Blogs

In the new Arduino boards, the traditional FTDI USB-to-serial chip has been replaced with an Atmel ATmega8U2 chip, which has built-in USB. We'd like to do the same on the next APM board, and use this chip to do double-duty: replace the FTDI chip that's now on the IMU shield, and replace the PPM encoder chip (now an Atmega328) that's on the APM board.  This will make smaller, simpler, cheaper APM boards for all going forward. And bye-bye FTDI drivers!

There should be enough memory in the Atmega8U2 for both the OptiBoot bootloader and the PPM encoder code. But we need some help in combining them in a way that each won't interfere with the other.  We've got a lot of great programmers here at DIY Drones. Who's up for the challenge? (Free boards for any volunteers)

Here are some starting links. 

• A tutorial on reprogramming the Atmega8u2 (you need to log into the Arduino forums to see it)
• The APM PPM encoder source code
• Details on how this chip works with Arduino: The ATmega8U2 firmware source code is available in the Arduino repository. The ATmega8U2 is loaded with a DFU bootloader, which can be activated by connecting the solder jumper on the back of the board (near the map of Italy) and then resetting the 8U2. You can then use Atmel's FLIP software (Windows) or the DFU programmer (Mac OS X and Linux) to load a new firmware. Or you can use the ISP header with an external programmer (overwriting the DFU bootloader). See this user-contributed tutorial for more information.
• The Atmega8U2 datasheet. We can move to the 16k or 32k versions if necessary

• Single 3.3V regulator
• Relay switch for cameras, lights or payloads
• LSM303DLH 3-axis Accel / 3-axis Magnetometer (~5 dollars) (I2C communication)
• LYPR540AH 3-axis gyro (~5 dollars) (analog)
• 3-channel, 12-bit ADC for gyro
• No Data logger
• No DIP switch
• Built-in FTDI, making the board native USB. [can this be removed?]
• No OSD port.
• No extra I2C port
• No user-programmable buttons
• No analog expansion ports
• Reset button.
• No voltage dividers
• One status LED
• Airspeed sensor port (optional, sold separately).
• Pressure sensor and temp for accurate altitude (can this be made optional?).

I'm going to start working on the EAGLE files this weekend, what is everybody's thoughts on this?

It's generally considered a bad idea to pre-announce products, but hey, we're an open source community. It's not pre-announcement--it's transparency!

We're working on about a dozen new products at the DIY Drones factory. Some of them are with partners, so I'm not free to discuss them until the partners give us the green light. But others I can tell you a little bit about now, so you'll have a roadmap to help you make your own technology and deployment plans. 

First, one note about backwards compatibility: we're committed to it. This is a fast-moving field, and we're going to release products based on the latest sensors and chips as fast as we can, because this community expects that. Think of autopilots like cellphones: you're probably going to want to upgrade about once a year. But we also work hard to ensure that the hardware you buy today will continue to be supported for at least two years.

Also, new products will be released in beta, as always. Unless you're really keen to help us catch bugs and fix problems, you're not going to want to buy any of these products until they hit the 1.0 software release, which can be as much as six months after hardware release. If all you want is a great-flying UAV, you can't beat the current APM. Most of the following products probably won't hit that level of maturity until late 2011.

Here are some of the highlights:

MultiPilot 2 ST (32-bit ArduPilot!)

This is a 32-bit Cortex M3 (ARM 7) autopilot board (board layout shown above) that's compatible with ArduPilotMega, ArduCopter and the Arduino programming system. Developed by Roberto Navoni of VirtualRobotix and the Foxteam in Italy, working with DIY Drones and the Arduino team, this board uses the APM IMU shield and will run the ArduPilot family of code, just like APM.

You can read more about it here, but the basics are that this board will offer high-end processing power for pro-level autopilot needs in planes, multicopters and helicopters. It can run a Real-Time Operating System and will be ROS-compatible.

