Blogs

This is pretty speculative, but creative all the same: autonomous blimps as robo-shade.  From Fast Company:

"Qatari scientists claim to have cracked the problem of shade for crowded stadiums during the 2022 World Cup: Artificial clouds. 

Local temperatures can poke upward of 122 degrees Fahrenheit (50 celcius), and relentless summer sun would be a big barrier to enjoyment for the hundreds of thousands of football fans expected to attend in person. The games were originally going to be moved to winter months, but FIFA has since reconsidered (no doubt pondering the disruption this could cause in competing nations' own football leagues). Air conditioning spaces for crowds, and practice arenas for the hundreds of players themselves, is a possibility of course, and will happen--but the environmental burden could be enormous, even with plans to use solar power to generate some of the energy needed by air conditioning units.

Hence, the idea by Qatari science teams to create huge artificial clouds and float them over venues to block direct sunlight. Essentially, the devices are massive dirigibles filled with helium, built of carbon fiber and super-light fabrics, and equipped with four solar-powered engines to move them into place and keep them stable even in changing winds. Each "cloud" would cost around $500,000, and unlike the Zeppelin-like blimps you're thinking of, the clouds would be large, flat, inflated platforms designed to produce maximum shade."

Please visit the Kickstarter project page: iPhly.org/ks.

You can store as many model memories as you like. You can give them long names. You can photograph your models using the iPhone's camera. Seven-segment displays on a TX are so last century.

The software is GPL. The schematics and SVN are on iPhly.org. The app is in the app store (if you don't want to compile your own). I am using KS to raise money for a production run.

Please visit the Kickstarter project page: iPhly.org/ks and share with your pilot friends.

Ari.

Festo has demonstrated it's capabilities again. No flying dolphin this time, no flying jellyfish, ...

This time it was quite fast...

Full inventory is back... hurry-up!

(this is the last time I report this stock level... )

A few days ago, Ritchie posted in his blog an xls file about Choosing an airframe. That's was very useful comparison. 

I had been surfing the rcgroups.com and found very interesting OSD Comparison Chart. This chart was originally compiled and managed by Daniel Wee. I think it will be useful too in addition to Airframe Chart by Ritchie.

OSD Comparison Chart.xls

As for me, as a real user I can tell more about Smalltim OSD.

I saidf i must prepare the RED CARPET !

AKA the work bench !

here you can see why :

And after a big hour of organizing:

Hangar 18 is pleased to announce that we have a licensing agreement with AttoPilot International to develop and produce an FPV version of the Jackaroo UAV. The new airframe will be a lower cost version that is designed and built with the FPV enthusiast in mind and will feature lower cost materials to let us pass the savings on to you. Please e-mail us at infor@hangar18uav.com and watch our website at www.hangar18uav.com for updates in the very near future.

Jimmy

Well,

you're seeing at this moment a new project being born.

I will use an arducopter to do aerial photography, hoping to be able to do stable video as well.

for that i'm gonna need to mount a heave DSLR and lens, plus some RF control equipment, estimated at around 1KG payload.

therefore i chose to build a relatively big copter with big props and bigger motors.

I've just ordered the parts for my project:

from jDrones:

• Frame kit, including the 28cm arms, bigger motors (880kv) and bigger props (12")

from DIYDRONES store:

• the kit including the APM and IMU borads, GPS, and magnetometer.

Just received the plates I ordered at Ponoko and mounted my electronics on it. My measures were good but I chosed to put the xBee on the side instead of on top so I missed two holes for it, fortunately tie wraps saved the day! Next version will account for the new placement of the xBee and protect it better. If people are interested I can upload the eps files for Ponoko after I make some adjustments.

New Part on Mouser.

Airspeed sensor for about 30% the price?

Hi

I know ArduIMU with its ST's gyros is rather outdated product but it is still one of the cheapest, smallest and lightest IMUs available.

Thus, I'd like to share my FPV projects that are using ArduIMU v2.

First is the AXN Floater Jet plane with Ardupilot:

Here is the picture:

Tx/Rx: Fox 800mW from Sunsky

Camera: Sony Board 540TVL from Securitycamera2000

OSD: Remzibi OSD from Diydrones

Headtracker: DT-3K from Flytron

Pan&Tilt: Large version from Hobbycity

Weight: 1 kg

Second is a quadcopter inspired by Jose Julio's ArduIMUQuad project:

Here is the picture:

Tx/Rx: Fox 400mW from Sunsky

Camera: Sony Board 600TVL from Securitycamera2000

OSD: Remzibi OSD from Diydrones

Motors: 2838-14 750KV from Rctimer

ESCs: Turnigy Plush 25A from Hobbycity

Weight: 1.4 kg

If anyone is interested I can include sources for the quadcopter project ?

Cheers,

cholo

Radio controlled jet powered by a Jetcat P160 SE.
On the 23rd of May, this Jet has been lasered @ 586 KpH
Which makes it a 366 MpH plane


now all we need is a really fast working ardupilot

I don't know how useful this would be but I thought it would be something that could be attached to a quadrotor to do some thermal analysis for a home to determine how to increase the efficiency of the heating and cooling systems by reducing the losses around windows and doors.

(Image pulled from his website)

Here's where to find more information.

http://www.cheap-thermocam.tk/

I'm tempted to get the materials just to run it to see how my house is!

