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I am almost sure about it, first venezuelan to use ardupilot (i hope so).
Ran my first tests in my workshop, turned everything on, including the xbee telemetry, and it worked like a charm!!!!! it is awsome....
The arduIMU works perfect, i am impresed of the sensitivity!!!!!! GPS locked in 1 minute!!!
Now i have to permanently install the electronics in the UAV and run a few more tests, one of them is to figure out how to make it work with my "V" tail, i have been reading the codes and it mixes only the channels 1 and 2, and my tail meeds to mix the channels 2 and 4!!!!!!
Still have more things to do, but i think that this weekend i will start to configure the ardupilot on the field...
I allready have the video tx working, still waiting for my Remzibi´s OSD!!!
Diego Colonnello
""" very happy"""
The AMA just announced that the Federal Register (item #19 here) is wrong and the AMA knows that the NPRM is going to be out in June. Meanwhile the Governement records indicate the process is running on schedule for NPRM release in March.
The AMA is telling everyone that the AMA knows more about the situation than the governement itself.
The AMA claims the FAA "reconfirmed" the July or later dates last week, but provided no document or FAA source to support that claim.
So who is spreading misinformation, the AMA or the Federal Register ? I let you decide.
From the AMA (bolding mine):
"Over the past week there’s been a fair amount of speculation and misinformation on the internet regarding the proposed date for the sUAS Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM). There have even been assertions that the public comment period for the proposed rule has come and gone. Nothing could be further from the truth. In December of “09”, the FAA announced its target date of June 2011 for the publication of the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking. This is the date the proposed rule will be noticed (posted) in the Federal Register and the point at which the public comment period will commence. This date was reconfirmed last week by the FAA Unmanned Aircraft Program Office; if anything there’s the possibility this date could slip into July or even August.
So what caused all the fuss… ?
Well, the misunderstanding stemmed from a notice in the Federal Register posted in accordance with the Regulatory Flexibility Act (RFA). The RFA requires agencies to publish semiannual regulatory agendas in the Federal Register describing regulatory actions they are developing that may have a significant economic impact on a substantial number of small entities. The Act also requires the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to review and comment on proposed rules with the potential for such an impact.
FAA posted its regulatory agenda relating to the sUAS rulemaking earlier this year. The rational for an RFA review was based on, “the novel legal or policy issues about the minimum safety parameters for operating recreational remote control model and toy aircraft in the NAS”.
The March 2011 date in the Federal Register relates to OMB’s review of the proposed rule under the Regulatory Flexibility Act. This review occurs before the proposed rule is published in the Federal Register and opened for public comment. Again, we expect the NPRM to occur in June 2011.
Please continue to check the AMA webpage for the most current sUAS rulemaking information. Timely alerts are also available on the web or on your cell phone at: Twitter.com/amagov "
I was inspired by Ladyada's awesome Open Kinect hacking bounty, so I decided to have a little fun myself. I thought, "what's something else that needs hacking?", and it occurred to me that everyone has been talking about the Neato Robotics XV-11's sweet laser rangefinder (http://diydrones.com/profiles/blogs/30-laser-rangefinder), but nobody has hacked it yet (or at least talked about it) .
So, to get things started, I'm offering up $200 of my own money (plus RobotNV is offering another $100! http://forums.trossenrobotics.com/showthread.php?p=44058#post44058, and Matt Trossen of Trossen Robotics has offered another $100!) in order to get someone to hack it and publish open source documenthttp://www.trossenrobotics.comation/drivers for using it on a robot.
You can find more details here:
Tell your friends! Let's get this puppy hacking and getting useful data back.
Some will be good some, ... not so :)))
But enjoy .
Mikrokopter hexrotors by way of Aerobot; swimsuits from Hive Swimwear. (via BotJunkie)
enjoy...
Do you have an Ardupilot Mega and shield and want some fun for little money? check this tiny quad... my last drone in family...
Some specs:
- Size : 26.5cm (10.4 inches) from motor to motor
- Motors : 18-11 200kv 10 gram motors
- Props : 4x2.5 (standard CCW props)
- ESCs : Turnigy 6A
- Battery : 3S610 (or 3S800)
- Sonar : Maxbotics LV-EZ0 [optional]
The nice part about this frame is that it use standard kite parts, so it´s very easy to construct and it´s perfect for some radical tests.
Itried to find a bit different design that also make the quad less simmetrical (it´s very easy to loss the orientation with a quad) and I wanted to do as small as posible to flight indoors...
