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Flight Tests With the EG 2.2

Posted by Bryan Cuervo on July 14, 2009 at 4:02am
I’ve started flight tests with the latest Ardupilot code and hardware and will post my findings in this blog post. Info on my plane and set up can be found HERE. I’ve found the EG 2.2 has similar flight characteristics to the original EasyGlider including the same “reverse roll” and “reverse pitch” settings in the code so these results should help anyone flying the stock glider.A few notes on what I have discovered so far---The throttle immediately kicks in when you switch to WP or RTL mode. There is no “safety” coded into the throttle command such as, no throttle activation below a given altitude or a given speed, so be prepared if you switch from manual mode at the flying field. Also, in the .h file under Throttle gains the throttle_max variable is defined twice. I’m not sure which is used by the code. There are also some corrections to the manual that I posted HERE that may help others in their set ups. Good Luck!

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3D Robotics

Robotic Glider Set To Break Autonomous Flight Records

Posted by Chris Anderson on July 12, 2009 at 5:07pm
From Slashdot: "Dan Edwards, a student at NC State University, is attempting to break two records by creating an autonomous glider. The project goal is a 142-mile cross country flight and a 25-mile flight (with return) without human intervention. The glider finds thermal updrafts and automatically circles them to gain altitude, much like birds and insects do. Recently, the glider flew in the desert for 4.5 hours, covering 70.5 miles by itself using only air currents to stay aloft. Since the NC State demonstration vehicle does not have a motor, this shows real promise for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) that actually have a motor, with possibilities of extending flight duration considerably. Combine daytime soaring with a solar energy system to charge batteries for the night, such as the 84-hour flight by QinetiQ's Zephyr, and you might just get an answer to flying for months on end. With this kind of endurance, the eye in the sky that the city of Lancaster is considering might be even more practical."
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Developer

AttoPilot IR Sensors Now Available!

Posted by Jordi Muñoz on July 12, 2009 at 4:30pm
Attack! But please one unit per person! The demand is so high, be nice with others!To buy it click here please.[Copy/Paste Update]:Also note that FMA XY is $43, the Z sensor wasanother $25, and the cable wasn't included. So that was at least $75with cables. Also, we have to pay a royalty to FMA and don't buy partsat the same volume they do. Plus, of course, FMA doesn't make the Z atall anymore.You might also want to note that our sensors are less than thePaparazzi ones ($125:http://ppzuav.com/osc/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=13_5&products_id=66&osCsid=08841e8ba7cd41f6d279d30be5167e22)and the same price as AttoPilot. Or you can make your own, just buy the 6 thermophiles for about hundred dollars from Digikey (http://search.digikey.com/scripts/DkSearch/dksus.dll?Detail&name=MLX90247ESF-DSA-ND). So basically these are tied for thecheapest full XYZ sensor solution in the world.However, if people want to wait for FMA to bring the XYs back instock, people can always buy two of them and use one as a Z sensor andsave a few dollars. (just ignore one wire).
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Next attempt

Posted by remzibi on July 12, 2009 at 4:00am
Programing Ardu with original USB is easy - modyfications and compiling of sources in Ardu IDE is also easy .First how to connect GPS from OSD to Ardupilot .We must made a small hardware modyfication - add diode to suplly Vcc to GPS module and that all .[img]http://rc-cam.info/files/dioda_213.jpg[/img]dioda_213.jpgNext thing is modyfication in software - so in easystar.h file we must modyfiy line for GPS configuration like that:[code]#define GPS_PROTOCOL 0 [/code]Then in GPS_NMEA file like on picture :[img]http://rc-cam.info/files/symul_comment_740.jpg[/img]symul_comment_740.jpgOn bottom we see information send by Ardupilot - all is working in simulation mode with OSD GPS emulator software using two OTi cables - one is playning GPS with GPS emulator from remzibiOSD PC programand another port is monitoring TX line of Ardupilot .[img]http://rc-cam.info/files/s6301095s_117.jpg[/img]s6301095s_117.jpgAlso GPS is working as well with Ardupilot :[img]http://rc-cam.info/files/s6301098s_212.jpg[/img]s6301098s_212.jpgAs on simulation picture there are ATL problem - all time is 0 so I must to look closer why , maybe this is Ardupilot normal work .So in future - instead of monitoring cable will be pilot's TX to OSD's RX one connection to get Ardupilot data .Ok first practical try is done :) - all works fine , for next I will made some debug printing from Ardupilot and will start practical Ardupilot-OSD cooperation .Lastly - the main problem I have is a very short time I can spend for this nice playing with all this nice toys :) .
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New toy - Ardupilot

