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QRO v5: Maiden flight with a GoPro HD wide

Hello,
You will find below my maiden flight successfully done with my quadcopter (QRO v5) with a GoPro HD Wide camera. This video has been done on january 16, 2011, early in the morning.

My setup is:

A hands made Quadcopter (QRO v5) with a Minsoo Kim's KKmulticopter (Blue board version).
Firmware: XXcontroler_KR_1_1a (JLN updated)
4 brusless Dual Sky XM2822CA - 1450 KV - 100W
4 ESC DualSky 12A
4 propellers (X-UFO props modified)
Lipo: 3S 2500 mAh

Regards,
Jean-Louis

After the ArduCopter build. I decided to build a small quad for fun. And release it to the public. You can use my design to make your own or change my design to make your own mini quad.

The picture is just a sketch. I didn't finished the design. So it just a screenshot.

It is 1:1 size that you can easily get the idea how big it is.

I used the Adobe illustrator to design the frame. The file can be send to the Ponoko.com to make frame (Acrylic 3.0mm or thicker).

The frame will have 2 or 3 layers. The top layer will used to guide APM, receiver, Moter, ESC, wire and etc. The bottom layer will be the battery holder. Motor arm and holder will be integrated as one layer.

Parts:

1. Frame: 26.5cm (10.4 inches) from motor to motor (Ponoko.com price will be around $50 or less)

2. Motors: C1822 Micro brushless Outrunner 2100kv (14g)

    http://www.hobbycity.com/hobbyking/store/uh_viewItem.asp?idProduct=5378

3. Propeller: GWS EP Propeller (DD-4025 102x64mm) (6pcs/set)
    http://www.hobbycity.com/hobbyking/store/uh_viewItem.asp?idProduct=10040

4. ESC: TURNIGY Plush 10amp 9gram Speed Controller
    http://www.hobbycity.com/hobbyking/store/uh_viewItem.asp?idProduct=4204

5. Battery: 2S or 3S under 1800mah are recommended

6. Core: APM + Oilpan

7. Optional: GPS, Magnetometer and Sonal

So you bought the EM-406, the EB-85, the uBlox-4, & the helical uBlox-5.  Now you're wondering what to do with all the GPS modules everyone hyped but which turned out to be utter trash everyone was trying to get rid of.  Time to make a GPS guided speedometer.


It starts with our 1st & only answering machine in the days when cell phones were novelties. It got us through grad school. Really well designed for the available technology. It was time to put it down for recycled components.







All that tearing for a crummy LED panel.



This LED panel has 2 grounds & 1 pin for each segment.  It goes up to 1.9V before getting too bright.  The digit is selected by the ground, so it has to alternate.



Went with the obsolete EB-85.



There it is.  All it does is show current velocity. No logging or other information. Could be done with a phone much more easily but this is free & fills the exact, immediate need as fast as possible.

With only 2 digits, it shows speed * 10 below 10mph & integer speed up to 99mph.  Didn't have a display with a decimal point in the middle.

If we could afford a better display, the next most important feature would be elapsed distance.















If only MMY mobile could go back in time like the real thing.

Now the video of GPS guided speedometer in action.  The velocity lags if direction changes.  It really lags when walking from a complete stop.   It's completely unreadable in daylight but useful at night.

This is a design I made my self on CAD.

This design has taken me about 3 months of drawing, and editing to get this awesome design!

I have a few more edits to make to the design before I will share it, mostly just to make asembly easier, nothing major.

This is the death of my beloved proto-type! =[

The crash was completly pilot error.. I wanted to test how goo the stabilize was by performing an aerobatic manuver, and turning on the stabilize mid trick..

Sadly while planning to do a loop, I turned off the stabilize mode, and a cross wing picked up the wing... (Alt. 50ft, Velocity 40mph?)... not a great idea.. haha

Great news is almost all of the electronics lived!

I am only out a Ublox GPS, 1800mah lipo, and an airframe...

What I've learned out of this crash:

1. Im a horrible pilot with out a APM helping me.. haha
2. I should probly protect my GPS, and battery better just in case...
3. Never underestamate deprom.. I may be missing a nose, and fusaloge, but the wing, and tail was still in good shape!
4. Never put anything before God! (I slept in, and missed church...)

This video is not very exciting, but documents a working model!

This is my first flight with my prototype!

Only in Rc mode/Stabilize!

Hello everyone,
a year and a half ago came Multipilot 1.0 an inertial platform for applications and semi-professional hobby. After the excellent results obtained from the marketing of these cards, and participation in development projects as open source and Aeroquad Arducopter and 'born www.virtualrobotix.com community.
Today our community is proud to present the evolution of our project: Multipilot 2.0 ST.

