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Flying with ArduPilot onboard

Posted by Jean-Louis Naudin on November 2, 2009 at 8:48am

Hello to All,The purpose of this blog is to share with you some feedbacks about my flights experiences with the ArduPilot onboard.ArduPilot on EasyGlider videos :Flight plan mode, Fail Safe and RTH mode has been tested with the ArduPilot :http://diydrones.com/video/flight-plan-mode-fail-safe-andEasyGlider flight with ArduPilot in windy conditions:http://diydrones.com/video/easyglider-flight-withPhotos Album :http://diydrones.com/photo/albums/ardupilot-flight-on-easygliderRegards,Jean-Louis NaudinEmail: JeanLouisN777@diydrones.comDIY DRONES home page : http://diydrones.com/profile/JeanLouisNaudin
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80" Wing - suitable as a platform for UAV

Posted by Mathew Wellington on November 2, 2009 at 1:00am
Work has stared on a 80" Flying RiteWing - based on a TL60 with an added 20" centre Section.Powerplant will be 4S 10300 mah Lipo, at about 800 watts full throttle, but should cruize at 200 watts, so about 45 minutes flying time. Expected weight is 3.5 kg, and should be able to carry a fair bit more payloadThe wings remove, so transport is only 2 x 30" wing sections and one 20" centre section.The Wings only house one digital full size servo each, so nice an simple, everything else is in the centre section.Also will be running (removable) landing gear.Build photos so far :-)

The full build thread is here http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1129487 and also here http://www.parkflyers.org.nz/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=557&forum=9&post_id=9869#forumpost9869After she is flying will use as a platform to get into auto-pilots, starting with a RTL function
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TERN UAV 3 details for the 3D experts?

Posted by Wendi Smol on November 1, 2009 at 2:12pm
Hi allhere are some detail infos for the TERN fuselage, which may help to make some 3D drawings. All my drawings are done in Corel and can export in DXF or PDF format, so these formats are here as well. I would appreciate if you could give me some feed back of what helps you.

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Banana Hobbies Super Easy Fly aka ST Models ROC Electric RC Model Plane AP Platform

Posted by James Harwood on November 1, 2009 at 1:30pm
I bought this large electric powered glider with the intention of using it for AP/AV and FPV.The end goal is to install ArduPilot. I would like to use this platform to get aerial photos of crops. I know there are many possibilities for this platform, and I am still researching.This is how the plane looks stock as I have it now.Specification:Wingspan: 2580mm (101.5 inch)Length: 1410mm (55.5 inch)Wing Area: 67.3dm² (1043 in²)Wing Loading: 22g/dm² (7.2 oz/ft² )Flying Weight: 1480g (52 oz)Drive System: 1000KV Brushless MotorSpeed Controller: 18amp ESCServo: 4X 9g high speed micro servosBattery: 11.1V 1800mAh Li-PoControl system: 4 CH Multifunctional FM Radio Transmitter and ReceiverRadio Control Range: 3000 feet (1000m)Flying Speed: 12m/s (27 mile/hr)Flying Time: Approx. 30 minutes


For my FPV camera, I have this:
I have a 2.4 wireless Cam set up called the Draganfly Eyecam.DF-Eyecam_1.jpg
DF-Eyecam_2.jpgSpecifications:Camera and transmitter weight: only 9 gramsCamera and transmitter size: 15mm x 22mm x 32mm (5/8" x 7/8" x 1 1/4")Camera Lux: <3 @ f1.2Camera Auto Electronic Exposure of 1/60 to 1/15000 sec. w/ Auto Gain & White BalanceCamera Signal to Noise Ratio:48dB365K (PAL) camera pixel resolutionWireless Transmission Range: 300M (1000'), Line-Of-SightTransmitter RF Output Power: EC R&TTE Compliantreceiver Video Input/Output: 1Vp-p/75 ohmSee More Info Here.I plan to use these as my first Goggles. They are cheap but should work fine for now.i-glassesonline_2075_1674614
Specifications:Video input format: NTSC/PAL/SECAM automatic selectionVirtual Image Size: 50 Inches as seen from 6 ½ feetResolution: 230,000 pixels per LCDColor Depth: 24-bit inputViewing Angle: 26 degrees diagonalVideo Input: Composite AVAudio: Dual-channel stereoPower Supply: Built in 480mAH rechargeable batteryPower Consumption: <0.45WNet Weight: 4.2 Oz (119g)
More info here

Thats where I am so far. Yeah I know I have a long way to go!I found this member of diydrones today! I was really excited to see he was using the same basic platform.He is doing exactly what I want to do!!!!!!!!! How cool. Check out his project and you will see what I am trying to accomplish. As I progress, I will update this post. Feel free to drop tips and advice - they will be much appreciated.
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I just found my internet home!

