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GPS Emulator Now Outputs uBlox and NMEA sentences

Posted by Paul Mather on November 28, 2009 at 11:30pm
uBlox_u-Center.gifThe GPS Emulator v1.2.0 that's part of Remzibi's OSD Configuration software now supports uBlox emulation. It has the option to enable NAV-VELNED, NAV-POSLLH and NAV-STATUS (which are the 3 messages ArduPilot uses for positioning).ConfigTool.zip <- Includes GPS Emulator v1.2.4EDIT: Here are all the sentences the emulator currently supportsNMEA$GPRMC - Recommended Minimum Specific GPS/TRANSIT Data$GPGGA - Global Positioning System Fix Data$GPGLL - Geographic Position, Latitude/Longitude$GPVTG - Track Made Good and Ground Speed$GPZDA - UTC Date / Time and Local Time Zone Offset$GPGSA - GPS DOP and Active Satellites$GPGSV - GPS Satellites in ViewuBloxNAV-VELNED - Velocity, Speed and Heading in LLANAV-POSLLH - Latitude, Longitude and AltitudeNAV-STATUS - GPS Fix and DGPS statusNAV-SVINFO - Satellite DetailNAV-SOL - GPS Fix, Latitude, Longitude and Altitude in ECEF and Velocities in ECEFNAV-DOP - Dillution of PrecisionNAV-POSECEF - Latitude, Longitude and Altitude in ECEFNAV-VELECEF - Velocity in ECEFNAV-CLOCK - Clock Solution (not sure why you'd use this)NAV-TIMEGPS - GPS Clock InformationNAV-TIMEUTC - Full UTC Time/Date InformationSample Output*** uBlox 12/2/2009 4:41:50 PM = UTC: 214150.296 ***NAV-VELNED : B5 62 01 12 24 00 58 F2 1A 14 FC 06 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 FC 06 00 00 FC 06 00 00 00 00 00 00 11 01 00 00 00 51 25 02 3F 00NAV-POSLLH : B5 62 01 02 1C 00 58 F2 1A 14 B0 4D A1 CF AC D5 1F 1D E0 93 04 00 E0 93 04 00 06 17 00 00 3C 24 00 00 2C F5NAV-STATUS : B5 62 01 03 10 00 58 F2 1A 14 03 DD 00 00 C4 05 00 00 1D 83 00 00 D5 6ENAV-SVINFO : B5 62 01 30 C8 00 58 F2 1A 14 10 01 00 00 00 04 0D 04 10 48 05 00 D6 FB FF FF 01 0A 0D 07 28 56 5A 01 BF FF FF FF 02 0D 0D 07 20 52 E6 00 FC 02 00 00 03 17 0D 07 32 57 48 00 07 02 00 00 04 12 0D 04 14 29 59 01 5F FF FF FF 05 19 0D 04 13 2B 0E 00 0A 01 00 00 06 0B 0D 07 1A 58 DF 00 24 02 00 00 07 0E 0D 04 0C 16 0C 00 61 FD FF FF 08 20 0D 07 22 59 35 01 65 02 00 00 09 05 00 01 00 1A 46 00 25 00 00 00 0A 18 04 03 09 0A 95 00 2D 00 00 00 0B 14 0D 07 1A 43 AD 00 50 FE FF FF 0C 06 0D 04 15 40 39 00 9A 01 00 00 0D 10 0D 04 19 2E 62 01 FC 00 00 00 0E 1D 0D 04 10 44 74 00 82 FC FF FF 0F 07 0D 04 12 4B C2 00 DD FB FF FF 0F 08NAV-SOL : B5 62 01 06 34 00 58 F2 1A 14 25 D0 FD 01 18 06 03 DD CA CD DA 03 F8 51 3D E7 CF D5 7E 1C EC 04 00 00 FC 06 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 36 01 00 00 DC 00 00 10 42 49 00 00 63 51NAV-DOP : B5 62 01 04 12 00 58 F2 1A 14 C7 00 DB 00 61 00 B5 00 5C 00 49 00 3C 00 28 3CNAV-POSECEF: B5 62 01 01 14 00 58 F2 1A 14 CA CD DA 03 F8 51 3D E7 CF D5 7E 1C E2 04 00 00 93 96NAV-VELECEF: B5 62 01 11 14 00 58 F2 1A 14 FC 06 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 18 01 00 00 B9 D2NAV-CLOCK : B5 62 01 22 14 00 58 F2 1A 14 EF 74 FF FF 4A 00 00 00 0B 00 00 00 5E 06 00 00 C9 D7NAV-TIMEGPS: B5 62 01 20 10 00 58 F2 1A 14 D6 AF 13 01 18 06 0F 07 0D 00 00 00 83 A1NAV-TIMEUTC: B5 62 01 21 14 00 58 F2 1A 14 0D 00 00 00 F0 2B 8D 02 D9 07 0C 02 15 29 32 07 CA C7*** NMEA 12/2/2009 4:41:50 PM = UTC: 214150.296 ***$GPRMC,214150.296,A,4851.7535,N,08109.0744,W,34.8,0,021209,003.1,W*46$GPGGA,214150.296,4851.7535,N,08109.0744,W,1,16,0.9,300,M,0,M,,*76$GPGLL,4851.7535,N,08109.0744,W,214150.296,A*23$GPVTG,0,T,348,M,34.8,N,64.4,K,A*25$GPZDA,164150.296,02,12,2009,4,0*52$GPGSA,A,3,04,10,13,23,18,25,11,14,32,,24,20,2.21,0.93,1.79*0E$GPGSV,4,1,16,4,72,005,14,10,86,346,41,13,82,230,31,23,87,072,49*4C$GPGSV,4,2,16,18,41,345,21,25,43,014,21,11,88,223,24,14,22,012,12*73$GPGSV,4,3,16,32,89,309,34,5,26,070,0,24,10,149,8,20,67,173,24*41$GPGSV,4,4,16,6,64,057,20,16,46,354,27,29,68,116,15,7,75,194,16*71
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3D Robotics