Following up on my first post here, I have moved on to designing the airframe that will carry my Chumby Hacker Board.

I am by no means a mechanical engineer, and I have no experience with aircraft design. I decided to stick with the DIYdrone’s model quadcopter since it is open sourc. No offence to bunnie, but the Chumby Hacker Board is rather large in comparison to the APM and Oilpan. It would fit on the standard size carrier board, but it would cover up 2 of the 4 holes for the screws. I imagine it would make the plate pretty unstable so I enlarged the main plate and carrier board to fit.

Doing some rough comparisons between images of other quadcopters and my enlarged pieces, I don’t believe there will be any conflict in attaching the standard dome and landing gear to the arms. If anyone is willing to confirm via 3D modeling, I’d appreciate it.

I decided to use the Ponoko to laser cut a single main plate to see how the service and materials were. I chose 3.2mm Delrin plastic for the main plate and I am very pleased with it. It is very rigid and durable. I am thinking I could probably go with the 2.3mm sheet for the other pieces. It does not feel like it would crack or shatter like acrylic would in a major crash. The main plate weighs 53 grams. As for price, it was about $20.00 USD for the materials and labor, and Ponoko charged another $9 for shipping. A little pricey compared to other options, but I think it is a pretty good balance between durability and price. I will be submitting my order for the rest of the carrier boards and plates soon—all made from Delrin.

Here are some photos of the main plate:

Here are the EPS files for the enlarged plates:

main_square_xl.eps

carrier_board_xl.eps

Apologies for the late notice, but we're having a Maker meetup at the Wired Offices at 3rd and Bryant tonight at 7:00 pm. It's free, and I'll be demoing ArduCopter and APM hardware-in-the-loop simulation with Xplane. Lots of other Makers will be showing off their cool projects too. Food and drink provided. Come by and say hi!

Sign up here.

As part of the continuing APM 2.0 beta test program, we've released another package of updated APM software: New versions of the APM 2.0 beta code (2.01), Mission Planner (0.4.16) and HappyKillmore GCS (1.2.43).

Please upgrade your system to the latest code, which includes bug fixes, a few new features and improved stability. To be safe, load the code into Arduino and compile it as usual; the automatic firmware loading process may not always bring in the latest code during this beta testing period. [UPDATE; the Mission Planner will now load the latest firmware automatically, so no need to use Arduino or download the code yourself.]

New features include:

--More Action Commands implemented. As shown at right, we've added back some commands that you can issue in-flight via the HK GCS. More commands will be coming soon.

--More effecient memory handling allows APM to run MAVlink on Port 0 (USB) and Port 3 (Xbee) simultaneously without risk of memory overrun.

--Lots of improvement to the Mission Planner. Altitude in 3D waypoints should now be properly displayed.

Known issues:

--Some modes are not being reported correctly in HK GCS. Stabilize is being reported as "Guided", for example. We know how to fix this and it will be right in the next build.

--Writing waypoints via MAVLink in the Mission Planner is still sometimes unreliable. If you're having trouble, close it and reopen and try again.

--Vehicle Number is still being reported as 7, rather than 1. We'll fix that in the next build.

We'll be releasing new code each week for the duration of the beta test process. Expect a final Release Candidate by mid-April. As always, keep the bug reports and other feedback coming! (Bug reports to the Issue Tracker, please)

IMAV 2011 is May 23-27 in Huntsville, Alabama. There are two autonomous competitions--Indoor and Outdoor.

Indoor Competition:

Like the indoor flight dynamics competition, the indoor autonomy competition is open for all categories of MAV. The main goal of this competition is to demonstrate the MAVs capabilities of fulfilling a sophisticated mission including operation inside a small building with a covered ceiling. A video transmission from the MAV to a ground station is required for this mission. All tasks must be attempted in the order listed in the paragraph below.

The mission starts at point 1 behind a wall with a height of 2.5 m preventing the operator from seeing the MAV on the mission. Having overcome the wall, the MAV approaches the door at point 2. After entering the building, the MAV has to identify two targets (printed letters/numbers) at point 3. One of them is placed on one of the building's inner walls (vertical target), the other one is placed on the floor (horizontal target). See Figure 2.

Outdoor Autonomy:

This competition is open for all categories of UAV. During the outdoor autonomy competition the MAV has to identify a horizontal and vertical target, which are placed outside of the operator’s range of sight, fly through one arch, drop a ball at a certain point and land in a predefined area.

The MAV takes off from the airfield, passes the airfield buildings and heads toward the first target area. In this area two optical targets have to be identified. Once these targets have been identified, the MAV proceeds with flying through Arch A or Arch B (Figure 5 shows the two arches and the mission points for the different gaps). Only one passing counts. The positions of the arches are defined by WGS84 coordinates. Subsequently the MAV flies to the drop zone, where it drops a ball, which is shown in Figure 6. Finally the MAV lands in a predefined area on the airfield.

Hello!

I am a recent owner of ArduPilot Mega and while I have been assembling, connecting and testing the board I made a few video tutorials. I think they will be useful for beginners and potential customers and will give opportunity to learn more about the APM.
Here are the links:

1. Intro

2. CLI and Test procedures

3. ArduPilot Mega UAV simulating in Xplane

I'm not so long working with ArduPilot, so please, don't judge strictly :)


Kirill