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3D Robotics

T3, Round 4: Map a quarter-kilometer!

Posted by Chris Anderson on December 3, 2009 at 7:30am

Welcome to the Time Trust Trial contest, Round 4 (T3-4)! This round is an aerial imaging task. Here is your assignment: Program your UAV to take photos from an altitude of ~400 feet that you then stitch together to make a single image showing an area of 500mx500m (a quarter square kilometer). Somewhere in that image, a Santa (or replica of a Santa, poster of a Santa, just you wearing a Santa hat, etc) must be seen. NO PHOTOSHOP (ie, the sample above would be disqualified)--you actually need to bring something Santa-ish to the field so your UAV can capture it in its shots (yes, I know it will be very small. Just circle the location in your image so we can enlarge and inspect--don't make us do "Where's Wally"!) This is to prove that the shots aren't actually taken from Google Earth ;-) You can use any path strategy you want: "lawnmower", spiral, concentric circles, etc... For stitching software, I use the free PTGui, but you're welcome to use whatever software you prefer. And for your camera, may I suggest you hack up some cool way to trigger the shutter with our cool ServoSwitch? KML tracks must be provided. Video is not required, but is suggested. We've now switched to a six-week cycle, so the deadline is 12:00 midnight PST on Sunday, January 17, 2010 now Monday, January 18th due to the Martin Luther King holiday in the US. The overall winner will be the best quality image, as decided by the judges (based on a combination of resolution, stitch quality and overall coolness--a clever Santa will win you brownie points, and a pretty area is no bad thing [note: snow is lovely, but be warned that it can confuse stitching software]), but everyone who completes the challenge will win a prize. Enjoy!
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GPS Emulator Madness!!!

Posted by Paul Mather on December 2, 2009 at 11:00pm
EmulatorwGroundstation.gifMy GPS Emulator will now output ArduPilot sentences for groundstation testing. It now includes an installer for com0com's null modem emulator. With this tool it is possible to tie two COM ports together for testing purposes.When you first run the emulator, you'll see a button that says "Install Feedback Ports" right on the main screen next to the exit button. Once the com0com installer has been run, you can click Options, Setup Feedback Ports and select the two new virtual COM ports you'd like to use (IE COM254 and COM255). Once these ports are created, you can specify one port for the emulator and the other on your application (ie: ArduIMU test application, ground station, u-Center, MiniGPS, etc). Now, you're ready to emulate.On the main screen, you have menu options to enable NMEA, uBlox or ArduPilot messages. The new ArduPilot messages include:ArduPilot Attitude = RER, THH, PSET, CRTArduPilot Waypoints = STT, WPN, DSTGPS Data = LAT, LNG, SPD, ALT, ALH, BERArduPilot Sensors = BTV, ASP, THH, RLL, PCHArduPilot IMU = RLL, PCH, YAW, COG, SOG, FIX, ALT, LAT, LNG, EX0-EX8, AN0-AN5Sample Output - Everything but IMU*** Ardu 12/3/2009 2:00:08 AM = UTC: 070008.718 ***!!!RER:-24,THH:40,PSET:-16,CRT:0,STT:1,WPN:4,DST:180,LAT:48861598,LON:2291760,SPD:143.9999998848,ALT:1896.789,ALH:1911.789,BER:212***+++BTV:12.4,ASP:40,THH:35,RLL:24,PCH:16***Sample Output - IMU*** Ardu 12/3/2009 1:57:38 AM = UTC: 065738.78 ***!!!RER:0,THH:40,PSET:0,CRT:0,STT:1,WPN:0,DST:740,LAT:48858125,LON:2291207,SPD:143.9999998848,ALT:100,ALH:115,BER:0***+++BTV:12.4,ASP:40,THH:35,RLL:0,PCH:0***EDIT: There seems to be some confusion about what exactly I'm trying to show here. The graphical gauges shown above are a part of Dr Mike Black's additions to Jordi's LabView ground station. My software is shown in the top right corner and runs indepentantly of the ground station. It's simply an example of one function you can accomplish with it. Here's an overview of what the emulator is.Simply put, it generates GPS and ArudPilot messages as if you had a GPS or ArduPilot connected to the serial port.Function #1) Remzibi's OSD. The program started as a way to fake out Remzibi's OSD and show lat, long, speed, alt, etc object change on the screen. I use a USB to serial cable connected from the PC to the OSD and use my emulator to connect to that COM port. At which point, the OSD comes to life (it stops searching and finds what it thinks are NMEA sentences from the GPS) and starts parsing my data. I have the ability to "fake" out the flight of the plane by moving sliders and making the place fly in circles or change altitude or speed...Function #2) ArduPilot missions. The second thing I added was the ability to connect the emulator to the ArduPilot via the USB to serial cable and again start streaming NMEA sentences. Additionally, I started listening for ArduPilot messages back in through the COM port and would change my course based on the messages from the ArduPilot. If it said to turn left, my emulator would turn left. If it said go up, the emulator would go up. I used Google Maps to show the location and flight path.Function #3) uBlox functionality. The third thing I added was the uBlox protocol. It really was just to help with Function #2 and for Function #4. However, with the use of the com0com null port software (included with the emulator) it's easy to specify COM254 and COM255 as virtual serial ports so no hardware is needed to talk from the emulator to the u-center and MiniGPS applications for sentence testing and verification. I spent a bunch of time making fake responses to satellite queries (NAV-SVINFO and GPGSA) to make random strong and weak signals and all sorts of stuff with GPS lock that nobody but me will ever play with.Function #4) Ground Station Software. The fourth thing I added was ArduPilot messaging on the output. It is possible to use the com0com null port software to create the virtual ports and have the emulator start pumping ArduPilot messages (!!!LAT:XXXX,LON:XXXX*** etc) out the COM port to be received by Dr Mike Black's ground station software in LabView.Function #5) ArduIMU Software. The fifth thing is the ArduIMU sentences. I'm not 100% done with this because I'd like to add some faked data for EX0-EX8 and AN0-AN5 to make it seems like the board just moved when the sliders get moved, but for the moment, it does fake out the roll, pitch and yaw as well as speed, lat, long and alt parts of the message.General Info) The emulator currently works from COM1 to COM255, bauds 4800 to 115200 and Hertz 1 to 10. It will also calculate the bandwidth based on the number of messages you are sending. You can turn every message on or off individually (7 NMEA message types, 11 uBlox message types, 5 ArduPilot message types)I wrote it specifically for software developers who are creating an OSD, Auto Pilot, ground station, ArduIMU application or any other device that parses GPS or ArduPilot/ArduIMU messages.
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Developer