ArduIMU+ V2 on sale ($99)!

Posted by Chris Anderson on November 28, 2009 at 6:30am
ArduIMU+ V2 (flat version) is now priced at $99, which is $30 less than its orginal price. It was already the cheapest IMU/AHRS on the market, but no there's no excuse not to get one (or more!) to integrate into your own projects. The current version now has the high-pass filter removed, which was reducing the effeciency of the DCM code in earlier versions--so it's now even better! This is an unbeatable deal ;-)
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3D Robotics

Dealing with spammers on DIY Drones

Posted by Chris Anderson on November 28, 2009 at 5:00am
Folks, you may have seen that the price of DIY Drones' increasing traffic and Page Rank is that the spammers are now targetting us pretty regularily. As a result, I've had to turn on moderation for blog posts. That means that when you post, it won't show up until a moderator (there are a couple dozen of them) approves it. Hopefully, that will always be within an hour. Sorry for the inconvinence! (This doesn't affect the discussion forum, which the spammers don't seem to target)
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THIS WEEK IN AEROSPACE

Posted by Jack Crossfire on November 27, 2009 at 6:00pm
BATTLE OF THE C328

So fabricated this board to see if the wrapping wire & radio interference was making the C328 unreliable. It writes all the control codes for the C328 to make it output continuous JPEGs.

Sadly, it's no more reliable than the previous methods. The C328 needs exact baud rates. It can't convert the 115740 from a PIC into 115200. The set baudrate command isn't very reliable either.You're looking at spending tons of money on a crazy 14.7456Mhz crystal or sending all codes including ACKs over XBees. XBees seem to do exact baud rates.

In the end, got rid of the airborne microprocessors & just passed the XBees directly to the C328. Reduced their baud rate to 57600 & increased the C328 package size to 384. The trick is to send data slow enough to not overload the XBees & send the largest packages possible before the C328 crashes. This gives 7 seconds per frame, slightly faster than 115200 & 128 byte packages.The ground XBee is locking up from packet collisions. It needs frequent power cycles. If by some miracle taxes only go up 4% next year, we might have enough dough for crazy crystals.This is our C328 software. It does everything from full control on the ground to full control on the airframe.video.tarTHE MARCY MANEUVERTo conserve battery power, it's basically a 3m/s descent to 33m, 1m/s descent to 10m, & 0.5m/s to ground. The 33m transition lets you descend into your downwash without smashing into the ground. This was the 1st flight using it, a very low nose pitch caused the radio to drop out at a certain high altitude, followed by execution of the Marcy Maneuver to quickly get back down.

Here's the radio graph.

Here's the altitude showing the tapering at 33m.XBEE DIVERSITY BUSTED

Tried making an XBee diversity system. Fortunately it didn't cost anything.

Mocked up with switching circuits.

Switcher thrown in the ground station.

Ground station with dual XBees.

Aircraft with dual XBees.

