Video showing a Multiplex Twinstar II running the Paparazzi adaptive control loops. It drops 30% of the right wing with 50% of the aileron, turns off the right motor and keeps flying autonomously.
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Video showing a Multiplex Twinstar II running the Paparazzi adaptive control loops. It drops 30% of the right wing with 50% of the aileron, turns off the right motor and keeps flying autonomously.
This isn't about UAVs per se, but for students of control theory, the physics of a double pendulum (hinged in the middle) is an example of chaotic motion and notorious hard to model. Well, this guy did it. Keep watching...this is mindblowing.
(via BotJunkie)
Now you can know more about the project, follow the progress and test it yourself.
Take a look at the wiki on the ArduCam OSD Project.
Just a little teaser for you to think:
How about USB host and OSD on a single tiny board? Not bad, eh!?
Well... stay tuned.
China’s WJ600 Jet-Powered UAV
From my email, a promo for a new market research report. No doubt very expensive, but it's interesting (and appropriate) that China's UAV industry is finally being taken seriously. Those who think that the Chinese UAV companies are just cloning Western designs are badly out of date.
From the email:
"As predicted in the two most recent Market Intel Group (MiG) technology and market forecasts on Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), China is pushing aerial drone research and development aggressively. That is also the conclusion of a recent Wall Street Journal article on a major Chinese air show
Market Intel Group’s research reports, titled: “Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) for Counter-Insurgency – Market & Technologies Outlook - 2010-2015” and “Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) for Border Security – Market & Technologies Outlook - 2010-2015.” identify regions, applications, strategies and types of platforms that will lead the rapidly emerging Counter-Insurgency and Border Security UAV markets worldwide. As part of our analysis, we identify China as one of the more aggressive and unpredictable entrants into the heated UAV market.
The WJ600 pictured here is offered as an example of recent Chinese development that is designed to position this country’s UAVs at the forefront of this competitive market. Jeremy Page, in his WSJ article, writes: "China is ramping up production of unmanned aerial vehicles in an apparent bid to catch up with the U.S. and Israel in developing technology that is considered the future of military aviation.” MiG assumes that China would sell UAVs to nations boycotted by the US and Israel. Such an assumption was also confirmed in a round-about way in this article. Page quoted a Chinese official who told him: "I can't tell you which models we have sold overseas, as that's secret, but of course we're interested in exporting them." Since UAV deployment information is mostly public domain, as well as a major marketing tool for competing vendors, keeping information about deals under wrap points to the possibility that such deals were made with countries that current major UAV vendors are reluctant to do business with.
MiG’s new UAV reports analyze, among others, Concepts of Operation, platforms, payloads, evolving markets and applications, allocations, procurement patterns and resultant changes in the rapidly evolving UAV industry worldwide."
Hi Everybody! It's me again. I am glad you enjoyed the Flying Ghost I made for Halloween. We decided to do another video for Thanksgiving. This is our remote control, flying, quadcopter turkey. It flies, it drops pies. Pretty much all you could ask for. (I tried to up the production values on this one as well.)
I really hope you guys find it entertaining! Thanks!
Check out my blog for more details: http://www.utahaerials.com/2010/11/thanksgiving-turkey-pie-drop.html
Made in strong EPP foam.
Not a RTF kit but a well cut kit made for the long dark nights...
Reviews from RCgroups say it's very stable and great flying platform. (better than Skywalker).
Price is around 100~120 USD + shipping. (ok price)
Specs:
- wing span: 1800mm (may be extended up to 2200mm)
- lenght: 1154mm
- weight: 1200g (empty)
- cargo space: 80x80x400mm
- wing area: 43,2 dm2 / 52,8 dm2
More pictures of the URSUS platform
Link: http://www.napolskimniebie.pl/
Ursus building Manual.pdf
What can I say!
Just found my new love. Yes I know! I'm a easylover.. :-)
(nothing like a nice beautyfull Polish women with long legs)
BTW: Damn it's cold here in Denmark.