How to boost your 2.4Ghz Spektrum/JR Transmitter signal!

Posted by Jordi Muñoz on December 2, 2009 at 2:00pm
I love my Spektrum Dx7 and my 2.4Ghz JR XPS9303 and i refused to trade its solid rock performance by a 72mhz radio just to increase range of my FPV/UAV. So in collaboration with my friend JB we find out the cheapest and secure way to amplify the signal, it even works in some Futabas and virtually with any 2.4Ghz radio, but some modifications are required. Lets see some options:-Spektrum Dx7 this is the cheapest solution for a very reliable 2.4Ghz radio, i used it for about a year and i never had any signal glitch (unless i fly beyond 2000 feet). The problem with this one is that you have to modify it, you need a SMD to U.FL adapter, drill a hole in the side of your radio and just connect and screw the adapter, no soldering required. If you have more than 5 hours of experience with Legos your qualified to do this job. Then you just need to connect the booster. The one in the picture (middle) is already modified.-If you have the awesome JR radio but is 72Mhz you can buy the Spektrum 2.4Ghz module and just insert it in the back of your TX, personally this is my favorite setup. It's a good deal because includes a $99 dlls receiver for free! Note that JR TX alone cost around $600 dlls, but you can get it for less, i got mine for 300 bucks with Spektrum Module included on R/C Groups =P. Remember you are looking for the JR XPS9303.If you have one of the fallowing Futaba radios:7U Series Radios8U Series Radios8J Series Radios9C Series Radios9Z Series RadiosFN Series RadiosYou can just go and buy the Spektrum 2.4Ghz module, easy and with no hassles. It's also a good deal because includes a $99 dlls receiver for free!

One of the advantages of the Spektrum receivers is the build in diversity system, you can even buy one with 4 satellites like this one, or buy a super tiny, tiny setup like this one, or the traditional one.The diversity is crucial to have a reliable link when you are flying far away, also Spektrum has a receiver for Carbon Fiber airplanes (Carbon Fiber blocks RF signals).The idea is to have the best reliable hardware with an SMA connector and the SMA extension cable, after that you are ready for the final step: Get an amplifier. But we are talking about a few hundred dollars here, if you get the weakest one of 100mW it will cost you around $150 dlls. This is not pocket friendly in my point of view. So again our Asians friends come to the rescue, after making some research around the net I've found on eBay and a home Wireless Amplifier, so i decided to give it a chance and i bought it for 60 bucks including shipping! Wow that's a good deal! The one i got is this one.Note that the amplifier needs 6Volts to work, you can get a cheap 6V power regulator from here and just make the adapter. A 3 Cell LIPO is enough to supply it for a long time.