Posted by James Harwood on November 1, 2009 at 11:00am
I can't believe the treasure of information, and people that make up this website. I am so excited to have found it. I plan to be an active member from this day forward.I am an eager beginner to all this. I have been flying RC Airplanes for only about 3 years now, and have always had my eye on the goal of using an RC airplane to get aerial photographs and video. I am completely obsessed with accomplishing this goal! :)Here is how I progressed so far in the hobby.I started with Air Hogs brand two channel planes. They were cheap and gave me the basics of flight.Here are the ones I have had or have:

Next I bought this "Fastlane Avionic", a two channel plane with rudder control for turns and throttle control for climb. It was fun, but hard to control. It didn't have throttle differential so controlling altitude was a challenge. I crashed this plane badly, and when I went online looking for parts I found out the product was discontinued. BUT - it is now sold by Megatech and is called "Cosmic Flyer". I ordered the parts I needed to fix this plane up recently and am excited to fly it! Again this was a cheap plane and it helped me get better understanding of flight. (Lost Cosmic Flyer/Avionic in a tree after the rebuild - I will miss this little airplane.)

Next I bought a Hobby Zone SuperCub.

This is an excellent 3 channel trainer. I took it to a high school football field near my house and taught myself to fly there. The plane has a "auto pilot" feature that uses two sensors to see the ground and sky. If you dive or climb, or turn too sharp it takes control and gets your plane stable again. I found it to be disasterous for my first few flights so I removed it. Now I fly pretty well...and I am ready to put a camera on this plane and get some pictures.Most recently I bought a 102" powered glider called a Super Easy Fly.


Another of the same plane but in french.It is 4 channels with full throttle, aileron, rudder and elevator control. I am interested in using this platform for my photo/video but I have been reading terrible reviews on the plane. People say the dihedral on the arelons causes the ESC to get super hot. I haven't flown mine yet. It is all put together and hanging where I can look at it, but so far I haven't been able to arrange a good day off from work to go try it out.I am still looking for the perfect platform.Lately I have seen the HawkEye system to be FANTASTIC and have been saving money to get one.I wonder if it could be set up with all the fancy autopilot stuff?Also, Mike Powers from Whispershots.com has AMAZING platforms. He has been very kind to tell me where to get his plans in kit form and I am going to be ordering very very soon!The one I like the most is the Passive system.

You can see it here http://whispershots.smugmug.com/gallery/8254126_gnHh7/1/505079989_XuKY2/MediumI have also been told by Mr. Powers that the LoRyder system is really good for flying in congested areas. Ill be looking to get as much overtime as possible at work! :)I have two teenage sons that are also interested in UAVs, We want to some day operate a small business together doing low altitude aerial photography.As I pursue the attainment of my goal, I look forward to meeting members of this community and learning from your experiences, and sharing mine, as limited as they may be. I have a massive amount of information to digest here, but this community seems to be the resource I have needed so badly.Feel free to contact me about any thing at any time.James
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Problem with Hobby Zone Super Cub FOUND!

Posted by James Harwood on November 1, 2009 at 8:33am
Since I bought my Super Cub, I have had a recurring problem. During flight - and ONLY during flight, sometimes the rudder or elevator will just do its own thing - locking up in full deflection one way or the other and. Usually this leads to a downward spiral into the ground and a trip to the hobby store. My girlfriend thinks I just suck as a pilot and should give it up - lol - but its not me! Its an electronic issue that has now been solved (3 days after I ordered a brand new replacement plane from HZ).Anyway, if you own a super cub and have had this problem....here you go. This is the answer.http://supercubclub.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=motors&action=display&thread=1631
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Developer

That sinking feeling...

Posted by Jason Short on October 31, 2009 at 6:30pm

Above the Fog from Jason Short on Vimeo.