The switcher. It must use 2N2222 transistors, not 2N3904.Unfortunately, it was a total failure. Each switching circuit worked when tested separately with 1 XBee. With all 4 XBees connected, nothing worked. It also had other problems. It was a ton of extra electronics, wires, stuff that can break. It should really be done on the main board instead of another breakout board. It probably needed another voltage regulator.Even though both XBees were on different frequencies, they probably detected enough power on the channels to back off. There could also be crosstalk in our UART multiplexer.Another problem is to be most effective, each transmitter would need 2 receivers rotated at 90deg, bringing the hardware to 8 Xbees. Since our problem isn't fuselage obstruction but antenna polarity, you probably don't need diversity as much as turnstile antennas, but this requires a quadrature hybrid.Time to "back off" of diversity & look at antenna placement or alternative radios. Merely keeping the antenna unobstructed by anything including foam may be enough.Here is our diversity switcher firmware.diversity.tarGOODBYE XBEETook a roundabout path, but finally got those MRF49XA's to work.

The transmitter.

The receiver.

They do indeed reach all the way across the apartment atleast. These were intended as single chip radio modems for an indoorcopter & super cheap XBee replacements, hopefully without the lockupproblems.The trick is to copy the reference software & ignore the datasheet. Thegame is all about setting a low enough baud rate & a high enough SPIrate so the FIFO's are kept up to date. If the transmit FIFO empties,it transmits 0x00. If the receive FIFO overflows, you drop bytes.The rate at which it fills & empties FIFOs is determined by the baudrate register, DRSREG. Both receiver & transmitter need the same baudrate.All communication can be done with just the SPI interface, ignoring theINT, FINT, FSK pins that the demo uses.To make it run fast, you have to use the extra pins in addition to SPI.Lowering the FSK pin causes SPI to read directly from the receive FIFOinstead of the register memory. The alternative to the FSK pin isreading the RXFIFOREG register.You also need the FINT & the INT pins to know if the receive FIFO hasdata. The alternative to the FINT & INT pins is polling the STSREGregister.It has some odd tricks like how all the registers are 16 bits framed byCS pulses, but for the TXBREG register you can write bytes indefinitelyin a single CS pulse & those bytes are transmitted.It's designed for packet communication. It scans the incoming signalfor a 2 byte start code. Then it begins filling the receieve FIFO withthe incoming signal, including the start code, until you reset the startcode scanner. You can also scan the entire incoming signal yourself.When no transmitter is on, it outputs noise in the FIFO.With pure SPI, no interrupt lines, 6 MIPS microprocessors, & wrapping wire, got 60kbps out of them.This is our firmware, which is supposed to run on the same chip as the flight controller.mrf49xa.tarMORE EXTREME ALTITUDEDid several pirouettes at a very high altitude in a secret country whereit's allowed. These were demos of high altitude capability butpirouetting video is not the reason for doing it. It's for gettingbetter images of M.M. world headquarters.This was higher altitude coverage of the area around M.M's dishes but notas high as the previous video. Made a point of documenting thisland before it was completely developed.

Some secret shots from a secret location.

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Ardupilot Ground Station 2.6.4 A&B New Look

Posted by Dr Mike Black on November 27, 2009 at 6:30am

Hi All,Been hanging around here for quite a while now and gleaning as much information as i can, maybe its time to give something back.One of the biggest problems we found was that when in the field, its hard to get all the information where you need it, re-sizing all the windows, if you touch the pad, you can lose the window you want, always the GS, hard to find the pointer to bring it back, when you have one eye on the aircraft one eye on this...So this is my attempt..I hope its usefull to you.Please give feedback as to you thoughts and any improvements.GROUND STATION 2.6.4 UPDATE::1024x768 GCS for smaller LaptopsTrue speed indicator updated for greater accuracyYou can set True speed to MPH/KMH (defaults to KMH) & Altitude to Meters/feet (default Meters)Tme Left estimator, a better accuracy with a new gauge. (you need to set Amps FT to what your aircraft draw flat out)Amps / Watts added (again needs to be set up bottom left with your cell count and Mah)Complete colour re-design for ease of view outside, on a sunned out dull laptop.THINGS TO DO:Fix the irritation, when you click the FIND UAV button so that it auto pops to the position, at the mo you have to double click the position in GE then the GS rotates to where it needs to be. STILL NOT FIXEDFlight trackin. STILL NOT FIXEDSorting some innacuracies with Time estimator. BETTERAP Mode being added on 265Enjoy.Try MY Version GE and DONT update it!!!!! this might solve the GE window fro a couple of you guys....I know that GE changes the Callin API about as often as they change underware........so has been a problem fro all integrators...however as i said before in NOT a programmer, 30 years as an aerodynamcist aircraft designer, and 4 years as a military field asset, so please forgive my crude programming.Thanks to the 'Crashing Dutchman' for updating the look and feel.GCS264a Source.zipGCS264a.zip 1024/768 resolutionGCS264b not uploaded yetGoogleEarthWin.exeLV 8.5 or 8.5.1 works available by google search or just in the last line of top of this page : Runtime or8.5 is Here (thanks Morli)Doc.
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3D Robotics