After receiving the AMP i did some tests, here are my results:Before using the amplifier, i was able to fly around 3000 feet away (~1 km) using a 900Mhz@500mW Video transmitter. I never lost the video signal, only the radio link...Using a 1.3Ghz@1Watt Video transmitter i was unable to fly more than 2000 feet away (~600meters). So the 1.3Ghz Video transmitter reduces my 2.4Ghz Spektrum range...Then i got my cheap Asian amplifier and using a 2.4Ghz Patch Antenna i was able to fly around 2.6 miles (4.18Km) away without a single glitch, but i was unable to continue because now my video was causing me problems, hehe!Not bad at all! Honestly i don't need more than 2 miles of coverage, is really a long way for an EasyStar. In conclusion the maximum range for my setup still unknown, but the range achieved is more that 2.6 miles and the +2 extra miles of coverage gained for less than $100 dlls is really a good deal for me!

Now just remember this:-The range will be different in other setups.-Never turn on your radio without antenna.-Never turn on the Amplifier without antenna.-Note that in some country's this amplifier may be illegal.Thanks for watching!
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MicroGear hardware in the loop demonstration with FlightGear

Posted by Curt Olson on December 2, 2009 at 1:30pm
I'm almost embarrassed to post this video. It was done almost entirely with open-source software, so it's obviously way behind what people are doing with commercial software and commercial systems. But I have fun and entertain myself with this stuff, so I thought I'd share a brief snippet.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yIDQq93cpcoWhat you are seeing is FlightGear (http://www.flightgear.org). I have a FlightGear model of a Sig Rascal 110 (which I've flown in real life many times.) The 3d model and the flight dynamics model are also open-source so of course are also subpar from anything that would be done commercially. The FlightGear flight dynamics engine is outputting gyro, accelerometer, and gps data to an external embedded computer running MicoGear. MicroGear takes the "sensor" data, runs it through a 15 state kalman filter (the one piece here that isn't open-source) and estimates roll, pitch, yaw, and location.Because this is FlightGear I already know the true pitch, roll, and yaw, but I promise I'm not cheating here. The kalman filter on the embedded board is estimating these values and using them as input to the autopilot and routing algorithms also running on the embedded board. The only difference between this and real life from the microgear/embedded-processor point of view is that it's not getting it's data from the onboard sensors and it's not driving servos directly. Instead it sends the servo commands back to FlightGear and the control surfaces are moved over there in the simulator.This turns out to be a really nice hardware in the loop testing platform and many subtle issues that show up in real life, also show up in the simulator. Because this is FlightGear, a person can throw a variety of weather conditions at the system, turbulence, high winds, etc. You can disable fuel consumption and run for hours or days if you like.I am very tempted to turn in a "virtual" entry into one of the upcoming DIY drones contests. :-) Oops, I almost started to crack a smile there. Ok, I'm back to my long, sullen, down trodden facial expression, because after all this is all pretty much all open-source software -- which just sucks -- total crap I know -- sorry to even waste your time and bandwidth with any of this guys. I won't post anything ever again until I have something actually useful or interesting to show.Curt.
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3D Robotics

Mark Griffin winner of the T3-3 contest!

Posted by Chris Anderson on December 2, 2009 at 7:30am

Congratulations to Mark Griffin and his EasyStar/Paparazzi set up for not only winning the T3-3 contest (break Stanford's UAV altitude record) but beating the record by an astounding 2.8x! In total four people broke the record, which is awesome. Also note that two of those four were using Krzysztof Bosak's new Flexipilot autopilot, which is a great tribute to the qualities of that. Congrats to all! The first prize for this contest will be a new Bladestar semi-autonomous rotary-wing toy. The three runner-ups will win a DIY Drones servo OptoCoupler. I'll be announcing the full details of the next T3 contest, T3-4, tomorrow, but the short form is this: a photo stitch from 400' of 1 square km. In other words, a single image that is an aerial view of an 1 km^2 area, but all taken from 400 feet (sorry about mixing imperial and metric units!). We will be moving to a six week contest cycle, so you'll have till the middle of Jan to do it. Extra hardship points for those who include snow!
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3D Robotics

AttoPilot 3.3, IMU, flying wing prices released

Posted by Chris Anderson on December 1, 2009 at 10:00pm
Gary Mortimer has just posted the new price list for AttoPilot 3.3 (IMU-based) and a whole bunch of new products from Dean Goedde. Check out the pdf at the link for all details, but here are the basics AttoPilot 3.3 (IMU): $3,000 AttoPilot 1.8 (Thermopiles): $800 Stand-alone IMU: No price given Jackaroo flying wing plane: $2,800 Boomerang flying wing: $2,600 Manta flying wing: $5,000-$6,250 Tracking antenna: $1,500 Flight ready aircraft (with autopilots installed): Boomerang (with AttoPilot 3.3): $15,000 Boomerang (with AttoPilot 1.8): $13,500 Jackaroo (with AttoPilot 3.3): $15,200 (shown)
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Interfacing MATLAB and Arduino