Some of the APM dev team were enjoying the spectacular Northern California weather today, testing various APM navigation functions. But it was also our first chance to test the awesome HappyKillmore GCS in the field. It worked great! The "chase cam" view on the moving map is particularly cool. Sorry about this terrible video, but shiny laptop screens and the bight California sun don't mix.
Uhm yeah hi, I'm ZQ, long time lurker, first time poster..."
Well, this is what happens when a recently graduated grad student gets bored, likes aviation and is trying to learn a new language/framework. So, here's some looks at a GCS for APM written in... *shudder* Adobe Flex 4. Before I get slammed, the only reason I'm writing it in Flex 4 is because I'm planning on using it for some other projects and need to get used to it, plus with Adobe AIR, it can run on desktops. (That and I have a slight aversion to C++).
The instruments are configurable (e.g. you can change the speed ranges on the ASI, etc), and it uses google maps for the waypoint system. It'll support (eventually, once I finish writing it) all the commands present in the APM command list. Communication can be done over serial, with the use of serproxy (as Flex/AIR doesn't have access to a serial port directly). I'm also planning to add a vertical profile plotting capability to the GCS, but that will come a little bit later.
Additionally, I whipped up a GPS/IMU simulator in Flex as well, to test out the packet communication and position plotting on the GCS. The simulator allows you to plot waypoints, and select an update rate, and it will broadcast position, speed, altitude and IMU information in APM binary format over a network connection. You can also connect multiple clients to the GPS Simulator and they'll all get the same information.
So without further ado, here are some screen shots, and I'll update more shortly (and put up .air packages if there is interest).
Start up the waypoint simulator and click to add waypoints. The delete and add before/after functionality doesnt work yet (oops). You can click on a waypoint on the map or in the list to select it and change the altitude. Waypoints are draggable on the map.
When you are ready for clients to connect, enter the port number you want in the textbox and click "Start Listening"
Start up the GCS and set up the correct port number in the box. Then click connect. You should see "Connected!", otherwise check your port settings. Then click "Start Simulation" in the GPS Simulator and watch the fun happen.
Note: The menus don't work, and things might be prone to breaking (cos.. you know, grad students are horrible coders). If you find any bugs or crashes, let me know and I'll add them to my (ever-growing) TODO list.
Well, this is what happens when a recently graduated grad student gets bored, likes aviation and is trying to learn a new language/framework. So, here's some looks at a GCS for APM written in... *shudder* Adobe Flex 4. Before I get slammed, the only reason I'm writing it in Flex 4 is because I'm planning on using it for some other projects and need to get used to it, plus with Adobe AIR, it can run on desktops. (That and I have a slight aversion to C++).
The instruments are configurable (e.g. you can change the speed ranges on the ASI, etc), and it uses google maps for the waypoint system. It'll support (eventually, once I finish writing it) all the commands present in the APM command list. Communication can be done over serial, with the use of serproxy (as Flex/AIR doesn't have access to a serial port directly). I'm also planning to add a vertical profile plotting capability to the GCS, but that will come a little bit later.
Additionally, I whipped up a GPS/IMU simulator in Flex as well, to test out the packet communication and position plotting on the GCS. The simulator allows you to plot waypoints, and select an update rate, and it will broadcast position, speed, altitude and IMU information in APM binary format over a network connection. You can also connect multiple clients to the GPS Simulator and they'll all get the same information.
So without further ado, here are some screen shots, and I'll update more shortly (and put up .air packages if there is interest).
GCS Screen (Still a bit empty right now)
GPS Simulator
What happens when you want to see interesting patterns
Installation Instructions:
Download the .air files from:
http://zhiquanyeo.com/apm-gcs/APM_GCS_GPS_Emulator.air
http://zhiquanyeo.com/apm-gcs/APM_GCS_ControlStation.air
You will need the AIR 2 runtime available from http://get.adobe.com/air/
Start up the waypoint simulator and click to add waypoints. The delete and add before/after functionality doesnt work yet (oops). You can click on a waypoint on the map or in the list to select it and change the altitude. Waypoints are draggable on the map.
When you are ready for clients to connect, enter the port number you want in the textbox and click "Start Listening"
Start up the GCS and set up the correct port number in the box. Then click connect. You should see "Connected!", otherwise check your port settings. Then click "Start Simulation" in the GPS Simulator and watch the fun happen.