Arduino in the Wall Street Journal

Posted by Chris Anderson on November 26, 2009 at 10:13pm
Cool WSJ coverage of our chosen platform, which has won the open source hardware stakes so far. Excerpt: "The Arduino represents an early entrant in the emerging open-source hardware movement, which like Linux and other open-source software projects is driven by the belief that allowing duplication is a better way to spur innovation than keeping designs under lock and key. Its success suggests that the open-source model could provide a new way for manufacturers to develop and improve upon products. The main producer of the Arduino is Smart Projects Snc, based in the tiny town of Scarmagno, Italy. This year, the two-person firm is on track to sell at least 60,000 of the microcontrollers, which retail for at least $30 a piece, up from 34,000 last year. Owner Gianluca Martino, an electrical engineer, has had to contract out much of the production to keep up with growth."
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3D Robotics

New Arduino GPS shields from Sparkfun and Adafruit

Posted by Chris Anderson on November 26, 2009 at 3:00pm
A couple new GPS shields for Arduino have just come on the market. The first is the Sparkfun GPS shield. It's a basic shield, which allows other shields to be stacked on it. No code is provided, although you can use ArduPilot code for our GPS parser. It comes with an EM406 connector, so you can use either the EM406 or the uBlox5 with our adapter. $16.95 The second is a new version (1.1) of the AdaFruit GPS shield with SD-card logger. This one improves on the original version with a better level shifter for the SD card, which should make it comptible with more cards. It's highly recommended that you use this with a Atmega328-based Arduino, rather that the Atmega168, since the limited memory in the Atmega168 makes it difficult to add any code but the most basic GPS logging. With the Atmega328, you can simultaneously log other data, such as other sensors. Also designed for the EM406 or the uBlox with our adapter. $19.95
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3D Robotics

Open Hardware Camp in London on Dec 4

Posted by Chris Anderson on November 26, 2009 at 6:34am
ArduPilot and Paparazzi folks in the UK may be interested in attending this Open Hardware Camp. From Adafruit: "OpenBusiness is planning for 40Fires in partnership with Nesta a conference on Open Hardware on the 4th of December. The conference is an opportunity to edcuate engineers, tinkerers and designers alike on Open Hardware, a growing frontier in the field of innovation. It is also a platform for experts of Open Hardware to exchange ideas and solutions to further improve upon the workings of Open Hardware. Open Hardware works under the same framework as Open Source Software. The design is open the the public, where a virtual community of contributors could modify or build upon the existing design. Some existing projects will be showcased throughout the conference to give a basic gist of how Open Hardware functions. "
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3D Robotics

Reminder: last few days to enter the T3-3 contest

Posted by Chris Anderson on November 26, 2009 at 6:30am
The deadline for the current T3 contest (break the Stanford UAV altitude record) is Sunday the 30th, and there's no better way to use your Thanksgiving days off (if you're in the US) than to enter. We already have a number of people who have broken the record (including, just today, Mark Griffin) and they'll all get prizes, with the top prize going to the highest altitude. Going forward, the T3 contests will be six weeks, not four, to allow for vagaries of weather and people's available flying time.
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Finally first working OSD firmware dedicated to Ardupilot

Posted by remzibi on November 25, 2009 at 3:54pm
OKThe first working firmware for OSD to display raw data from Ardupilot seems to work now .This firmware should also work with ArduIMU - but I had no chance to check it - I have not arduIMU - I hope Paul will do this .The main problem for me - is that I do not understand well how actually ardupilot works .At summer Jordi tryed to made me an expalanations but i lose all that emails :( , hard to say but I have not enought information about ardupilot and his way of work (lastly I had no time as the main reason of my incompetence) .What are exactly all this data means ? :!!!LAT:50017380,LON:20002444,SPD:19.00,CRT:0.00,AL T:0,ALH:0,CRS:8.00,BER:185,WPN:0,DST:1933,BTV:12.45,***+++ASP:0,THH:85,RLL:60,PCH:-60,***+++ASP:0,THH:85,RLL:60,PCH:-60,***+++ASP:0,THH:85,RLL:60,PCH:-60,***+++ASP:0,THH:85,RLL:60,PCH:-60,***+++ASP:0,THH:85,RLL:60,PCH:-60,***and when ardupilot is ready to fly - how it save his home position ? I need this for display - also can be nice one more info about SAT quantity .As any of you gentelmens , know how the ardu works and what represent all this data for - please let me explain (exept DST, ALT, SPD PTH RLL) - that I suppose to already know .here is the screen shot :uvs091125_001_169.gifSome more immpressions can be read and firmware can be dowloaded here - http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showpost.php?p=13667448&postcount=294
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Developer

How to remove the High Pass Filter from your ArduIMU and Razor boards.