Current specs are as follows, although these will be upgraded to the latest chips available at the time of release

• 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

First prototype boards are incoming and you should not expect commercial versions to be available with release code until the second half of the year. Pricing is yet to be determined. Projected Release: Q3

ArduPilotMega 2560

Starting in about two weeks, all APM boards will ship with the Atmega2560 chip, which has twice the memory of the Atmega1280 chip that APM currently uses. There are some other minor changes to the board that have already been released in the 1.4 version that is currently shipping. The current code doesn't need all this memory, so the new boards will operate exactly like the current ones and there is no need to upgrade. But this does give us room for more ambitious enhancement to the code in the future. Projected Release: end Jan

New All-In-One ArduPilot boards

Not everyone wants a flexible development board like APM. Some people want smaller, simpler, cheaper autopilots. That's why we'll be releasing all-in-one versions of APM this year using the new Invensense MPU-6000 6-axis chip (we may be the first autopilot on the market to have them). As promised, we will also update the current APM IMU shield with new sensors when we get them (this is why we made APM modular--so you can upgrade components as technology evolves). Projected Release: Q2

Universal Ground Station

As Jordi hinted in this post, we're developing a universal ground station: a wireless hardware device that can render an in-browser Ground Control Station on any smartphone, tablet or PC.  This "magic box" will be a wireless router between your aircraft and the display device of your choice, as well as driving a tracking antenna and providing datalogging. It's the ultimate cross-platform GCS! Just imagine controlling your UAV via an iPad or even an Andoid phone. This device will make it easy--no software required.  Projected Release: Q2

More Pre-Made autopilots and UAVs

At the DIY Drones store, we only sell components and kits. But our partners around the world are gearing up to sell pre-made autopilots and even ready-to-fly UAVs. You can already buy an ArduCopter with pre-soldered APM electronics from FahPah, but you'll see more in that vein from FahPah and others early this year. The marketplace has spoken clearly on this--not everyone wants to have to use a soldering iron or load code to use a UAV--and DIY Drones partners are responding. Projected Release: Q1

On the code side, expect the versions we release this year to increasingly do auto-detection of hardware and otherwise require less setup. Our ambition for 2011: make UAVs as close to plug-and-play as possible. You can hack APM all you want, but if you don't want to see a line of code you don't have to.

Other cool stuff

The above is just a taste of what we've got in the pipeline. Other products that are in the prototyping stage including open source On-Screen-Display boards (including integrated with APM), open source ESC, smartphone interfaces, new GPS modules, ground rover autopilots and more!

Hi,

I'm on the edge of completing my Arducopter. Having a little problem with the RX.

Does it need a power connection or not. Didn't find any manuals in the Futuba-box.

I'm building the pre-soldered and tested kit and it includes ESC's with BEC.

Do i use the right pins to connect to the apm? (most left ones on RX block)

Ans yes i am a complete noob on building my own RC stuff.

Oh and another question: can i use any USB cable to connect to my pc or do i have to use a special one?

For all you wannabee-arducopter-noobs:

The arducopter  pre-soldered, tested kit is pretty easy to build if you have any experience with LEGO and/or Ikea.

I'll get back to you on the flying as soon as mine is ready to fly...;-)

Hello to All,

I have done successfully the first test flight of the Quad Rotor Observer (QRO) v4 with a new costless flight controller board V7 which uses a Atmega 168 and 3 piezo gyroscopes (NEC CG-L43). This is a personnal variant of on the KKmulticopter board widely spread on the web. I am really surprised by the stability and the flight enveloppe of this quadcopter Vs the simplicity of the firmware code (Occam's razor principle...) and the low cost of the electronic material used here in this design...

Tested setup:
- personnal flight controller v7 with Atmega168 and 3 piezo gyro CG-L43 based on the KKmulticopter board
- firmware Quadcontroller v4.5 by Rolf R Bakke
- 4 brushless motors DualSky XM2822CA 1450KV 7A
- Lipo battery 3S (11.1V) 1500 mAh
- receiver Corona CR6D 2.4 Ghz

More technical infos at: http://diydrones.com/profile/JeanLouisNaudin

A peek into the future, Santa's UVA.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xh0QPFFAhVU&feature=player_embedded#!

Merry Christmas

And may you walk away from all unexpected landinge  in 2011

Chrrs,

Ockham's Barber

I've posted a new version of APM that should address all outstanding issues with the current 1.0 code. The MediaTek library now automatically resends the initialization string until the module responds properly (no board reset required). And an issue with altitude hold failing before Waypoint 1 has also been fixed (thanks to Doug Weibel).

