlling it (a couple hours in a sim also helped).

I'll have a few videos soon!

Ardu Copter Mega rev.1914

Motors: BC2836 750kv ESC: 30A

Props: Top 10x45 EPP , Bottom 10x45 EPP Composite. 

3S 5000mah

Jason added a new function to CH6 "magic knob", to control top/bottom speed ratio... Thanks :)

So now we can tune top motors speed, in air, it have 20% window, (80% to 100%). more on that in wiki after ACM goes public :))))

One of the problems in Y6 setup, is vibration from the props :( (you can see it in on-board video)

one solution is to use composite props, I only have 3 of those left :) so I used the black plastic ones on top motors.

the plastic props are too soft :(

Now I need to get all the sand out of the motors :) and make a new GoPro mount :)

start building yours Y6 frames  :))))))) 

First enemy: WINDY DAYS.

It was windy but ive managed to find some less windy areas to fly today,

i decided to give it a chance, after checking all's OK in the living room, hovering about 10cm...

GPS hold seemed to work, as at one point it was drifting a lot with the wind and suddenly changing direction back to the launch point (not what you see on the video)

ON THE VIDEO

I have no idea what happened, i engaged GPS hold a few seconds after it flipped over,

and anyways, it flipped in the direction of the wind, which means it didn't flipped by trying to compensate and fly against the wind back to the launch point...

my guess is that was slightly unstable because of the wind and finally the wind caught it, gave it a push and it flipped....

have any other idea of what happened ?

I wanted to test some equipment,

here you can see the transmitter of the wireless tracking system mounted on the copter:

Red LEDs strip

The lipo alarm with the camera power supply behind:

the 5v BEC for the APM and receiver:

The wireless pinhole camera:

Didn't get to testing the wireless camera,

but the custom wireless tracking system was working great from about 100m away !

  4-23-10 My QuadCopter makes it first flight.   Success!

Heres a summary of Aerial Round 1:

The aerial heats started off with a blast as Team Lawn Dart one crashed into turn one's (familiar) tree shortly after an amazing auto-takeoff.

Team DIY- Drones equiped with Ardupilot  Mega auto had a great run with an auto-take off but unfortunately did not finish the run (hawk sky pic below).

Team Arducopter was the first entry and had a smooth and dramatic run, making  the first three corners well. Almost surely, the copter was going to make it home, only to be caught by an aggressive tree (!!). Too bad, it was well on its way to the finish line (qaud pic below).

 

Defending champion Antonio flew his zagi around the course with speed and grace.He will be a tough beat this year with his custom autopilot.

Arducopter pilot and principal Arducopter Mega coder, Jason Short, had the most dramatic aerial flight thus far. He started very well, clearing spectators and three corners, at times just barely. On approach, the arducopter took off to a high altitude and due to the winds, drifted and then descendsed behind the gov't contractor Northrop Grumman building. After the crowd gasped, surely expecting the worst, the quadcopter reappeared , came back and to the happiness of all, landed safely.Way to go Jason! 

The team completed the course in 2:04 with a 30 sec time reduction for driving through the hoop!

Way to go team Autocrusher!

Boulder, CO

Cold weather and light snow hasnt deterred dedicated competitors and spectators from showing up at the 2011 Sparkfun AVC.Attached is the morning schedule. The first heat had several large ground vehicles, including a wheel chair equipped Dinosaur of the sorts, which almost immediately headed for the trees. Stay tuned for blow by blow updates.Go teams!

Haven't seen this posted anywhere yet.

This is the current information and interim guidance on air traffic policies and prescribes procedures for the planning, coordination, and services involving the operation of unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) in the NAS.

It is in effect from March 28th 2011 until March 27th 2012.

Notwithstanding all the discussion of NPRMs, ARCs and Congess, this is The Official FAA policy for (s)UAS operations in the USA until further notice.

Complete document available HERE 

"Types and Authority

Current FAA policy for UAS operations is that no person may operate a UAS in the NAS without specific authority.

(1) Public.

(a) FAA policy restricts COAs to public operations as defined in title 14, Code of Federal Regulations (CFR), Part 1, Definitions & Abbreviations.

(b) For UAS operating as public aircraft, the authority is the COA.

(2) Civil.

(a) Civil applicants must apply for a Special Airworthiness Certificate–Experimental Category.

(b) For UAS operating as civil aircraft, the authority is special airworthiness certificates.

(3) Hobbyist.

(a) Hobbyists should follow the guidance contained in Advisory Circular (AC) 91-57.

(b) For model aircraft, the authority is AC 91-57."

As I can see everyone liked the post of GliderUAV about automatic thermalling. I have tremendous interest in such things.

For a few month now I've been developing algorithms which will help our UAV's increase their flight times. And I've started to get some positive results.