Posted by Jordi Muñoz on November 25, 2009 at 3:30pm
Some details you must remember:-Your solder skills must be advance or medium-advance to attempt this.-If you try to do it with your razor remember that you will void your warranty with SparkFun.-The same with ArduIMU, if you can't do it i will for you (free of charge).-Not all the ArduIMU's flats have high pass filters, please double check. Check if the HP resistors are already gone.To remove the capacitors and the resistors is pretty easy. First try to set the highest temp possible in your iron, then just apply heat in any of the side of the capacitor/resistors, the heat will spread in both ends melting the soldering in both sides, then just push it carefully. Try not to apply to much pressure or you may blow away the pad. I recommend to practice with the resistors first (the black ones), because if you blow away the pad it really doesn't matter (are not needed anyway), then try later with the capacitors (the brown ones), very, very carefully.Now you must make a bridge in the capacitor pads. There's many ways to it, use any wire or piece of metal to make the bridge and apply soldering to keep it there. I used breadboard cable.The next hi-res pictures indicates which components you must remove, the red arrows are the resistors and the yellow/green arrows are the capacitors. Good luck!

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High tech bird watching: small is beautiful

Posted by Reto on November 25, 2009 at 1:38pm
Hey, for those interested in miniaturization, tech and flying things, here's the smallest complete long term GPS logger I've found around and developed for tracking peregrinations of living birds:1.5 grams and 30x13.5x5mm in dimension, including: GPS, antenna, 512KByte Memory for 25,000 x 20 bytes locations, no microprocessor, battery + solar cell. No photo is yet available.It can be implemented on a living bird as light as 30 grams (the logger shouldn't exceed 5% body weight).It is developed and produced by T-Sheperd Solutions and will be available soon.Maybe of use for folks developing a nanoUAV?
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3D Robotics

Location-aware, swattable helibot

Posted by Chris Anderson on November 25, 2009 at 12:06pm
Carnegie Mellon's SensorFly inlcudes a full IMU and an ultrasonic sensor in just 29 grams. Designed for interior autonomy and swarming. Impressive! "The SensorFly is a novel low-cost controlled-mobile aerial sensor networking platform. A flock of these 29g autonomous helicopter nodes with communication, ranging and collaborative path determination capabilities, can be extremely useful in sensing survivors after disasters or adversaries in urban combat scenarios." (From Makezine)
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3D Robotics

Obama's new science education initiative features Blimpduino!

Posted by Chris Anderson on November 24, 2009 at 11:30pm

Yesterday, President Obama announced an “Educate to Innovate” campaign, including “National Lab Day” in the US. First among the projects they recommend for aspiring young engineers and scientists is Blimpduino! From the release: "President Obama has launched an “Educate to Innovate” campaign to improve the participation and performance of America’s students in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). This campaign will include efforts not only from the Federal Government but also from leading companies, foundations, non-profits, and science and engineering societies to work with young people across America to excel in science and math. As part of the campaign, this Administration hopes to do a series of events, announcements and other activities that build upon the President’s “call to action” and address the key components of national priority. " Here is the transcript of the President's remarks.
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Steve Morris of MLB (spyplanes.com) joins us on this week's podcast (VTOL UAVs and more)

Posted by Tim Trueman on November 24, 2009 at 12:49am
iTunes linksAAC: http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=330632997MP3: http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=330633212RSS feedAAC: http://feeds.feedburner.com/diydronesMP3: http://feeds.feedburner.com/diydronesmp3Steve Morris of MLB joins us to talk about his VTOL UAV, ITAR export regulations and the nuisances of being in the UAV business.Check out the awesome videos of his VTOL UAV on http://www.spyplanes.com/.In ten episodes we've surpassed 100GB of downloads and had a total of 223 people tune in live at some point during this last episode (with about 80 people at one time)! Incredible...
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Moderator

Anybody able to guess what this is??

Posted by Gary Mortimer on November 22, 2009 at 9:47pm

I can't tell you exactly where it is, but I can tell you there are only 75 in South Africa and we managed to fly bang over the top of it at first attempt yesterday.There is a good reason for only posting a low res image as well.All in all a very exciting use for sUAS in Africa and exactly what we set out to do. There will be stacks of environmental uses for sUAS
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