Posted by remzibi on July 12, 2009 at 3:30am
Thanks to Jordi (thank you for this possibility :) ) I started play with Ardupilot . The main goal is to connect it to remzibi OSD (poor man's OSD) -http://www.happykillmore.com/Software/faq.asp?LANG=Englishhttp://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=921467in simplest way to Ardupilot , all advantages of both devices must be keeped autopiloting and custom layout config of OSD .s6301014.jpghttp://img14.imageshack.us/my.php?image=s6301014.jpgArdupilot is device designed for autopiloting and was not made for any FPV flight - so GPS originally is very close to autopilot board and VidTX probably also (VidTX is jaming GPS) , but using Video and GPS should be mounted at distance to each other .Ardu by his self are greate source of noise also - so any separation ( LC and RC lopass filter) must be considered for coupling RC RX signals .There is not possible (I do not know why probably IDE reads USB device VID or PID) to made and Ardupilot software update by USB OTi cable (belongs to OSD) - but original USB works OK (however can better) .I already concider to compile bootloader for mega328 as Megaload - will take from memory only 1k , as original ardu bootloader takes 2k now , also any USB-uart or rs232-uart cable will able to use for firmware update . In this case will be possible to use even mega168 Ardu with 2.2.3 software .OTi cable works great as serial monitor for Ardupilot or as debuging or whatever .Will test it more with PC GPS emulator .It is possible to connect remzibi GPS - but must be done some config in software like serial.begin(9600) for older GPS module or serial.begin(38400) for last relase , so in fact is very easy . Hardware change is a one diode on bottom of adru board . The config file changes are very simple .In total - Ardupilot is very nice and flexible device even using Adru IDE for programing - for beginers is even much more easier to use then raw GCC .Ardupilot team made really good job till now - in fact that sources are open - so this solution is real future having autopilot solution .For now ardu 2.2.3 firmaware takes only 14,4k (NMEA GPS) so not even 50% of total memory (32k at mega328) .Next soon .
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3D Robotics

Update on DIY Drones projects

Posted by Chris Anderson on July 11, 2009 at 11:07pm
Jordi and I have been hard at work at some projects over the past couple weeks, which has led to some light posting. My project is my book launch (FREE: The Future of a Radical Price), for which I've been on book tour for the past two weeks and will be for the next two weeks, too. Press stops have included NPR's Fresh Air show with Terry Gross and CNN, and will take me to The Colbert Report (yikes) and the Charlie Rose show over the next two weeks. Jordi's project is still secret (and awesome! announcement in a few weeks, I hope) but in the meantime the good news is that he's now started making the XY and Z sensors and should have them for sale in the DIY Drones store in the next day or two.
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Looking for Help!

Posted by Paul Konz (Needing R&D Partner) on July 10, 2009 at 6:00pm
I am looking for help to build a plane similar similar capabilities found in the BAT 4 UAV (http://www.spyplanes.com/pages_new/products.htm) but on a shoe-string budget.Payload 30 lbs + fuelGPS Guided for route and altitudeRugged and Smart Design for CraftManual or Automatic Takeoff and Landing2-stroke engine11k Foot CeilingFixed Landing Tundra Gear100 Mtr Run WayI have a small gold mine that I am starting up in Ecuador, South America. I would like to co-develop a UAV that could transport super-concentrates and gold ingots from the mine to a secure location for refinement and to market. I have spent most of my budget on the project so we are very limited, until we are in full production.Our problem is that we will have to drive our gold through long winding dirt roads in the Andes Mountains. Roads and assault are a risk for any vehicals driving from a gold mine, even in safe countries like Ecuador. Like the majority of mining companies, a private helicopter is not in our present budget.I do have access to a fairly high tech machining shop and would be glad to fly a tech down here, cover expenses and perhaps forge a partnership to develop a UAV company specific for the needs of precious metals and gems sector. Many developing countries have more relaxed laws concerning drones and are more open to market. I also have friendships with high level military personal involved with government contracts in Ecuador. With the right developer, we might get their attention.I also have many connections in the mining sector including Africa, South America, and Asia. I would be interested in developing a UAV with specific intent to market for the transport of precious minerals and gems from small and medium miners.If you are even remotely interested, lets talk.Cheers!
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Developer