Right now one algorithm has been already tested on x-plane HIL simulation, and I will say - it is neat!

Let me tell you some information about it. For now it doesn't have anything with searching thermals and loitering on them. Just simple soaring with constant feedback correction. I've tested it on some heights like 100, 200m and result are fine. But when I've tested it on 1km height it flew 9828m long and it took 12min 36sec without using motor at all!!! Which I can say is great result!

Let me know what you think. Can it be nice to have in our UAV's? Any ideas appreciated.

Hello everyone,

After experimenting with tuning the APM, a friend (Roel Offermans) and I decided to implement telemetry. Even though it may seem counterintuitive to use a phone rather than an Xbee, when you already have the phone it saves some money. Another advantage is that it has 'unlimited' range, as long as you have network coverage.

The logical choice of phone to use was the iPhone, since the 30-pin dock connector has a built-in 3.3V serial port.

What you need:

A 5V - 3.3 V level-converter. (or some resistors, google RS232 level converter)

A male dock connector (we used a cheap iPhone dock)

A jailbroken iPhone

How to:

Most of this is already outlined on other websites for the normal Arduino, but since we had a lot of confusion about some key parts, I'll put it here again with a more elaborate how to. This tutorial was tested on iOS 4.3.1, but 

Hardware steps:

iPod pin:

Pin 1 :GND

Pin 12 : Serial Tx

Pin 13: Serial Rx

Pin 18: 3.3 V

Notice: we didn't use the serial ground (pin 11) as it caused some problems, using pin 1 worked fine for us.

In case you're using resistors to make your own 5v-to-3.3v level-converter, you should connect pin 12 to the APM shield telemetry port labeled "IN". Pin 13 is connected to "OUT" while GND and 3.3V are connected to their respective ports.

When using the Sparkfun level converter, it should be connected as follows:

iPhone level converter LV level converter HV APM Oilpan (telemetry port)

Pin 1 -> GND GND -> GND

Pin 12 -> LV HV -> +5V

Pin 13 -> RXO RXI -> OUT

Pin 18 -> TXI TXO -> IN

Software steps:

Step 1:

For those of you who aren't familiar with the iPhone, the standard SDK doesn't allow access to the serial port, which is why we need a jailbroken iPhone. Most jailbreaks automatically install a secondary appstore called Cydia, where you can find a program to interface with the serial port.

Make sure you set Cydia to hacker mode, otherwise Minicom won't show up. (Very important!)

Now install minicom from the Bigboss repository, which is available by default.

Step 2:

Install the OpenSSH application on your iPhone from Cydia. This will allow you to connect to your iPhone remotely and read the serial port. 

Once you've installed OpenSSH you can use the Terminal from Mac/Linux or an ssh program (like putty) on Windows .

Step 3:

Connect to your iPhone as root via SSH. On the Mac/Linux you can do this by typing "ssh root@your-device-ip" in terminal. Accept the key by typing "yes". The default password is "alpine".

Make a new folder  /usr/etc, this is to store your Minicom config file. Do this by typing:

"cd /"

"cd usr"

"mkdir etc"

Step 4:

Type "minicom -s" to set up the serial port. Change the serial port to "/dev/tty.iap" and the baud rate to your telemetry baud rate. The standard is 57600.

Exit from the setup menu.

Step 5: 

Type "minicom -w" at the prompt to start minicom with line ending. You'll now receive a lot of gibberish if you don't set the telemetry protocol to human-readable.

As you can see we do receive some sensible words, but the MAVlink protocol probably messes things up.

The next thing to do is to get the MAVlink GCS working, which shouldn't be too difficult by echoing the data you receive back over localhost, but we haven't figured it out yet.

Check it out: an all-in-one telemetry kit for ArduPilotMega, all set up and ready to go! No more fussing around with Xbee configuration. $165 for the total, which includes the custom configuration.

In this kit you will find everything you need to add telemetry features to your aircraft set up. The Xbee modules come paired up and ready to use!  Included with this kit:

- 1x XtreamBee Board (The one manufactured by DIYDrones!), including the two female connectors and right angle connectors.

- 1x XBee-PRO 900 extended range module w/ RPSMA connector and duck antenna

- 1x XBee-PRO 900 extended range module w/ wire antenna

- 1x Xbee Explorer Dongle (USB adapter for the Xbee module!)

Airframe #2 - Decisions and path options

I decided to follow parallel paths to my goal.

The first path is to continue development on my own airframe.

The second path is to use an off the shelf airframe to work on the electronics end of my goal.

Airframe Path:

As a part of my airframe development, I have decided to include my kids in the design and building process. They have an interest and I see it as a great learning opportunity.

I have drawn up Airframe #2, and made some design changes to make the design and build process easier. The main wing will have the ability to be removed to facilitate different wing layouts. I am also thinking about using a Carbon Fiber plate as a wing and tail boom mount.

