Blogs

Yup, it now has 2 platforms instead of that plastic truck shell.

Here is a picture to remind you what it looked like

Here are some photos of the building of the dual platform. Its made from lexan, each platform measuring 12"x5.5". Holes were drilled for the spacers and for the pegs that hold the platform to the chassis.

It is still the same old setup (compass, GPS, and my custom board), but i am trying to think of things to add. If you have any ideas, please leave a comment. The compass is mounted on the top deck with a custom bracket made of polymorph plastic.

Ok, I didnt build it all myself, credit goes out to my mate Kim who cut holes and spent a fair bit of time with me on the build :)

So anyway, I wanted a UAV that did something... useful...

Live video is a pain, really easy to do if you dont go the legal route, but when it comes down to it, 10mw is just no fun in the city.

The next best thing has got to be mapping, strap a camera and trigger the shutter, too easy.

Other than that I wanted something under 1kg which isnt too much of an ask if you plan the build properly.

So here is a list of the parts which I ended up using for the aircraft:

• WindRider EleBee Flying Wing
• High power metal gear servos... cant remember the name unfortunately
• MicroDan motor
• Castle 25A ESC
• Castle 10A BEC
• Xtend900 Radio Modem
• AttoPilot v3.0 AHRS IMU
• Samsung WP10 digital camera
• Futaba R319DP RX
• 2100mAH Lipo's

So after flying it manually we went down to some farmland to try autonomous, test the Millswood GCS / data link & give the autopilot some photo triggers.

All went very well but the photos were rather bland, blurry and meh.

I wasnt expecting too much from that camera, I thought I may have picked the wrong type. The lens was internal and small but it was shock and dust proof.

Regardless, the flight went great and as expected.

Up early the next day to go flying with the guys, brought along Batto for another test. Exactly the same flight plan as yesterday, but today the AttoPilot was setup to cut the motor, level off & snap the picture every 70 meters.

Video below.

So, very happy with the results today!

The uncompressed 12meg photos from the camera look fantastic, alot better then I would have thought.

Hopefully ill get a chance to head out to a friend’s property and let Batto loose over his crops.

If anyone can think of a better canopy than the coreflute one ive installed let me know, it works great but looks very cheap :)

Max

I've now had a chance to compare the old 63" Nitroplanes Predator with the new 98" Reaper, which is finally in stock. There's no comparison. Compared to the awesome Reaper model, the Predator is a toy. The new Reaper has a fiberglass and balsa/ply body, solid fittings and landing gear and about twice as much internal room. Very solid model and tremendous finish quality.

Here's another shot (I haven't assembled the Reaper's steerable nose gear yet)

Here's the cockpit view (I haven't put the servos in the Reaper yet, but you can get a sense of the size difference. Also note how much room there in the big canopy):

I haven't flown the Reaper yet, and my only concern is that it's very short-coupled (like all Predator models) and may be pretty twitchy in the pitch axis. But I sure feel more comfortable putting it in the air than I did with the little one, which had a bad habit of tip-stalling. I think the flaps on the Reaper are going to help a lot with solid landings.

I probably won't fly this until Sept, since it needs the servos and motor installed. But it's looking good so far!

What's inside the box, you may ask? Just an ATX power supply. Sadly, there wasn't even room for the arduino in there along with it... oh well.

Things are going well for my project though, and I hope to be putting in my order for the easystar sometime next week. Let me know if you have any comments or suggestions.

There it is. The cheapest $47 bare board uBlox-5 available + $14 shipping.

As flimsy as it is, the hope is it'll be obsolete by the time it falls apart. The helical antenna only has 3 solder points, so the $90 brand name version probably wouldn't last longer. Knowing the wars about diydrones product offerings, we're not going to tell you where to buy the $47 special.

Voltage regulator attached.

Now your 1st look at the helical antenna. The rubber enclosure slides right off, revealing:

Is it a revolution in lighter weight, omnidirectional reception or another gimmick like fiber optic servo cables?

Unfortunately a killer commute & difficulties with the Air Force have this myth inching along. Have some commute footage instead.

Just in time to run on your new UDBv3, the UDB development team is excited to release version 2.5 of MatrixPilot! This version adds tons of new features, including inverted stabilization, camera targeting, more configurable waypoints, wind speed estimation, dead reckoning, and hardware-in-the-loop simulation. Big thanks go out to everyone who has written and submitted code, tested bleeding-edge versions, found bugs, and asked and answered great questions.

More info over at our wiki.

What's New in MatrixPilot 2.5

• IMU based "dead" reckoning.
• Support for waypoints at absolute positions, relative to startup, or relative to a fixed location.
• More configurable waypoints / flight patterns.
• Stabilize inverted flight.
• Stabilize vertical / hovering flight.
• Beginnings of automatic landing.
• Camera stabilization and targeting.
• Support for automatic detection of, and adjustment for average wind speed and direction.
• Support for using a magnetometer for yaw stabilization.
• Improve robustness of waypoint following when losing the transmitter signal.
• Hardware-In-the-Loop simulation using a UDB and X-Plane.

Team Javelin UAS - UAV OBC D2 2010 from Javelin UAS on Vimeo.

Here is our Delivery II for this year UAV Outback Challenge - Search and Rescue. I wish we have more time to make better video but it's 5 weeks away!!!

Anyway, enjoy - looking forward to making some Autonomous flying video for you later.

Some software improvements

Fast Company has an article about an Israeli water-use monitoring company, and for some reason they tie it into drones. I've read the piece twice and visited the company's website, but can for the life of me figure out why you'd use drones for this. Surely you'd use direct wireless links for this? If they're too far apart for wifi meshing, just use GPRS. The data size is tiny; it?s a perfect app for texting on cellphone networks.

Can anyone explain this?

Excerpt from the article follows:

"The word drone may conjure thoughts of sci-fi flicks, or images of attacks carried out remotely on hostile lands, or even your high-school biology teacher's voice. You certainly don't expect a drone to help save water, but that's what Arad Metering Technologies intends to do. The Israeli company's battery-operated drone is one of the novel tools it's deploying to help consumers and companies conserve H₂O -- and to make money.

That such an idea would come out of Israel is no coincidence. The country is poor in water and rich in tech innovation, much of it born of constant military conflict. Israel pioneered the use of unmanned aerial vehicles after it lost many fighter jets in the 1973 war. But Arad's drones don't fight: They read data from the company's patented water-meter system to detect leakage or, in irrigation systems, drought.

The World Bank estimates that water wastage costs utilities $14 billion a year worldwide; in developing countries, 200 million more people could be served by the water lost to leaks and theft. Arad CEO Dan Winter says this is largely a consequence of how the business works in places where water is cheap or untaxed: "You train people to abuse water because they pay very little."

This broken system created an opportunity for Arad, which has deep green roots. Its parent company, the Arad Group, began making water meters in 1941, after prescient members of Kibbutz Dalia saw how the devices could help save water. Winter says his tech-centric unit seeks "to bring an added value" to both the core business and customers. Its technology can find irregularities -- a pipe failure, an unusually low flow rate, or a too-constant one that could indicate a leak -- in a few hours, rather than every 60 days as with a typical meter reading.

Arad's system is built around what looks like a standard meter. The difference is on the inside, where you'll find 3G wireless technology, a microcontroller, and 20-year batteries. Every 11 to 30 seconds, the system transmits data, which can be picked up by a drone (best for quickly covering big distances in remote areas) or by a drive-by or fixed-base reader. The data are then analyzed by computer to gauge how much water has been consumed, how much was lost, and even where tampering may have taken place. As a result, companies can save both water and man hours.?