The last time I posted an update, I'd accidentally bypassed our SVN version control system and included some beta code. This time, thanks to some patient tutoring by Michael Smith, I think it should be clean. It's been pretty thoroughly tested, both in the air and in Xplane, so it should work perfectly. But if it doesn't, you know how to let me know ;-)

Now there's no excuse for not whipping out your Xplane simulation and giving the latest T3 contest a shot!

The official timeline has been officially extended.

NPRM publication is now due on July 21, 2011

The FAA has been granted extension for rulemaking process.

Federal documentation here.

"Popular Title: Small Unmanned Aircraft

RIN 2120-AJ60

Stage:

Previous Stage:

Abstract:

limited portions of the national airspace system (NAS). This action is necessary because it

addresses the novel legal or policy issues about the minimum safety parameters for operating

recreational remote control model and toy aircraft in the NAS. The intended effect of this

action is to develop requirements and standards to ensure that risks are adequately mitigated,

such that safety is maintained for the entire aviation community.......

To OMB 02/03/2011 04/05/2011

OMB Clearance 03/07/2011 07/05/2011

Publication Date 03/10/2011 07/21/2011

End of Comment Period 07/14/2011 08/22/2011

Explanation for any delay:

Federal Register

Wireless mobile robot design integrates motor controller and Intel Atom motherboard.

From Design News: Roboteq Inc., a developer of motor controllers for the mobile robotics industry, announced the publication of a WiFi robot design platform featuring the Roboteq AX3500 dc motor controller and an Intel Atom processor-based Mini-ITX motherboard. 

The robot is a battery-operated, 4 wheel-drive unit built on a 1.5 x 2 feet (46 x 61 cm) aluminum frame with WiFi connectivity and a video camera. The robot can feed live video and can be remotely operated via the Internet. The robot is a technology platform that users interested in robotics can easily replicate to add functionality and intelligence. 

Use of the Intel Atom motherboard in the design allows robotics software written for the PC to run on the robot. Microsoft, for example, has released free development tools that can be downloaded to develop this type of robotics application. The Microsoft Robotics Developer Studio 2008 R3 (Microsoft RDS) is a Windows-based environment for academic, hobbyist and commercial developers to easily create robotics applications across a wide variety of hardware. RDS 2008 R3 can be downloaded at no charge at www.microsoft.com/robotics. 

Detailed assembly instructions for the robot, plus mechanical CAD drawings, wiring diagrams and software can be downloaded free of charge from Roboteq's web site. No license or royalties are needed for their use, and a 3D animation illustrates the step-by-step construction of the chassis. 

Step-by-step instructions show how to use a Roboteq motor controller and an Intel Atom low power motherboard to build a wireless LAN remotely operated mobile robot. Source: Roboteq Inc. Click here for larger image.

The AX3500 motor controller uses two channel outputs to control the motors that power and steer the robot by varying the speed and direction of the motors at each side of the chassis. The controller also has outputs for up to eight RC servos, allowing the control of simple robotic arms and other accessories. The motor controller connects to the Intel Atom motherboard via its RS232 port.

The Intel D510M motherboard was selected because of its 100 percent passive cooling, low power consumption, balanced features set, excellent performance and low cost. Measuring 17 x 17cm, the Mini-ITX form factor is ideally suited to mobile robotic designs. The motherboard runs Windows 7 booting from a SATA hard drive or solid state drive but alternate operating systems such as Linux can also be used. The PC-compatible platform enables significant computational functionality and flexible software development options.

The motherboard consumes only 800mA from the robot's 24V batteries, ensuring several hours of continuous operation depending on motor usage. A power converter ensures proper operation whether the batteries are fully charged or partially depleted.

Another important element of the design is the power supply. An adapter plugs into the ATX power slot in the motherboard, so users can feed from 6-30V dc to regulate a clean supply for the motherboard, disk drive and the RC output for driving the servos. The motherboard, adapter and controller combination provide an integrated solution from an electronics point of view.

Because the design platform has offers ample compute power, the ability to control eight motors, plus integrate vision, it provides a portable and flexible system that can be adapted for a wide range of applications.

5 months before Chris Anderson's LEGO autopilot, Attopilot and Flexipilot prototypes.

Not to mention about Picopilot and RCAP which are much older. Amateur autopilots are old stuff.