This is a video of me loosing my plane into the sun and fog for almost 5 minutes. I was just testing my AP that i've been working on over the last month and a half and it was my first flight with working waypoints. I tuned everything way down, but it was working ok so I let it run loops around the T3 course. One thing I turned off for debugging was altitude control. In hindsight, that was a mistake. I could have just dampened it down more, but I shut it off entirely.The plane slowly climbed the entire time and before I realized it was pretty high. Eight minutes into the flight she turned right into the sun and fog bank and I didn't see it again until four and a half minutes later. I was panicking I couldn't take over manual, because it was in the fog. I even thought about running to the car and chasing it until I realized I had no idea where it was. Last I saw it was headed out to sea. I had nothing to do but wait and count the $ to replace it.I stared at the sky for what seamed ten minutes and all of the sudden I saw it gently doing the T3 above me. I put it in FBW and brought it straight down. Enjoy the video, I edited out the 4 minutes of circling. You can hear me fussing with the radio, and I one point I put it in Manual and turned it left in a futile effort to find it. I just put it back into AP and hoped I did a good job. The plane will fly again.
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ROOF CRASH! (Why XBeePRO 900's suck)

Posted by Jack Crossfire on October 30, 2009 at 4:30pm

A routine mission to photograph NASA from our day job almost ended in tragedy as our XbeePRO 900's lost contact & the vehicle headed for a roof.The XbeePRO 900's sucked from day 1. The problem seems to be they only do 50mW compared to the 90mW of the original XBee PRO 2.4Ghz. They also spread the signal more omnidirectionally, making for all around weaker reception.900Mhz normally had 10% packet loss while occasionally getting nothing while the 2.4Ghz normally got all packets & occasionally nothing. You could get better reception by rotating the 2.4Ghz wire antenna in azimuth & keeping it parallel. Rotating the 900Mhz wire antenna didn't really do anything. Finally the 900Mhz interfered more with all the other avionics.Upgrading to the 900Mhz equivalent of an XBee PRO for $42 was too good to be true. You need to unload more money in high gain antennas & haul around a tracking mount in addition to your laptop, batteries, transmitter, & video downlink.Best to stick with 2.4Ghz unless you're loaded with government loans or know someone at AIG.So ignored the warning signs during test flights, insisting the 900Mhz hype was true. Sure enough, while scrutinizing video telemetry, saw the vehicle was suddenly pointing the wrong way & was over a roof. Took manual control, but the radio was gone.We don't do RTL because of the chances of an autopilot malfunction sending it into a human or an engine spinning up on the bench. Best to let it drop if the radio dies.

Fortunately it was 1 of the few non government buildings still inhabited & with tenants who could access the roof.It somehow crashed right side up, mostly undamaged & took 4GB of roof photos. Both main & preview cameras captured the action. If it was a pure autonomous flight, leaving us enough bandwidth to monitor the radio, this wouldn't have happened, but had to play with our $50 UART cam.
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Developer

New Ground Station idea....

Posted by Jordi Muñoz on October 29, 2009 at 8:00pm
Hi there,I been thinking about create a simple and relative ground station to display information in a more useful way.Here is my idea:-Simple reference map, with actual position, distance and heading of the airplane relative to home.-Display waypoints relative to home.-Display information more like an OSD.-In the future click and drag waypoints with real time update (for ardupilot mega).-Overlay photos for offline use.-Multiple Aircrafts?-I would like to create two or three small airplane indicators for pitch, roll and yaw angle in a easy way to read, something like this:

But with real time rotating images,In the meantime you can download and play with the experiment i just did, is in labview 8.2 and 8.6 and also i compiled for Windows:newground.zip.
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Developer

ArduPilot 2.4 Officially Released!

Posted by Jordi Muñoz on October 29, 2009 at 6:24pm
You can download ArduPilot 2.4 + Ground Station Beta 2 from here.I didn't get feedback from the community in the unofficial release, so that means that maybe is working fine.. Please tell me if you spot any bug. ;-)What's new:-Altitude hold improved for my EasyStar.-Free running analogs for better performance.-Now compatible with ArduPilot Shield V2.-Minor bugs.- And more...Todo:-Cross Track Error-More testing.-New GroundStation.........Regards.
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T3