Electronics path:

FPV will be 5.8ghz 200mw min.

I am debating about base airframes, Skywalker EPO or the Hobbyking EPP-FPV. Both have their strengths and weaknesses. Any comments about either are appreciated.

Another debate – Prebuilt Arduino Megapilot or build it myself. Price difference about $100, My soldering skills are decent but it has been years since I have worked at the level that the Megapilot needs.

One more debate - the FrSky DFT 2.4ghz Module for my Futaba 9C, I am currently using a Corona 2.4ghz Module.

Currently I am working on / waiting on the following items;

• 6mm x 6mm square carbon fiber tubing – To be used as a wing spar
• 3mm x 3mm square carbon fiber tubing – for various projects
• I have the plans for Airframe #2 plotted and Depron ready to be cut
• I am looking for a new source of Dow Fanfold, my local (50 miles) Lowes does not carry it any more
• Will be doing experiments with wing rigidity for various wing styles using 6mm Depron as a base, I see a few gliders in my kids future

For my FPV projects I wanted a system that is easy to install in different vehicles. I always disliked that the FPV control of PAN/TILT systems used additional channels of my primary rc tx.

So I decided to build and integrated system that works independently from the RC and/or UAV setup. It should have and own receiver for controlling at least 2 cameras, a video downlink and a OSD controller for telemetry data. The ground unit had to be compact like a RC TX.

Actually I finished the system and I can control 2 cameras. One is a classic pan/tilt front camera with a GO Pro HD Hero live feed that can be moved by the head-tracker or by joystick. The second camera is a ripped CCTV with 30x optical zoom as belly/dome camera. I’m actually working on the stabilization of that one. I test the system with an old RC car using as receiver the remote unit itself.

The result is following:

Ground station/unit:

1. 5.8Ghz Video receiver
2. 8 ch 2.4Ghz Corona RC TX DIY Module
3. Eagle Tree Diversity ground station
4. Arduino duemilanove with LCD to control the 2.4Ghz TX module
5. Arduino mini to encode the ppm signal from a GY-1000 HK head-tracker encoding it again into a new ppm stream for the 2.4Ghz TX module.
6. Fat Shark video goggles
7. 3”  LCD monitor
8. Internal 11.1V Li-Po or external 12V power supply
9. Joysticks from an old walkera radio
10. Still open: Tripod with 5.8 GHz patch antenna with tracking system

Getting the ppm decoder was really hard. Most examples didn't worked at all. I mainly had to work with interrupts, but sending the head tracking position data to the primary arduino was really hairy. I finally generated analog signals, added a filter to make them "real" dc and read them with the main arduino.

Remote unit:

1. 200mW 5.8GHz Video Transmitter
2. 2.4 GHz Corona 8Ch receiver
3. 2Ch Video switch (on Ch7)
4. Eagle Tree OSD pro
5. Eagle Tree eLogger V4
6. HK 6A 5V ESC

The unit is quiet heavy. I guess at least 180g. But I don’t use it on small vehicles. I overall satisfied because now I can install an FPV system on planes and helicopters of friends and act as “passenger”. I never ever fly in FPV mode: I have always a pilot buddy or I’m the pilot and my buddy the passenger. 

As you all probably know, the Ardupilot/ArduIMU uses ADC  oversampling to achieve greater than 10 bit resolution of the internal ADC. I beleive they achieved alomost 12 bit resolution- not bad, I'd say.When I discovered this, I started using that approach to increase the resolution of cheap ADC's at my work, saving but loads of $ in the process.

Anyway to any curious parties interested, here is a good article that decribes how its done and why.

improveADCbyOverSAmpling.pdf

The tilt (pitch) servo mounted and working in the heavy DSLR mount system:

as followers know, my copter will carry a 1.5kg DSLR system.

I'll be testing the mount with DSLR attached really soon,

so i can figure out if this 13kg servo is enough.

some 'intuitive' tests showed it has great torque, but might be a bit at the edge at certain positions.

I'm ordering 17kg servos anyways...

any other idea for this application ?

actually i think of a worm gear as a perfect solution,

it can have a HUGE torque, and plus it is locking in position (without the motor having to push) which is what i need.

but i'm not going to assemble my own worm gear.

do you know of any ready to buy assembly ? servo-like ?

I have been very intrigued by the everything the DIY Drones community has accomplished. I have had a great time building, and flying (even the crashing part has been a fun learning process). I have gotten to a point where I would really like some recommendations on some books for learning more about autonomous robotics. The more the book applies to airborne vehicles the better, but it doesn't have to be all about them. 

I was thinking it would be nice to get some recommendations together for people looking to learn more about mobile robotics and autonomous movement. Please leave your recommendations in the comments. 

Thanks

I am sorry if this has been posted before. Truly inspiring.