Stay tuned :

The characteristics of Multipilot 2.0 are:

• Hardware:
  • ARM7  Cortex-M3 processor STM32F103VET6. 72 Mhz
  • Flash 512 Kbytes RAM 64 Kbytes
  • 16-bit Timer 4
  • SPI 2 (ADC Interface, MicroSD connection)
  • I ² C 2 (First I2C (sensor), Second I2C control until ESC 12)
  • USART 5 (GPS, DEBUG Console, XBee Pro Telemetry)
  • USB 1 (Upload Firmware, Debug Console, Power Board for Debug)
  • CAN 1 (Interconnection with Professional ESC 1 Mbit update rate)
  • 6 PWM Output Bit 16 (ESC / Servo Control)
  • 8 PWM Input 16 Bit (RC Input Channel, accept PPM SUM)
  • 8 Analog Input 12 Bit.
  • Professional 4 layers PCB.
  • DC: DC 30 V (6s Lipo): 5 volts and 3.3 volts
• Sensor Board:
  • Diydrones OilPan . (High quality entry level board)
  • LN Professional Sensor Board: 3 Axis Accelerometer, 3 Axis Gyroscope, 3 Axis Magnetometer , 10 HZ Gps ,   High Quality Sensor for certify professional application.
• IDE and Development tools:
  • Arduino IDE.
  • Arm GCC Toolchain.
  • Fully compatible with arduino wiring language.
• Firmware:
  • On this platform will be available a lot of RC library developed by Virtualrobotix and Diydrones community.
  • Standard software will be an improved revision of Arducopter , Ardupilot , Multiwii , Aeroquad . The first revision of code will be Arducopter NG .
  • MultiFox Rev 4 special  Arm Edition.
• Special Feature :
  • Multipilot 2.0 is fully compatible with ArduPilotMega DiyDrones Board.
  • OEM revision of Multipilot 2.0 available.

A few weeks ago I was looking for a topic with pictures of the Project RQ-11 Raven in its entirety along with some close up shots of the fuselage but couldn't find one. To help you guys out, especially anyone here thinking of buying this model, I've decided to post some pictures of my almost finished Raven. 

A few comments about it:

+ there is barely enough wire provided so when you build, don't use more of it than you actually need (after using every single bit of it I ended up with only about 3 inches left over)

+ when you install the wires to the servos and the back, make them as tight as you can because if they're loose, you'll lose the ability to do some precise movements

+ the back pieces look like they might slide out, but they won't as long as you use a decent amount of epoxy on each side (not too much either because the wires will rub against it)

+ the two black screws holding the wing attached to the fuselage aren't enough, you might want to add a bit of epoxy under the wing (sure you lose the ability to detach the wing but there is no other way to reinforce the wing's attachment)

+ be careful when putting screws through the fuselage because it can crack if you put too much pressure when making the hole (I have a small 1 inch crack near the cover for the servos on the bottom)

+ this thing looks really nice and is quite strong, I think it can go through a rough landing without breaking or cracking

+ there is no paint job like others have commented, it's just a very light plastic film over the entire body and wings that is very delicate and is easy to peel off accidentally

+ there is a ton of room inside (measurements are 19 inches long, 5.5 inches wide, 3 inches height) and it is just empty space for the most part (I have a 4000mAh 3S battery, I think I can fit 4 of them inside easily along with all the other required parts)

Showing the entire plane (the bottle of water is there just for the size comparison):

Showing the propeller attached to the motor (it doesn't work as I'd like it to so I'll be changing it a bit):

Showing the amount of space in the front:

Showing the amount of space in the back:

Showing the servos installed:

I've now had a chance to see and test virtually all the EasyStar clones out there, so this post will compare them all and make recommendations. There are a few others out there by different names, but I think most are just rebadged versions of the ones below. Bottom line: I think the HobbyKing Bixler (see below) is the best option.

First, the baseline: The classic Multiplex EasyStar ($72 for basic airframe, no electronics)

Pro: Lots of cockpit room, tough, flies well.

Con: Only 3 channels, comes with terrible brushed motor that must be upgraded, rudder too small and must be enlarged. Quite expensive once you add all the stuff you need. See our post on upgrading it here.

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HobbyKing Bixler

It's available as a kit, a RTF with a 4 channel radio, and an ARF without radio. I recommend the ARF version, which is just $52. Add a 20a ESC, battery (plus battery and motor connectors), a charger, a 7ch RC radio and the APM 2 autopilot and you've got a UAV for under $500.

