Thanks to commentor John Wright for being the first to notice that the Parrot AR.Drone is now available for pre-order at its exclusive US retailer, Brookstone. $299.99, as promised, expected to ship September 3rd. I've got a review unit coming to me and should be able to do a comprehensive review here by then.
I found the Fuse to a Sky Fly Max at a local hobby store and was instantly forced to buy it. It's a great, but simple starter plane which I think will make a great UAV. All of the parts except for the fiberglass boom are EPO type foam, all thick and well made. Like always, I will not buy an RTF so I'll need to part it together, but that should be less than $65. for just the air frame. I have a few ideas to make it more me, but that's for later. Click here for more Sky Fly Max Details.
Below are a few more pics of the fuse as well as a few shots of "Stuff" I've kept for projects and thought I'd share...
Boxes...
Candy/Gum boxes seem to be great for small projects. I like to use them to protect some of the electronic components on my planes when they would otherwise be exposed. You can drill small holes so they are vented or keep lids off and be mostly covered but well protected.
Floaty Key Chain things...
I've not installed it yet but I'm using these for mounting wireless camera (like a helmet cam) on the boom or underside of my wings. These could easily be made articulated and in damp'ish conditions by using a small clear dome to protect the camera and silicone to plug the other end where connections/batteries reside. I plan to power mine seperate from the camera pod, but using smaller lipo you could easily store the bat inside the pod w/the camera and only have the lead running to the camera's transmitter...
Cups...
Jello, Pudding, Tuna & Applesause... These are very handy and can be used from Cowls to Nacelles, to epoxy and everything in between.
Plastic sheets...
I use the thicker sheets for belly skids on my belly landers. It really helps keep the plane in good shape. I use recovered pop-bottle plastic (16oz/1ltr/2ltr) for lighter duty stuff like wing repair and reinforcement for weak designs. You can also use the pop bottle plastic as glue in hinges.
If you got the stuff around, use it...
Anyway, I'm cheap and this post shows it! But, I like to share so...
PS - The orange rectangle thing is one of those lighted magnifying glasses, cause I'm not blind, I just like stuff in bold!
-bcd
Inspired by the Outback Challenge's waterbottle drop challenge, we're happy to now announce the start of the 8th round of the T3 Competition.
Your mission this time: have your UAV autonomously drop an egg as close to your home/launch position as possible (heads up!).
(Note: Our contest judge, Gary Mortimer, reminds us that it is illegal to drop any solid object out of an airborne vehicle in some countries, including the UK, so please check your local regulations to determine if this is legal in your area.)
How you have your UAV carry the egg and what mechanism you use to drop it is up to you (maybe a good time to use the built-in relay on your new ArduPilot Mega board?). The only requirement is that the drop be AUTONOMOUS--you need to set your autopilot to initiate the release when it detects that it's the right distance from the home location. The aircraft must be in forward motion with a speed of at least 15mph at the time of drop, and at least 50ft high (ie, no unfair advantage for quads!)
Because this first "T" in T3 stands for "trust", we're going to trust you to mark your home position and measure the distance the egg landed from that--no need to strap a GPS logger to the egg. The path your UAV takes before and after the drop doesn't matter, as long as it was under autonomous control during the drop part of the run. You will get EXTRA POINTS for an unbroken egg. How you achieve that (parachute, whatever) is up to to you, but please document your method with pictures.
Please submit the following in the comments as your entry: KML track of your UAV, with drop point, egg impact point, and "home" marked. Distance measured and reported, along with autopilot type. Please include a picture of your egg after it's landed, broken or not.
Scoring will be as follows: competitors will be ranked in closeness of egg to home. You get a 10m bonus for an unbroken egg.
Deadline: about six week from now--Sunday, September 5th at 12:00 midnight PST.
Have fun!
FY-Tech, makers of the FY3ZT autopilot that we're testing, now have a new website/store with a great story of their origins.
Here's the whole thing for reading ease (Wei, I hope you don't mind me copy-and-pasting it all!), but check out their website for the products. And see the original post for the great photos, which didn't come through my pasting, I'm afraid.
"Hello. My name is Wei. I developed Guilin Feiyu Electronic Technology Co., or more commonly known as FY-Tech.
We are very happy that you came in here and checked us out. We are where we are today because of our customers (that's you).
I have two good friends with me in this company, Simon Yin and Mr. Lee. We are all graduates of Guilin University of Electronic Technology (GUET). Both Simon and Lee continued doing their studies after graduating, whereas I decided to work.
I started FY-Tech in August 2007. Simon joined me in 2008, followed by Lee after they got their Masters (Electronic Engineering). By the time they joined me I had already built my first Gyro stabilizer for RC Planes. But it wasn't very good.
So their first jobs were to go through every single article on gyros and accelerometers in the libraries of GUET. We used Matlab and other software to test our theories and stabilization system algorithms. If the coding worked, we would build PCB to test the software in the real world. Our first break was in the AHRS algorithm, followed by the AFSS stabilizer and integrated autopilot.
Those startup months were filled with many sleepless nights, heartbreaks and the early morning breakthrough laughter.
Life wasn't easy, as we were holed up in our small office doing endless research discussions, testing and development of both hardware and software. This went on seven days a week, for months on end.
Countless trips to our local RC field tested the autopilot system in the real world. I must confess that since most of our time is spent in R&D, we almost never get a chance to fly in Guilin. We thank our friends here who have always been supportive of FY-Tech to test our research units for us.
By working hard and testing prototype after prototype, we developed our first bestseller, the FY20A - our first `baby'.
Sales picked up very quickly. We had enough capital to move to our new office and manufacturing facility at Innovation Information Industry Park.