At this size and weight it´s very safe and robust also. The props use prop savers and this help a lot in crashes...
I am not very good writing... so I took a lot of photos during the build phase and I created a build log: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1fIZL-Ca2fx2RPhBQLzoOdqdCuikXRKePwKbxDlJWiss/edit?hl=es
This code supports a sonar for altitude hold and also has a battery alarm (2 alarms).
Thisquad works with ArduCopter code, but because how main board is mounted, actual code doesn´t work. This is the code that I used with this quad :
http://code.google.com/p/arducopter/source/browse/#svn/branches/Arducopter_indoor
(as zip format: Arducopter_indoor.zip )
note that this will be integrated on main Arducopter code. Now is temporarily in a branch.
ThePID gains are different than in standard ArduCopter, so you need to Initialize EEPROM on Configurator or put this ones manually:
-Stable mode: P : 4.8 ; I : 0.12 ; P_rate (D in configurator) : 0.4 ; Yaw : (4.5 ,0.15 ,2.8 )
-Acrobatic mode : P : 0.75 ; I : 0.1 ; D : 0 ; Yaw : (2.4 ,0.2 ,0 )
OK, but was all so perfect like in the video? I don´t believe that...
Yes, you are right, but fortunately this design is very crash resistance... and this part is also fun...
After all this battles I only needed a few drops of ciano in the crash with the lamppost :-)
What´s the real size?
On center, standard arducopter frame, on left, old ArduIMU quadcopter part III, on right-top this project.
And what about the automatic aerobatics on video?
I am starting to test a new function to do automatic aerobatics (Automatic Aerobatic Procedure). The idea is that you enable this function with a switch in the Tx to make an automatic predefined aerobatic and then automatically recover to a stable mode.
Thisis actually a proof of concept but works very nice. One limit here is the maximun rate of the gyros, in our case 500deg/s. If we exceed this, the IMU get confused...
An interesting point to note is that the IMU doesn´t loose the orientation in this hard movements...
Thestory is that I have never feel too much confidence doing flips manually with quads. Then I start thinking that with an automatic code we can get a precise timing and controled movement so maybe this could help to do better aerobatics. I started testing this function outdoor, on an open field but I was improving the code and got more tightly maneuvers, so tight, that I ended up doing flips with a quad inside my room!!!
Here is the code I was testing : (AAP function: AAP.txt )
I implemented this functionality as a state machine where there are three kind of states:
- fixed commands for a limited period of time. (example : Apply a throttle command)
- fixed commands until we reach some IMU state (example : roll until we reach a certain angle)
- And a mix between this categories and a control (example : Throttle command + stable mode on roll, pitch, yaw)
There are many things to test and improve here but the basic concept works very nice...
If I can get a bit of help from a friend, I will probably made a carbon fuselage for this prototype...
Enjoy this “Science & Fun” mix...
Jose Julio.
Arducopter Team
Here is link: http://www.instructables.com/id/2-meter-flying-RC-starship-Enterprise/
I did not find any airframe building info here.So I think maybe we can build our own airframe .
Here :some 3D airframe built by Google SketchUp.
http://sketchup.google.com/3dwarehouse/details?mid=7587f37c3a2134363995fb119e59971&ct=hprm
This is a quick how-to to get going with ArduPilotMega QGroundControl Integration. Note that this is a work in progress and that the gains/ waypoints sent to the apm are not currently setting the values in the autopilot. I'll be working today to hook these up. I could really use help debugging and coding though so I've posted this to get everyone else up to speed.
- Get ArduPilotMega mavlink branch: svn checkout http://ardupilot-mega.googlecode.com/svn/ArduPilotMega/branches/mavlink "pathtosketchbook"/ArduPilotMega
- Get Arducopter libraries: svn checkout http://arducopter.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/libraries "pathtosketchbook"/libraries
- Get Mavlink: git clone https://github.com/pixhawk/mavlink.git "pathtosketchbook"/libraries/mavlink
- Get QGroundControl: http://qgroundcontrol.org/downloads or build from source: git clone https://github.com/pixhawk/qgroundcontrol.git "base directory"/qgroundcontrol, if you build from source you will need to copy "pathtosketchbook"/libraries/mavlink to "base directory" or create a symbolic link
- Set sketchbook path for arduino to "pathtosketchbook", then restart arduino IDE.
- Create an APM_Config.h file as seen below.
- Compile and upload code to board.