Some of the advantages of the Bixler, compared to the EasyStar and the other clones:

• Ailerons
• Big cockpit area, with tail servos on the outside
• Decent brushless motor
• Available in ARF form with servos installed but not a useless radio that you have to throw away
• Inexpensive

This is a comparison the Bixler cockpit (left) with the EasyStar (right). The Bixler has a bit more room.

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Dynam HawkSky ($99 with everything you need: servos, brushless motor, LiPo and charger). See our review here.

Pro: As much interior room as the EasyStar, has ailerons, comes ready to fly.

Con: Plastic motor pylon is noisy. Included FM RC system should be thrown away and replaced with proper 7+ channel digital radio.

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Xen Phoenix ($48 for airframe with brushless motor. Servos etc not included). See our review here.

Pro: Brushless motor and ailerons

Con: Fuselage is too narrow. Not enough room for autopilot electronics. Fragile. Weird four-bladed prop.

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Sky Surfer ($130 with everything you need: servos , brushless motor, LiPo and charger, 2.4 RC system)

Pro: Comes with digital RC system (only 4ch, however, so must be replaced for UAV use). Solid design w/ailerons

Con: Sadly, the design has changed and what appears in the product listing to be servos on the outside of the body, like the EasyStar and HawkSky, are now on the inside, taking up valuable interior room. Here's a picture of what the current cockpit is actually like:

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AXN Floater ($50 with servos and brushless motor). Formerly known as the Cloud Sky

Pro: Inexpensive, solid design w/ailerons

Con: servos on inside of cockpit like SkySurfer, robbing interior of valuable room for electronics. Narrow nose makes 2200 LiPo a tight fit.

Hi eveyone,

I received my first order from Batch PCB yesterday, it was my first foray into an actual drone. I designed the PCB myself, from scratch, so I was pretty proud when I plugged it in and it started working. It has been designed around the ArduIMU+ V2, the Locosys LS20031, an OpenLog, and of course, an Xbee.

The board is just a small step up from the Proto-Shield (SparkFun) version I built a while ago, except it has some capacitors, filtering the 5V power supply, and a voltage monitoring circuit.

I built it in the late hours of the night, and had it running my home-made auto-pilot code by 2am. Right now it has the same functionality as the proto-shield v1 I built before, except that the GPS is fully functional, and it is correcting the aileron and elevator values, with gains, to the required roll and pitch angles.

BTW if anyone has any constructive critisism, feel free!

I have already learned a few lessons from making this board, and V2 is already on the way.

Tell me what you think!

Many years ago, I tried building a model heli autopilot out of some old mouse position sensors, an 8031 micro, and my Hirobo shuttle.  The whole thing seemed to work on the bench, but quickly broke a few blades when I slammed the throttle on for an air test.  Such is life.

Now - its happening all over again, but this time, due to the excellent work done by the Ardupilot teams, I expect much better results.

So I got my APM for xmas, and its taken a month of playing to decide to put into a heli (as opposed to one of my planes).

So far, I have the following setup.

• APM with the shield.
• GPS (mediatek)
• EZ1 sonar sensor for low altitude above gnd. - Landing / takeoff assistance.
• Airspeed sensor with pitot tube (designed for plane but I think I'll put it on the heli too)
• Magnetometer
• Custom rotor RPM sensor

Airframe is Gohbee Stinger 50 (AKA JS models TZ50) - Raptor copy.

Radio is Spektrum DX7. RX is AR7000 with header board removed.

The plan is to build an autopilot system based on Arducopter, that lets you fly the @&#^$ out your heli, and not crash - regardless of your level of experience. (mine is pretty average, but I'm determined to get better).  This will be the tool for the job I hope.

When I get the hang of this blog thing, I'll post some pickys.

I finally got my mods to a point where I'm comfortable with others testing. I've only been using it with XPlane seen as it is so dang cold and snowy outside. You need to define OSD_PORT and OSD_MODE_CHANNEL. OSD_MODE_CHANNEL will allow you to assign a toggle switch to turn on and off the OSD overlay while in the air.

Some of the features included:

• Auto-home saving from init_home()
• Distance and direction to home
• Artificial horizon
• GPS LAT & LONG
• Control mode and next waypoint + distance (working on relaying takeoff, land, etc messages)
• Overlay on/off via Tx switch

Here are the Remzibi Mods:
+----------------+
|  APM_Config.h  |
+----------------+
#define OSD_PROTOCOL        OSD_PROTOCOL_REMZIBI
#define OSD_PORT            3
#define OSD_MODE_CHANNEL    7

+---------------------+
|  ArduPilotMega.pde  |
+---------------------+
Medium loop, case 3:
#if OSD_PROTOCOL != OSD_PROTOCOL_NONE
        print_osd_ahrs();
#endif