Waypoint firmware for the UAV DevBoard is revised

Posted by William Premerlani on October 29, 2009 at 2:48pm

09038-1_i_ma.jpg

Sigh....I am going to give Peter Hollands an award for finding the "juiciest bug" in the released waypoint firmware for the UAV DevBoard. The bug has been fixed, and the firmware has been re-released as version 1.8b.The bug was in the yaw drift gyro compensation calculation. It would only show up for waypoint legs with a heading between 327 degrees and 360 degrees. The result was that the actual heading would slowly vary between 327 and 360 degrees. The symptoms were barely noticeable.The way that Peter discovered the bug was with a combination of ground testing and telemetry, while he was testing out some really nice programs that he wrote for processing telemetry. Peter noticed an anomoly during ground testing for headings between 327 and 360 degrees.Waypoint firmware for the UAV DevBoard is available in both MatrixNav version 1.8 and AileronAssist version 1.8 from the UAV DevBoard home page, with the following features:• Waypoints are 3D.• Location of the points is specified relative to the initialization location of the board.• You have the option of using either cross-track error navigation, or using navigation toward target waypoints.• Arrival at a waypoint is based on the concept of a "finish line". This produces a reliable assessment of arrival, without any chance of loitering.• The primary source of steering is the direction cosine matrix, so steering continues reliably and smoothly even when the GPS loses lock during banked turns.• Rudder-elevator mixing in MatrixNav, based on the values of the direction cosines, prevents loss of altitude during turns.• You can specify more than 1000 waypoints.Just to be clear, the X and Y coordinates of each waypoint are specified with respect to the power up point. It is not specified with respect to the previous waypoint in the list. The X coordinate is the distance, in meters, along the east direction, from the power up point. The Y coordinate is the distance, in meters, along the north direction, from the power up point.Best regards,Bill Premerlani
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Developer

Orbiting and Turn Prediction

Posted by Jason Short on October 28, 2009 at 1:30pm
I was wondering if anyone had done any work on orbiting or managing turns? I prototyped an idea I had last night about orbiting waypoints and realized the same algorithm works for turn prediction.On my autopilot I have running a drift compensation routine that maps the desired location of the plane onto a line connecting the old waypoint and the next waypoint. I simply look ahead 10% farther on that line and steer toward that point instead of the actual waypoint. This helps me regain course when I'm blown off or miss it entirely.In my simulator I added a check to see which side the next WP is -right or left- and I use a vector rotated 90° to the plane bearing to offset the WP to the left or right. This vector also allows me to orbit the target.Here are some diagrams and a shot from the simulator showing the orbit. If anyone has done this before I'd love to hear about how it went. I hope to fly it this weekend if my replacement ESC ships by Friday.

A screen grab from the SIM


Click to view Flash sim

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CHR-6d Inertial Measurement Unit (6DOF) - with

Posted by Faisal Shah on October 28, 2009 at 11:02am

chr-6d_front_back.jpg

chr-6d_quarter.jpg

http://www.chrobotics.com/CHR6d.phpFEATURES* IMU weighs less than 1.5 grams* .8" x .7" footprint* Customizable FIR digital filter* TTL UART communication interface* 16-bit ADC resolution* +/- 400 deg/s gyro dynamic range* +/- 3 g accelerometer dynamic rangeSophisticated onboard filtering, simple user-interfaceThe CHR-6d Inertial Measurement Unit includes a customizeable Parks-McClellan windowed FIR filter to process sensor data. The filter is easily customized by sending commands over the TTL UART.Open-source firmware makes the CHR-6d fully customizableWhile the CHR-6d comes ready to use, it can also be reprogrammed for specialized applications. In addition to the UART, four extra GPIO pins are routed out for additional flexibility. At 64 Mhz, the onboard ARM Cortex™ processor is fast enough to handle a wide variety of sensing and control tasks.On their products page (http://chrobotics.com/products.php), they also make mention of this :CHR-9d Inertial Measurement UnitComing soon - the CHR-9 line incorporates rate gyro, accelerometer, and magnetometer data to create a self-contained attitude estimation system.No news yet on pricing, but they said it should be available in Oct 2009.
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UAS in the NAS

Posted by automatik on October 27, 2009 at 9:00pm
Link to "report" [PDF]:http://www.auvsi.org/unmannedscience/newsletter/attachments/140/Barnhard_D.pdfQuote:"In the near future we will see unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) operating in the National Airspace System (NAS) seamlessly with manned aircraft in all classes of airspace. To achieve this airspace integration issues must be solved in a safe expeditious manner. There is much to do by all Stakeholders in the coming dec-ade to realize this end. Approaches to Airspace Integration for UAS are herein discussed with potential solutions and the way forward set forth."Interesting read...desired steps but nothing really concrete yet (but I guess it has to start somewgere)
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