- Start QGroundControl, select network, add link, set to comm port (/dev/ttyUSB* on linux, COM* on windows) and then set the baud rate to 115200 (if using GCS_PORT 3)
Here is some documentation:
APM_Config.h file:
#define FLIGHT_MODE_CHANNEL 8
#define FLIGHT_MODE_1 AUTO
#define FLIGHT_MODE_2 RTL
#define FLIGHT_MODE_3 FLY_BY_WIRE_A
#define FLIGHT_MODE_4 FLY_BY_WIRE_B
#define FLIGHT_MODE_5 STABILIZE
#define FLIGHT_MODE_6 MANUAL
#define GCS_PROTOCOL GCS_PROTOCOL_MAVLINK
#define ENABLE_HIL ENABLED
#define GCS_PORT 3
#define GPS_PROTOCOL GPS_PROTOCOL_IMU
#define AIRSPEED_CRUISE 25
#define THROTTLE_FAILSAFE ENABLED
#define AIRSPEED_SENSOR ENABLED
I made my first autonomous flight today. I am very happy to achieve this result!
It is only a 30 seconds flight, but 100% autonomous! Lift and landing are still under manual control.
It is not perfect, the control goes wrong after 30 or 40 seconds. I have to work a lot to obtain better results, but this first flight is a big improvement in my project!
Reminder :
BOB4 estimates its position with only its onboard sensors : 4 sonars, one 3D magnetometer, one 6DOF IMU.
The computing is only onboard, without any external aid.
All computation is done on an “Embedded Master” motherboard with .Net Micro Framework.
I have designed this UAV alone. The hardware and the software is 100% home made.
Some pictures :
Previous posts:
http://www.diydrones.com/profiles/blogs/indoor-uav-3d-position
http://www.diydrones.com/forum/topics/bob4-indoor-autonomous
Leon – French hobbyist.
A UAV developed by the Japanese Ministry of Defence. The video's in Japanese unfortunately, but it does show some interesting concepts that I don't believe have been seen in many drones before.
The principle new concept is the single ducted fan that it appears to use. Unfortunately it's covered up in the close ups, but it appears to use thrust vectoring for stability and control. At the end (last 20 seconds or so) there's a video of the vehicle in flight, which clearly shows the four vectoring boxes twitching away.
Is a single ducted fan a viable method for a UAV? I understand that ducted fans have greater efficiencies than open propellers do, but do you think the extra weight of the duct would counteract that advantage? It's obviously something that works for these guys, and it'd be interesting to see how the concept could translate into DIY vehicles.
Now we're talking! As I Love Robots puts it, "This is the driver we have been looking for. The ability to the use the Kinect
RGB-D Sensor with ROS is a complete game changer. 3D robotics is here and now hobbyists can afford a range finding sensor capable of implementing SLAM. Welcome to the future!"SLAM stands for Simultaneous Location and Mapping, and it's the way to determine a robot's position in locations where GPS doesn't work, such as indoors. Who needs a $10,000 motion capture system when you can connect your Kinect to a laptop via ROS? Perfect for quadcopters and blimps...
Name: RVOS v.1.0
Wing Span: 1.6m
Length: 1.1m (nose to tip of v-tail)
Max Weight: 6kg
Recommend 4 Channels (Aileron, V-tail, Throttle)
Power: .45 - .65 cu.in. or equilvalent electric power
DOWNLOAD ZIP FILE HERE!!!!
I've just about wrapped up QGroundControl Integration for the ArduPilotMega. The code currently implements the majority of the common protocol for QGroundControl. You can successfully read raw sensor gps/imu/gyro data, read radio packets, check the system status, check the system heartbeat, get/set pid gains and other control parameters (note they have yet to replace the current values for the controllers). Tomorrow I hope to have waypoint send/receive complete and to do a ground test with an RC car and a flight test if that is successful. Thanks PixHawk team for making a great ground station!
some shots of the beta model
I have 20 units available @ evuas.com
new features : 94" wingspan , Flaps , rg-15 airfoil
custom cut EPP with iron on , ultra slick covering material .
"Three British amateur aerospace enthusiasts have successfully sent a camera-equipped paper airplane to an altitude of 89,000 feet (27,127 meters), where it captured images of the blackness of space before gliding back to Earth. Project PARIS (Paper Aircraft Released Into Space) involved getting the plane into the stratosphere using a weather balloon before letting it go via a release mechanism. " Read more at Gizmomag.
Not a UAV, per se, just a free-flight plane with a GPS tracker. But so cool!