Posted by Kostas Alexis on December 1, 2009 at 6:56am
Hi friends!I have just found and tested a Blockset that interfaces MATLAB/SIMULINK and Arduino. You may find this at:http://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/fileexchange/24675-arduino-targetI highly suggest this program since it offers rapid prototyping capabilities to the famous and cheap arduino. The guys have build a block that interfaces with the Real Time Workshop of MATLAB and have also implemented C functions for all arduino operations (analog in, out, serial read/write etc.). Despite the fact that the code is obviously bigger one can gain advantage from the quick and abstract way of programming that simulink offers. It is a good work!Happy coding!
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3D Robotics

Does open source undermine innovation?

Posted by Chris Anderson on November 30, 2009 at 5:30pm
Krzysztof "Chris" Bosak made some important and interesting points regarding the effect of open source on the overall health of the industry in a comment on another thread yesterday, and I thought they deserved to be discussed more fully (although there are many good comments in that thread, and I'd encourage you to check out that, too). So I'll give them their own thread, starting with my own thoughts. First, here are some key points from Krzysztof's post: "Marketing that you can make Ardupilot for $25, $50, $100 is like making the others look like the monsters of greed, while declaring the work of software developer is worth NULL, while not necessarily leading to the creation of competitive product in the long term." All this has one effect: creates artificially crafted virtual reference point for price,that is used to dramatically weaken the public perception or the makers of complex electronics, without even making the makers of cheap solutions incredibly rich. At the end there is no progress, as the advance of open source is usually quickly swamped by absence of professional regression testing and all the things nobody would do for free." At the same time, I noticed a New York Times article today that suggest that almost nobody has found a successful business model for open source. Together, these raise the question of whether open source does more harm than good to innovation, and whether it will ultimately lead to a sustainable industrial model for consumers and developers alike. Needless to say, I believe that the open source development model, while not perfect, is the best one for overall innovation. But Krzysztof raises some valid concerns, which I'll tackle one by one: 1) Claims by open source developers about features and pricing tend to be unrealistic and serve to kill demand for higher-priced commercial products. I think there's some truth to this. Because open source development is done, by definition, in public, there is a lot of discussion about the broad ambitions of the project in the early stages, both to attract participation and to define the broad scope of the project. Not everything an open source project sets out to do is ultimately achieved, as the developers get into the hard work of executing. In contrast, commercial projects are usually developed in private and only revealed when the feature set is pretty much confirmed. The consequence of this is that the entry of an ambitious open source project can "freeze the market" while people wait to see if they can deliver. This is not good for the more cautious commercial players in that space. As for pricing, open source hardware projects tend to be on the far low end, due to a general philosophy (which I share) not to charge for intellectual property. Our own policy is to charge 2.6 times the cost of the hardware (this allows one 40% margin for us and another 40% margin for our retail partners), but some other open source hardware companies charge just 1.5x cost. It's very hard for those who charge for intellectual property to compete with these prices. 2) Open source tends to "de-monitize" a market, eliminating the potential for anyone to make money. In the short term, this can certainly seem to be the case. But if you believe in demand elasticity, as I do, you would expect the lower price to vastly increase demand, growing the market for all. So it's a tradeoff between high margins and high volume. In the case of ArduPilot, where the core board costs just $25 (something Krzysztof objects to, because it sets a consumer expectation that autopilots should be very cheap), we have sold about 2,000 boards this year, which makes it the best-selling amateur-level autopilot in the world by a wide margin. Although nobody make much money from those boards, the economic value around all the other parts you need to create an functioning autopilot is significant. Say there are now 500 complete ArduPilot systems out there now. That's about $800,000 in total spending (between us and our partners). Assume total margins (between wholesale and retail) are around 50%, that means $400,000 of profit in the first year. I suspect that's more than any of the commercial autopilot companies in this space can claim. Because you're charging for "atoms", not bits, open source hardware can be profitable in the way that open source software cannot, because the customer relationship starts with the assumption of paying for something. 3) Open source can't create products of equal quality to closed source, because nobody's getting rich. I think that Firefox, Linux and MySQL users would disagree with this, as would I. It's true that many open source project never achieve professional-quality polish, but that's mostly an issue of poor project management and leadership. I think you only have to look at the work HappyKillmore did on the ArduPilot configuration utility, or how Mike Black improved our GCS to see this: I'd argue that both are better than any of the ground station and configuration utilities from the commercial players in our space (and some, including Flexipilot, don't have groundstations at all). Note that these contributions were made not because someone was getting paid, but because the contributors had their own reasons to want better software. And because we set an open source standard, they chose to share their work so that others could build on it. So, to sum up: I understand why commercial developers dislike the entry of an open source project into their market and hope it will fail. But the trend lines are clear on this one: open source is here to stay and is spreading, mostly because it leads to more, cheaper products faster. ArduPilot, for example. went from concept to maturity (with the 2.5 code, now in the hands of beta testers) in a year, including a full suite of supporting tools. There is no commercial autopilot that has come close to that speed of development. And as the DIY Drones community grows and our tools of group development improve, we are extending that to a host of new products created by the members here. To hire this many engineers would be ruinous, but by creating a community of shared interest and a culture of collaboration, we can do so at almost no cost at all. It's really quite magical. Can commercial companies compete with this? I think they can, by offering more "plug and play" solutions, as Krzysztof has done with EasyUAV. Don't try to sell expensive apples to compete with our cheap apples; instead, sell oranges, with shiny bows on top. There's a market for both, and I think commercial developers would do well to find ways to do things that open source can't or don't do well, rather than just wishing that we'd go away.
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Shrediquette open source tricopter