ArduPilot Config Tool Fixed!

Posted by Jordi Muñoz on July 8, 2009 at 12:30pm
After reading several posts from our community describing the issues involved with the ArduPilot confiq. Tool, I guess I’ve spotted (with your help) all the possible problems. Is not just one issue, is a combination between hardware, drivers, settings and software problems. You may experience more than one issue, but only one is enough to make the “Confiq. Tool” not usable.The mistake number one is not enabling the “Set RTS On Close” option located on device manager. One way to know if this option is disabled is when you are able to upload something the first time but the second time will not work!! There’s an explanation for that. This situation may confuse a lot of people, just keep it in mind because happens all the time. Detailed instructions to find this option can be located here.The second mistake is not using the correct drivers. I always install the drivers located inside the Arduino IDE folder (\\arduino-0016\drivers\FTDI USB Drivers), works great and never gave me problems.The third and fourth problem, one of them is Sparkfun mistake(I guess), I do believe this because the first company that used a separated FTDI device to program an Arduino compatible system was Adafruit Industries (Even before DIYdrones was created and Arduino PRO/mini and FTDI Breakout basic exist). They do this because is a lot cheaper to use only one FTDI system to program several Arduino compatible boards, is better than using one +-$15 chips in every board that you may burn!! (I have burned like 10 ardupilots so I have saved more than $100 bucks!).Well this is the big deal; is obvious that SparkFun tried to imitate the FTDI cable because is using exactly the same pin order and labels like “BLK” and “GRN” to indicate the polarity, but wait! There are no black and green lines in their FTDI board, only the original FTDI has the Black and Green cables! If you check the original FTDI cable schematic you will see that they are using the pin “RTS#” to reset Arduino, they have no choice; FTDI will not change this just to satisfy a small group of microcontroller amateurs.

Now Sparkfun (that came’s later) uses the pin “DTR#” instead the “RTS#”, but why? So maybe I’m wrong and they don’t tried to copy the FTDI cable (but I still not understand the wrong labels (BLK and GRN) in their arduino boards).

Anyway I did 30 seconds of research and look for the mother of all the little ducks, the original Arduino board! And I’ve discovered this:

Italians are smart! They use both pins!!! If you see the schematic they are using “DTR#” and “RTS#” connected to reset! Now, I already mention it, FTDI corp. will not change the FTDI cable but… would be nice if SparkFun adds a jumper or something to make it more “universal”. But they don’t have too and is not really necessary, because this issue can be solved by software which means a fixed version of the Confiq. Tool.Now we are imitating 100% by software what Arduino IDE does, and I’m talking about pulling down both signals: “DTR#” and “RTS#”. Thanks to Damon Pipenberg, he was able to change the code and test it in his hardware (Claps Please!). The new fixed utility can be downloaded from here and your problem should be gone. Or you can buy the heavy duty, official and original FTDI cable.Thanks for reading![UPDATE from Chris: 7/11/2009]:Nathan from Sparkfun wrote in with some more explanation, which I'll copy here:"The pro was designed very closely with the Arduino Team. From the beginning, the team wanted to support the DTR reset trick of the Arduino USB boards.Background: Two lines on the Arduino USB board are wired from FTDI to Atmega Reset: DTR and RTS. However, only one of the capacitors is populated - the DTR line. So all the Arudino software (IDE) has been written to wiggle the DTR line to get the ATmega to reset.http://arduino.cc/blog/?p=13To retroactively support this feature, and to attempt to support the (then) growing use of the FTDI cable, team Arduino decided to abandon flow control on the FTDI pinout (CTS/RTS) for the backwards compatible support of the DTR reset trick.Does all that make sense? All of this is noted in the product descriptions of the Pros:http://www.sparkfun.com/commerce/product_info.php?products_id=9220Point: We specifically designed the FTDI Basic to work with Arduino IDE out of the box. You do not have to meddle with windows to use the Arduino USB, Arduino MEGA, or Arduino Pro series. The FTDI cable is a hack. You have to change windows settings to get the FTDI cable to work with Arduino.Jordi - I am not entirely sure what problems you are still running up against. The FTDI Basic works fabulously with all the Pro hardware, and a lot of my own side projects. Do you just need to build in a DTR toggle when your config tool? This would coincide with the way the Arduino IDE resets the ATmega.One solution from the SparkFun side, may be to attach both DTR and RTS to the same pin on the connector through 100ohm resistors. That way if either line goes low, it will pull the 'reset' line low."
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Using the G1 as GPS provider & telemetry for logging or transmitting to ground station

Posted by Maik on July 8, 2009 at 11:00am
We are getting started with ArduPilot and a R/C car to slowly warm up to the autonomous stuff and getting acquainted with ArduPilot. So to keep costs low, we will use my rooted T-Mobile G1 to provide GPS coordinates, accelerometer data, to make a movie, transmit over WiFi or GPRS/UMTS etc. Because I'm lazy I'll just cross-post from xda-developers. The beauty of it is that the serial output from the G1 is 2,8V TTL, so it should very likely work with the ArduPilot, which is 3.3V TTL (I actually haven't tested it yet, just got it working yesterday night). Please see the original post for links and the kernel config.---Okay, I got it working! Instructions are for Ubuntu only, sorry. I believe you need a rooted phone with engineering (or hardspl or comparable fastboot-enabled) bootloader and macpods serial to usb cable (or something comparable).1) Compile Android source with Dream-specifics as described by this. You probably only need prebuilt and kernel, but I'm not very familiar with git and just got everything.2) cd into the kernel directory, copy macpods serial9600config from above as .config there3) "make ARCH=arm CROSS_COMPILE=../prebuilt/linux-x86/toolchain/arm-eabi-4.2.1/bin/arm-eabi- oldconfig" I don't remember if this asks for anything at all, if it does, go with the suggested answers4) "make ARCH=arm CROSS_COMPILE=../prebuilt/linux-x86/toolchain/arm-eabi-4.2.1/bin/arm-eabi-" - You now have a kernel image for Android 1.0 (I think), but for me it works with JFv1.51 as well5) You can now compile fastboot in $ANDROIDSOURCE/system/core/fastboot or grab the precompiled binary from http://android-dls.com/files/linux/fastboot6) Hook up your phone, power off, start with camera+power. Press back when the skating androids appear to switch to fastboot mode.6) Do ./fastboot boot $ANDROIDSOURCE/kernel/arch/arm/boot/zImage and wait. This takes a moment, then it should start.You know should have /dev/ttyMSM2 which you can echo into (echo "hello world" > /dev/ttyMSM2) or listen to (cat /dev/ttyMSM2). For instance, I'm building an Android app that passes GPS coordinates over the console to an ArduPilot board and will provide telemetry to a ground station. Testing it with "Serial port terminal" from the Ubuntu repository works as well (remember to choose 9600 bauds and the right port).Thanks to to macpod for his excellent work, kernel config and help with building the cable, Google for providing such a kick-ass (somewhat) open phone and all the kernel hackers and rooters for their work.I just wrote this from the top of my head, just post if you have trouble getting this to work.
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T3