As the customer base grew, demands for more features, flexibility and reliability in the autopilot system increased. Each new request more challenging than the one before.
It has been almost three years of doing this day-in and day-out. We are very proud of what we’ve achieved so far. The technology developed in our lab has now been utilized in robotics, UAVs, water crafts and most importantly the everyday RC flier.
Sometime at the end of May 2010, we decided it was time to introduce our products outside of China. Our three main sellers, the FY20A, FY21AP and FY3ZT have matured enough for the international market.
Our initial attempt wasn’t very encouraging. People outside of China couldn’t understand us. Language was a huge barrier. But with the help of friends, our message and products are finally coming across.
Response has been overwhelming. Within a short two months period, our products have been sold all over the world.
Which is probably why you are now here, reading this. Our story is just beginning. New chapters are being added even as I write this. Do come again soon. I’m sure we have more to show and tell.
Thank you again and fly safe.
Elikes Wei, FY-Tech."
What: 2010 Kansas Unmanned Systems Symposium
When: October 4-6, 2010
Where: Overland Park, KS
Who Should Attend: UAV enthusiasts, UAV OEMs, Payload System Providers,
Public Safety Officials, UAV Technology Enablers, and Emergency Responders,
etc.
The 4th Annual Unmanned Systems Symposium, hosted by the Kansas National Guard, is an excellent opportunity for industry leaders, academia, military and government entities to share and learn about the fast-paced unmanned systems world. Please join us for this exciting and informative UAS event.
Join us for an intensive sharing and learning symposium that delves into the challenges and opportunities surrounding Unmanned Air Vehicles. Come and see how Kansas through a partnership with the Air National Guard and many of our accredited Academic Institutions are addressing the future through evaluation, demonstration and integration of technology to assist in Disaster Management and Homeland Security issues.With emphasis on emergency response, public safety, and next generation system payloads, this premier event is a must attend for UAV enthusiasts, OEMs, payload system providers, public safety officials, technology enablers, and emergency responders. A live UAS demonstration will be conducted on October 6th at Kansas' own Smoky Hill Range near Salina, KS. Transportation will be provided.
For more information on the show visit www.uavsymposiums.com or contact me at jpowers@fhsllc.com
Roll and pitch estimation corrected for coriolis forces
(10% to 25% improved roll and pitch estimates)
"
According to
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coriolis_effect
|omega_earth|=2*PI/day=2*3.14/(24*60*60)=7.27e-5[rad/s]
assume aircraft diving at 20m/s in earth reference frame
|ac|=2*7.27e-5*20=0.003[m/s^2]=3e-4[G]
assume we have 16bit ADC which covers 100% range of the useful voltage (overly optimistic),
and the accelerometer is quite sensitive with 6G full span (+/-3G) (overly optimistic, procerus claims +/-10G).
Therefore 6G is divided into 65536 counts.
3e-4G equals then to around 3 ADC counts which is below noise level of most
accelerometers which would be around 2^4, by eye.
Therefore coriolis acceleration is barely detectable (you can attach a plane to the rails, push it down, and the only deviating force will be at most those poor 2-4 counts on extremely sensitive ADC, overswamped by natural sensor noise).
How did they come to 10%/25%?
Where is an arorr in my calculation?
I'm sure this has been discussed here before, but past posts seem pretty well buried now.
I've been giving some thought as to whether rudder or aileron (in isolation of each other) is better for initiating turns via autopilot control. As a bank-and-crank RC flier (it wasn't until relatively recently that I learned that the left stick on my transmitter could be used for more than two things, idle and full throttle), my initial thought was to use aileron. But the more I thought about it, the more I realize that rudder is probably a better way to actually turn a plane with anything less than a 60º bank. (Just in case anyone reading this is not familiar with sport RC flying, the elevator actually makes the turn when the plane is in a steep bank. If rudder is used at all, it's used in the opposite direction of the turn just to keep the nose up. Indeed, some jets started coming out without any rudders at all, just fixed vertical fins. The AMA, I believe, now has a rule that functioning rudders must be present.)
So, I'd be interested in hearing what others have to say. Right now, I believe ArduPilot will give you either rudder or aileron, not both (correct?). If it gives both, it seems it would be based on a single, but mixed, signal. Would there ever be a need or benefit to having independent rudder and aileron control? I'm sure full-scale UAVs have this, but it might be a bit too much for an amateur UAV.
Thanks,
Paul
I posted this earlier but did some tweaking on it to compare the Extended Kalman to my Fixed Gain Observer filters. I haven’t finished the FGO position filter but am really starting to lean more on EKF because the performance really is significantly better.
The idea for this filter is to fill in the gaps of the GPS position between the 1-4 Hz range for something like a quadrotor or just overall improved lag free navigation. You can clearly see how the fusion of more sensors can really increase your UAV's perception of reality!
**Edit, I improperly emulated GPS in the first pic so I added the correct pic. This shows how GPS comes in at 2Hz with noise and using a little logic and deadreckoning you can not only fill in the gaps but be more accurate than GPS is actually reporting. The GPS acts kinda like the accelerometers in the DCM algorithm, they keep the solution constrained.
Enjoy!
-Beall
Some testing
This is my first attempt at building an ArduCopter. I started with franticly searching the web for parts. I had no idea what I was looking for, but I was looking. Between DIY Drones and AeroQuad, I was able to come up with a list. I have a little background with the arduino. But nothing like this. Mostly would work with LEDs, LCD screens, and Temp sensors.
Ok on with the build. Here are some pictures of what I have so far.
I have a thousand questions, that I don’t even know I need to ask yet.
Thanks to all on this site....