Posted by Howard Gordon on November 30, 2009 at 11:31am

Tricopter - The Movie... from W. Thielicke on Vimeo.

From http://www.lecun.org/blog/index.php?entry=entry091130-130224..."The Shrediquette is a tri-rotor helicopter built by William Thielike from Germany. William is a PhD student in biology, who seems to have many talents: micro-controller system design, control, mechanical design, flying contraption construction, as well as film making.His tricopter is built around an Arduino Pro Mini micro-controller. Oddly, William didn't use the Arduino development tool and C/C++ programming language: he wrote his software in Bascom, a dialect of BASIC.The yaw control is performed by rotating the tail boom with a servo. This very unlike the more conventional servo-less yaw control of quadcopters, but it's practically unavoidable for tricopters.Much of the material is available for download, including the schematics, the PC board Eagle files, and the Bascom source code."
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Outback Challenge - Who's up for a run??

Posted by Scott Plunkett on November 30, 2009 at 9:43am
So some time has passed, and I have a nagging in the back of my mind - why couldn't we field an Outback Challenge Team? We are already working on several projects, and combined we have a PILE of UAS time in the air. We could even purpose-design the entire system; airframe, autopilot, all of it from ongoing projects or designs here on DIYDRONES. I have no doubt we could raise a little money and could field a competitive team. I know we are spread all over the world, and that this is all OpenSource...but what better way to prove that this type of collaboration really can produce world-class results.Sooo...who's in?? Seriously, I'm in - and looking for compatriats!
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Beginner with $650

Posted by Giles Barton-Owen on November 29, 2009 at 3:09am
My aim is to make a simple Ardupilot setup on a EasyStar for strictly £400 or $650 (but shipping is expensive globally as I'm in the UK). I have the Fidi programmer and reasonable Arduino experience so thats not a problem but I want to know, for instance whether the 4Hz GPS is worth the extra $100 etc. (I already have the 32 Channel LS20031 GPS 5Hz Receiver carried by sparkfun) and a Spectrum DX5e w/ receiver.Any mods to the EasyStar worth doing to start with? (I can get it for £80 inc. delivery)I know that its probably covered else where but not all in one place.Any comments would be much obliged.
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Exploitation of a Unique VTOL UAV Concept – Feedback Please!

Posted by Ashley BRYANT on November 29, 2009 at 1:14am
We are developing a unique, patented VTOL [Vertical Take-Off & Landing], UAV [Unmanned Aerial Vehicle] specifically targeted at urban, mountainous and maritime environments. Full details of the concept and business case can be found in a slide presentation under the SlideShare section of my LinkedIn profile… http://www.linkedin.com/in/ashleycbryant. There is also a video which can again be accessed from my LinkedIn profile or from You Tube with the following url… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4mmFas3jsgIWe secured a high level of interest from the UK MOD on this exciting concept. However, the devastating effects of the credit crunch have impacted the UK governments’ ability to further invest in this technology at present. As a consequence, we are therefore looking to license this technology and/or partner with a larger industry player. If you have any thoughts therefore as to where we should be directing our efforts for future project funding and any advice on key investor contacts who may have an interest investing in this technology, whether government or commercial, you views and advice would be appreciated.
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