Note: The menus don't work, and things might be prone to breaking (cos.. you know, grad students are horrible coders). If you find any bugs or crashes, let me know and I'll add them to my (ever-growing) TODO list.
Festo is a German robotics company promoting a number of weird and wonderful robots inspired by nature. My personal favorite is this particularly unsettling elephant trunk - brings to mind sentinels from The Matrix et al.
From Singularity Hub: "Robots are ripping off nature! …Good idea. Festo, a multinational robotics firm based in Germany, has made some of the most amazing looking and fun biologically inspired robots out there. We’ve shown you their Air-Penguins and their Elephant-Arms but there are so many other Festo creations yet to be seen. Luckily, the robotics company seems to be going through their back catalog, and they just released videos of their research efforts from 2006 to 2008. These bots may be a few years old but they are absolutely cool to watch. Check out the Air-ray, the Bionic Air-fish, the Aqua-jelly and more in the videos below. Why do I get the feeling that Festo is building the robotic equivalent of Noah’s Ark?
Nature is one of the best engineers around, so it’s no surprise that some of the smartest robot experts are looking to biology to inspire their innovations. Festo is one of the world leaders in automation, with millions of parts installed in factories all over the globe. Their animal inspired robots are created by the efforts of their Bionic Learning Network. This collection of research groups from academia and industry is part advanced research initiative, part education organization. While many of their bionic bots have practical applications, they definitely seem willing to explore far off the beaten path even if there’s not much monetary incentive. That’s totally fine by me. I love the grace with which their robots fly through the air and water, and I can’t wait to see what they copy from nature next. Hopefully they’ll stay away from the predators of the world. Sharks are bad enough, but robot sharks? That would just be asking for a robot-apocalypse.
The first video is a little long, so here’s a guide:
1:30 Air-ray
2:20 Bionic Air-fish
3:05 Humanoid
4:56 Air-acuda
5:48 Aqua-ray
The next video recaps some things from the first. Go ahead and skip to 1:14 to check out the Aqua-jelly.
Here’s more of the Humanoid, so you can see how all of its pneumatic muscles move and work.
The venerable STM32 line of processors, featuring the ARM CORTEX-M3 core, have now been extended to include up to 512KB of flash memory on-board! That's a huge bonus for those Nav/AutoPilot projects that want to feature a lot of code!
Let's see who's the first DIY Droner to fill all that flash with new firmware features!
Came across this in the Science Museum London as a development by Manchester University. It looked like the motors are fixed at this angle - Why? Anyone suggest any benefits for this arrangement - faster yaw control? greater stability? more controllable?
Peter
The SCORPID-500 is now fully stabilised and controlled by a 9 DOF IMU (ArduIMU+ v2, HMC5843, GPS with firmware TriStab v3.3 JLN). The SCORPID-500 VTOL UAV uses an innovative design based on Gary Gress concept from Gress Aero. The Oblique Active Tilting (OAT) at 45° of the twin engines allows a full pitch control by using the induced gyroscopic moment. Today, the SCORPID-500 UAV prototype has done its first successful flights full IMU stabilised. Its flight is very stable. The earlier prototype has used 4 gyroscopes on board and some addtionnal mixers.
Stay tuned on: http://diydrones.com/profile/JeanLouisNaudinAn update from the ROS team at Willow Garage: "We thought we'd make a quick video to show some of what's going on at Willow Garage with the Kinect. We've added features like multi-camera support and control of the Kinect motors to the popular libfreenect library. We're also working on making some fun Kinect hacks of our own -- watch until the end of the video to see where we are with those. We look forward to seeing your videos as well."
(via BotJunkie)
This is just the first of several GCSs that will be supported. The orginal LabView GCS is being updated for APM, and the very cool PixHawk GCS (QGroundControl) that James Goppert is porting is close to being ready for prime time, too.
We(Flytron.com) were thinking about turning our projects to opensource for a long time. But we were not sure about the way and procedures.