Barometric altitude sensor

Posted by Krzysztof Bosak on July 7, 2009 at 9:00pm

www.aerialrobotics.eu/altigps/altigps-en.pdfwww.aerialrobotics.eu/altigps/altigps-it.pdfWorks as a GPS translator or standalone.17x28mm.the output is ASCII, NMEA or binary.Contrary to the other solutions, this is the ALTITUDE SENSOR, not just a pressure sensor.The whole job of callibrating, calculating reverse formulas and sensor testing has been done.The idea is that you might have hard time trying to fit altimeter and all associated arithmetic inside current ArduPilot. Nothing easier than parsing ASCII or plugging the module as GPS translator.PLS contact me on kbosak@box43.pl for details.
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WWB UAV Team Introduction

Posted by B. Boswell on July 7, 2009 at 12:06pm
Hello,While I am a teacher at a local high school (Cypress Bay) in Weston, FL, this summer I presented an idea to a small group of motivated students to build a UAV.We were initally motivated to begin this project by Chris Anderson's awesome video from the Maker Faire about the Google campus & UC Berkeley flyovers.We also were fortunate to currently be finalists for a Lemelson-MIT InvenTeams grant. This team was also able to compete successfully at the state level and travel, all expenses paid, to the National Science Bowl in Washington, DC in April 2009.We have one major question: how can we contribute to help others further their research or activities?Our first step was to decide what type of aircraft to employ; we have initially decided to go with a helicopter. This would enable us to achieve our first major goal: videotape or take aerial photos of the campus, football games, etc.However, if anyone can think of a better use for our skill set, we would love to hear how best we can contribute to this fairly nascent field.
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Moderator

Ive started as well

Posted by Gary Mortimer on July 7, 2009 at 7:00am
Just as reminder to myself, when looking back at blog posts in many years time, (am I milking this)Ordered my Ardupilot and Xbees from Cool Components, here in the UK.Bring on integration to an airframe capable of an hours flight with HD on board!I will order a shield and sensors when the later become available.
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Penn State University ArduPilot Project

Posted by Damon Pipenberg on July 6, 2009 at 10:36am
I'm an undergrad EE student at Georgia Tech and this summer I'm working in an aerospace research lab at Penn Sate University, headed by Dr. Jack Langelaan. My project is to outfit a Zagi THL glider with an autopilot system. The reaserch is being funded by the NSF, and the aim is to work on developing open-source autopilot hardware and software, with a goal of having the drones do useful work, such as monitoring meteorological conditionsWe want our autopilot to be based around an IMU. We're using an IMU because we need a system that is more robust than the IR sensors that the ArduPilot is based around. This system will need to be able to stabilize the aircraft in heavy clouds, near mountains, and in other conditions that are likely to fool the IR sensors.We were initially planning on using the Sparkfun 6DOF V4, but due to the availability of the Vectornav VN100, we have decided to use that instead. Connecting either module to the ArduPilot presents a challenge because of the limited IO ports on the ATMega microcontroller. However, while the Sparkfun module only has a UART interface, the VN100 also has SPI, which should make it relatively easy to interface with.The VN100 implements an extended Kalman filter onboard, so we will get an attitude solution from the module, which we will use on the ArduPilot to stabilize the aircraft.Navigation will be accomplished using a GPS, in our case the u-blox 5 module from Sparkfun. This seems to be one of the best chipsets available today, and unlike NMEA, the ubx protocol provides vertical velocity data, which is useful for aircraft navigation.Our airframe is a Zagi THL glider. This is a flying wing, with elevons as the only control srufaces. This makes control of the aircraft slightly more difficult than with an Easystar, as it requires mixing of the control surfaces to execute a level turn. I've attached a photo below.I'll keep this post updated with my progress throughout the summer, and add more details about some of the pieces I'm working on.

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Developer

ArduPilot Config Tool Source Code Released!

Posted by Jordi Muñoz on July 5, 2009 at 9:30pm
The utility was written in Visual C#. I hope somebody familiar with C# is able to test the code in his failing setup and figure out the problem, nothing else, please don't ask me about of how integrate this code to another project because certainly I'm not an expert in C#. This code is intended for dudes that really have a basic knowledge in programming and believe can help. Just remember this code works perfectly in my PC, running Vista and using the Official FTDI cable.ArdupilotConfigTool.zip
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