Happy new year folks!

DIYdrones hardware development team needs some help, if you think you can contribute in something please PM, our requirements are:

-Any microcontroller capable to handle a little web server can be used.

-The hardware must have WiFi access (behave as an access point).

-The hardware must have SD card slot (where you can store html files).

-Must be cheap (< $100).

The system must be capable to read a HTML file stored on the SD card (including pictures) and create a web server accessible via WiFi (acting as an access point). When the user is connected to the Wifi device-must type any direction like "http://192.168.1.100" and be able to load the HTML files stored on the SD. Something similar to a home router.

The HTML files must be able to read/write to the IO, analog and UART pins of the same microcontroller....

What we need from you are suggestions of the right hardware, software contributions and connections to anybody capable to help us.

Anyone? ;-)

2010 was quite a year at DIY Drones. The community doubled in size and traffic, ArduPilotMega and ArduCopter were announced and shipped, and factories were started in San Diego, Bangkok and Tijuana.  Amateur UAVs took off!

Next year is going to be even bigger, with dozens of new products, easier to use versions of current products and cool new platforms I can't tell you about yet ;-) Stay tuned for announcements over the next month, but in the meantime, here are some of the highlights of 2010:

January:

First Ardu quad (Jose Julio's ArduIMU-powered beauty)

Parrot AR.Drone announced.

DIY Drones hit 7,000 members

ArduPilotMega announced

February:

White House talks about DIY Drones

ArduPilot 2.5 (first one with super-accurate navigation) released

March:

ArduPilotMega comes off the production line

APM IMU shield enters testing

April:

APM released

Sparkfun Autonomous Vehicle Competition: Doug Weibel's ArduPilot comes in second (Team Robota, shown above won)

An iPhone controller for RC aircraft

DIY Drones goes to the FIRST Robotics Competition

May:

Paparazzi co-founder Pascal Brisset dies

DIY Drones goes to Maker Faire

June:

ArduCopter announced

UAV DevBoard Matrixpilot is flying

AttoPilot 2.0 announced

July:

ArduPilot Hardware-in-the-loop simulation released

First APM code released

August:

ArduPilot 2.7 released

APM Mission Planner released

MatrixPilot 2.5 released

First ArduCopters ship

September:

DIY Drones factory gets new pick-and-place machine

Aggressive quadrotor!

Willow Garage's ROS now running on quads

October:

HappyKillmore GCS released

APM Beta code released

ArduCopter Alpha code released

November:

DIY Drones in front page Wall Street Journal article

PixHawk Qgroundcontrol GCS now supports APM

December:

ArduPilotMega 1.0 code released

ArduCopter RC2 released, team announces plans to move to APM-based code

ArduPirates take over ArduCopter NG development

Hacked Kinect flies a quad

From 0.7.7 to 0.8.0 QGroundControl got many new features and bugfixes, it's impossible to fit all of them into one post. We will therefore run a small blog post series over the next few days to cover them. An experimental release is already available for Windows and Mac OS, so you can try it out on your machine if you like. The application might have still some minor rough spots, the current release is mostly targeted at the different autopilot developers to allow them to give feedback for the "official" release.

Major Improvements and new Features

• New, flexible widget system, every user can have his personal arrangement of the interface (contributed by SLUGS project, Mariano Lizzaraga, JFR Camacho)
• ArduPilotMega MAVLink branch support and actions in waypoints (James Goppert)
• Google Earth support
• QGroundControl now stores many of your preferences automatically, including window size and position, selected widgets, serial port baud rate, etc.
• Support for small screens
• Data logging and plotting (after flight, time line or e.g. lat vs lon)
• MAVLink protocol version detection, user gets warned if MAV and QGroundControl protocol versions mismatch
• Many, many bugfixes

Windows Google Earth View

The screenshot below shows QGC running on Windows 7, with a custom widget arrangement showing the SF area with Google's new 3D trees.

Linux 3D View

The non-maps 3D view is very handy for robotics applications where the focus is on the trajectory of the vehicle and additional 3D information, like e.g. the occupancy grid, should be displayed. The tool widgets surrounding the view can be freely enabled / disabled and will be loaded on the next startup again.