Then, this weekend I read and inspired Chris Anderson's great 10 Rules of Maker Businesses article. His all of the rules %100 right about our business. We find same rules after 2 years work except Opensource side of this job.
After this great article, we (me and Bora) decided to opensource development of our all projects. This is very hard for us because we have 20+ different products. Writing the manuals and explaining the codes will take long time but we will.
At first, we will share the design and codes of our RXBee (Xbee based radio tx/rx for robotic servo controls). Then the OpenFARC (Opensoruce far aerial control) project will follow them. I hope you will like it.
Thanks Chris :)
If you want to see how we cook the delicious electronics, please visit our blog. We will post everything there on every day.
Thanks for reading
Melih
I got my start with drones by using Lego's Mindstorms robotics platform to fly a plane, creating a Lego UAV (which now hangs in the Lego Museum at the Lego HQ in Billund, Denmark). Back in those days, the only way to connect a GPS was to use a unit with Bluetooth and connect it wirelessly to Mindstorms, which was always a bit of a hassle.
Now there's a new module that allows you to connect a GPS sensor like any other Mindstorms sensor, via a cable. Created by Dexter Industries, it can be programmed in NXT-G, RobotC (my favorite) and Lejos. It costs $105. I've had a beta for a while, and it's a very nicely made bit of gear. I may not put Lego back in the air again, but this is going to be great for ground rovers.
Here's a video of a Mindstorms rover navigating with the GPS module and a compass sensor:
It's teardown day at DIY Drones ;-) Sparkfun has a great one on the Neato Robotics robotics vacuum cleaner, which has a cool Lidar unit. From the post:
"Inside you can see the laser and the CMOS imager that the Lidar uses to detect distance to objects. The white paper on this device insists that it can be built for less than $30, but right now the laser can only be bought if it's inside the robot. Still $400 dollars is a low price for a device that does 1-degree accuracy planar scanning at 10Hz. There are four wires running to the laser assembly. Upon closer inspection, we see that these wires are soldered to pads on the board labeled "TX", "RX", "GND", and "VCC". So it's not exactly tough to figure out what communication protocol the device uses."
So far the Sparkfun team have gotten some basic info (see below) out of the device, but it's not fully hacked yet. But given that Robotox has offered a $800 prize for doing that, it's just a matter of time!
People are starting to look seriously at the iPhone 4 as a robotics controller. It's got a full IMU and otherwise looks appealing. You can get all the hardware chip and sensor specs from this excellent iFixIt teardown, but here's just one example: the GPS chip.
It's a Broadcom chip and the refresh rate is "up to 2Hz". The user-accessible data is provided by the OS so the refresh rate in practice may vary, but the hardware looks pretty promising.
Seeing the development of code for the Ardupilot 'legacy*' has slowed right down I've decided to start modifying it myself to be a little more functional.
As I progress I'll post the updated code for everyone to benefit...
My aims so far are;
1) TWI between IMU and Autopilot
2) Bi-directional comms to GCS
3) External board to accomodate 2x pressure sensors, voltage + current, 12v upconverter for video & perhaps relay switches.
4) Overlay of telemetry data over video within the GCS to fly FPV without having to add another power hungry device onboard the UAV.
The list will no doubt increase as I get each step finished and have new requirements.
So far the TWI routines are pretty happy, bi-directional comms via XBee's is limited but working (PID's can be set from the GCS and attitude/GPS data can be received @ 10updates/sec + recorded )
Biggest problem I'm facing is the lack of available IO on the two ARDU boards, I'm guessing the external board may end up being another ATMega on TWI...
My UAV setup at the moment is;
1) Multiplex Easystar with mods;
- Larger rudder
- Rudder servo moved to tail
- Removable + strengthened compartment under the wings for mounting the IMU on the CG (And allowing easy access to the ESC)
- Outrunner hacker 12L and mods to fit it
- New canopy section to accomodate the GPS, Ardupilot and camera (This is a work in progress)
2) ArduPilot + ArduIMU + Mediatek 10hz GPS
Will have to add some pics when I get a chance...
BTW as I'm developing the GCS in VB6.0 I need to try and find some FREE! .ocx aircraft controls - anyone know where I can find such a beast?