Slow loop, case 1:
// Output OSD Data slow loop
#if OSD_PROTOCOL != OSD_PROTOCOL_NONE
        print_osd_data();                       
#endif

// Read OSD Mode Switch
#if OSD_PROTOCOL == OSD_PROTOCOL_REMZIBI
        read_osd_switch();
#endif

+---------------+
|   defines.h   |
+---------------+
After GPS type defines:
// OSD type codes
#define OSD_PROTOCOL_NONE       -1
#define OSD_PROTOCOL_REMZIBI     0

+----------------+
|  commands.pde  |
+----------------+
After line 251, bottom of init_home():
// Save Home to OSD
// ----------------
#if OSD_PROTOCOL == OSD_PROTOCOL_REMZIBI       
        osd_init_home();
#endif

And finally add the following file into your APM folder:

OSD_Remzibi.pde <-Version 1

OSD_Remzibi.pde <-Version 2

And for my Remzibi layout:

APM.bin

Some nice custom foam design on the plane and camera pod here. Looking like they're going to be selling them. 

This is my school project as a Senior in high school, I am  designing, building, and flying my own UAV.

I will record short videos to document my project, the following videos:

sUAS News started as a way to get what I was doing and a couple of friends out into the world. I am sick of the endless military press releases that I keep posting. Sort of interesting but to a point.

Does the very lack of stories of civil sUAS doing useful things mean there are very few actually doing that?

If you are making waves doing something then drop me a line gary@suasnews.com

At very least your story will appear in the news feed on the right of this very site

Lets hear whats actually happening, GCS, airframes or photo jobs, I don't mind what it is.

Clearly those of you in the USA are on a sticky wicket advertising your commercial activites, not that any of you would be doing anything like that anyway ;-)

G

Follow sUAS News on

LinkedIn

Twitter

Facebook

I've got two way telemetry working on my Ardustation, talking to the ArduPilot Mega (APM) using the standard BinComm protocol (GCS_PROTOCOL_STANDARD). So far I can edit PID values and check essential mission following data, along with the standard summary of attitude, location and heartbeat data.

This should make life a lot easier, being able to tweak the plane whilst airborne and seeing what it's up to - without being required to sit down with the laptop.

To achieve this, I've modified the code in the ArdustationM branch that Michael Smith created. Michael has written an excellent bit of code here and already had the one way telemetry showing the main status page. I've also updated it to use the APM_BinComm library, keeping it in line with the latest APM code. 

The APM code was also modified; I merged the 1.0 Beta with the relevant bits from the BinComm branch and coded up broadcasting of values and setting of PID values.

I hope to add more functionality in the future, but will wait until I have used it in the field before deciding on what features will take priority!

--- Update ---

Here's the code

ArduStationM.zip

Most of my additions won't work on the stock APM beta code as it doesn't receive data. Here are my additions to the APM BinComm code

GCS.h GCS_Standard.pde

Or download the whole of my directory, less your config file

ArduPilotMega.zip

--- Update 2 ---

I've now used the Ardustation in the field and it's everything I could have wanted. Had my plane flying a mission on repeat, the transmitter on my neck strap and the Ardustation to tune the PID values. No more landing to plug into the laptop. It's also great not guessing what waypoint its headed for and remembering what it's going to do next, just glance at the display!

Here's a picture of my enclosure. Not my neatest drilling, but works nicely :-)

I have clinical multi-projectitis.

It's incurable.

After seeing the GRASP lab video sof quads literally jumping through hoops, I HAD to make one of my own.

The beginnings: 

Although everyone else seems to be going open-rotor, I want zero collateral damage to people, pets, and the living 

room walls, so I decided on a ducted-fan design.

4 EDF combos from Hobby King

https://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/store/uh_viewItem.asp?idProduct=11166

Combined thrust of 4400g.

Combined mass of 424g.

The 5Ah 4S 40C LiPo from my currently grounded Swift Heli:

https://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/store/uh_viewItem.asp?idProduct=10307

Mass: 578g.

For testing, the initial fuselage is a chunk of extruded poly insulation.

5 Deans connectors and a new soldering iron later (the old 30Watt one couldn't make a decent joint for the wiring harness), this is the result:

I christen her "The Ugly Pink Quad."

At present, she's brainless.   I just did a test with a little solderless breadboard sending the throttle signal to all EDFs simultaneously and, not surprisingly, things were learned:

1) With 4400grams of max thrust pushing 1220grams of pinkness, it only took about 1/3rd throttle position to hand-hover.

2) It wants to rotate.

Next issues: Basic landing gear (The motors are outrunners), basic brains, and an IMU