Live Plotting / Engineer View

The live linechart is very handy for reading out sensor or filter values. The parameter tree widget on the right allows to adjust controller or filter values (e.g. PID gains) in realtime and watch the result on the left. Of course other widgets could be activated as well, but this screenshot is a nice example of a really reduced interface.

Data Analysis View

It is often annoying to import logged data into an external plotting tool for just having a quick look at the data. QGC therefore now switches after finishing a logging session in the line chart (live) view to the data analysis view, where you can plot the data in other formats, plot X vs Y instead of X vs time, etc.

Experimental preview executables: They are stable and can be used to test the new features, but are not intended for flight use! We will test the current release thoroughly over the next days and then release the stable version once it is rock-solid. Please note that runtime performance and stability will improve until the final release.

Please use the Github issue tracker to report back bugs or odd behaviour!

• QGroundControl Windows Installer
• QGroundControl Mac OS Leopard DMG file
• QGroundControl Windows Binaries (ZIP file)

Please feel free to add any feedback or feature requests to the bottom of this post.

Hello people, this is my new airframe to play with my ardupilot equipment!!!!!

It is a modified gentle lady from Carl Goldberg................

1.6 mts wingspan (shortened)

1.35 Kg.

3 channels.

Equipment:

• Ardupilot.
• Arduimu.
• Ublox Gps
• Board Camera, Sony capture chip, 3.6mm lens.
• 4.000 mA Lipo for the Motor (25 min autonomy)
• Tower pro Motor 8x6 prop
• 1800 mA Lipo for the ardupilot, receiver and servos....
• Hextronic UBEC. 1.5 Amp.
• 25 Amp Tower pro ESC.
• JR servos.
• Assan 6 channel 2.4 Ghz receiver.

Installation detailed in this picture:

This Airframe works awesome, it has lots of room for equipment and also flies really good.........

This weekend, on 2011 i will be testing the Ardupilot in the field....... will try to make a good video to show it here.....

Hope you like it....

Happy holidays!!!!!!

Hello everyone!  This is my first post to the site though I've been following for over a year.  I'm finally to the point where I would like to begin purchasing equipment for my first Easy Star Drone.  

Background: I have successfully built and flew my Blimpduido kit.  I've also been flying around for a a couple months the Hobby Zone Champ (RTF).  This has been the extent of my RC/Drone background though I have been playing around with Arduino on other projects for over a year.

I would like to purchase the Easy Star Kit and buy all the components separately due to my lack of knowledge in RC plane hardware.  This is where I would like to get suggestions for mid-range servos, controlers, recievers/transmitters, batteries, motors, etc... I'm not familiar enough with rc brands or quality.

I'm pretty sure I'm going to stick with the Easy Star due to the overwhelming positive reviews I've been seeing over the past couple months, however, any and all suggestions for the actual plane kit are welcome.  I'm mostly interested in areal photography and possibly video.  

As this is going to be my first UAV/Drone other than my Blimpduino I will happily take suggestions for the best way to approach the build, rc hardware, photo/video hardware, etc... I plan on purchasing the plane first and getting familiar with it then after about two weeks (aka payday) I'm planning on purchasing the "drone" hardware.

Thanks for your suggestions and I look forward to hearing from you.  Thanks!

Stan

A free tutorial on creating Digital Elevation Models (DEMs) from Photosynth point clouds is now available online.  The tutorial focus on using mostly free and Open Source software to create detailed georeferenced 3D models from low altitude aerial photographs that have been processed in Structure from Motion (SfM) software like that found in Photosynth and Bundler.  Each step of the process is documented in text and illustrations. All of the datasets used and created during for the tutorual are provided for reference.

The tutorial is available here:  palentier.blogspot.com

This program downloads precompiled firmware for the arducopter and automatically uploads it to APM. No need to install arduino, libraries etc.

Hopefully this program will make it easier for those of you who fly the arducopter, but don’t have an interest in programming. Using this program you don’t have to install arduino and build the code yourself.

Right now I only uploaded one version (version RC02) of the code. This is the one I'm flying. Nothing extra (gps, mag +++). If people like it I will upload more. And the user can chose witch one to download right in the software.

Remember this is the alpha version, so there might be some bugs. Please give me feedback (bugs or suggestions)

You can downloade it at http://geir111.blogspot.com