Grown ups are doing ithttp://www.defenseindustrydaily.com/One-for-All-AAI-Textrons-UAV-Control-System-05412/Maybe there should be a Flying Fox, Ardu, Atto common GCS?? (insert device I have forgotten)Something that allows a group of three people with three different systems on board their airframes to get together and share data.Thinking along way ahead....Pain in the backside if you all turn up at a SAR incident and have to jump seats between GCS to keep three types over the scene continuously.If you see what I mean.I dont have the skills but an open GCS would seem the way to go?
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Today is a great day! finally we had setup the little e-commerce and stocked it with a few products. Be advised! The page still have some little bugs!After making a payment, paypal will return you to the preview store page, don't worry about that, at that point you order has been sent.And the Store URL is................... this:http://store.diydrones.comHaa! I need to sleep now, was an unsigned long long day; Feel free of buy everything you need. ;-) More products coming soon!Good Night!
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DIY Drones factories North (Berkeley) and South (LA) are working hard this weekend. Down in LA, Jordi is populating ArduPilot expansion boards with pressure sensors using our in-house reflow oven.
Meanwhile, up here, the Blimpduino kits are now boxed and waiting for final QA. Here's the box design:
UPDATE!! Got the Servo Outputs running today. They offer 15 bits of precision and are synchronized to the guidance/control functions to minimize latency in the control loop. Also got the Magnetometer running and am talking to the GPS receiverUPDATE #2: May 24 2009: Just got Current Voltage and Temperature Monitoring done. Also have the Attitude Estimation Running. Check it out.Pic32 Autopilot Attitude Estimation.Received my boards from the board house Friday and began building and testing. Power supplies went on first and seem to work fine - clean outputs and efficient. Next went on the processor. I wrote some preliminary code to toggle one of the LEDs and all seemed to work fine. Next I went ahead and mounted everything else and began writing code to grab all the sensor data. I also got the USB port working so I could feed the data to a PC for viewing. Here is the status.Power Supplies - workingProcessor - working12 bit AD - workingGyros - workingAccelerometers - workingAirspeed Sensor - workingUSB - workingAltitude Sensor - Not DoneMagnetometer - workingGPS Interface - workingRF Interface - Not DoneCurrent Monitor - workingVoltage Monitor - workingSD Card - Not DoneServo Outputs - workingPWM In - Not DoneAs you can see there is a bit more hardware to checkout, but it should go pretty fast. I have set up the core timing and am sampling the sensors at 100 Hz via a 5KHz state machine. Right now it's taking 1.5% of the processor throughput to sample gyros, accels and airspeed. I'm estimating 2 to 2.5% when I'm done. That should leave plenty of throughput for guidance/control and communications functions.A very preliminary look at the IDG500 gyros indicates about 0.24 deg/sec noise PtoP (about 0.1 RMS) and .3 deg/sec bias drift after 1 hour. This testing will be ongoing particularly after I have all the acquisition code done.I want to finish getting the hardware validated and to let people know I have 4 un-stuffed boards if anyone is interested. Be warned though - surface mount assembly experience is necessary. Just take a look at the magnetometer and gyros! I might be willing to mount some of the parts for people. Cost will depend on what you want mounted.Let me know what you think!RegardsBrian
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I'm beta testing the new third-party apps platform that Ning will be rolling out soon and trying to decide which are right for us. At the moment, any app I add to the network will appear on every member's profile page (as well as the front page) so I need to choose carefully.
One of the more useful ones is a wiki, which you can see I've enabled in the tab above right (but haven't done anything with it yet). The question is what's the best use for it. Options include:
1) Use it for ArduPilot and Blimpduino documentation. (Paparazzi uses a wiki like this, but they're a stand-alone site, not a community).
2) Use it as a group-editable list of UAV resources, replacing my out of date list.
3) Use it for general how-to instructions, group created and group editable.
What do you think? Vote/discuss in the comments, please.
There are also a lot of other apps. The whole list is for beta testers but here are most of them in the most relevent, ecommerce, collaboration and communications:
Would any of these be useful for us? Remember that if I enable them they show up on every profile page, so we should pick only those with the broadest application. (This may change in the future, but it's the way apps work on Ning now)
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You can't beat child labor! 200 Blimpduino kits being readied for Maker Faire. (And yes, as you can see out the window our house is a construction site at the moment. We're building a drone lab, among other expansions.)
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Yeah! Finally arrived by Fedex Saturday. Otherwise will be impossible to have them ready for this Monday. Also came with them another 50 pressure sensors, so that means i will have enough for the release.BTW, this red pcb's are "Special Edition", the next batch will be traditional and boring green, so hurry!
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Finally the project has a name, Project Nelson :) From the Seagull song fame" The Seagulls name was Nelson"Finished the build today, did the first un powered launch today, went ok.Regards
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There has been some recent interest in using the EasyGlider as a flying platform so I've included some updated pictures. Space was increased beneath the canopy by removing the rudder servo since it's not being used and grinding/cutting into the right fuselage wall. This area was reinforced with fiberglass and the increased space allowed addition of the EagleTree datalogger and extra GPS. The rudder is now locked in place by the horn and a piece of balsa glued to the vertical fin.
Ok i have the Easy Star , i have gotten the Ardupilot board (dang it is so small ) i wonder if my shaky hands can solder it togather .i have ordered my 2.4 Ghz radio a Fubata 7C with the digital servos pack (these are for working another project www.paintballsentry.com it is evil MUW HA HA HA HA) i ordered my video link TX 900Mhz and from Range Video i got my camera and the Easy Star canopy replacment pan /tilt mount (very cool) .i still lack an FMA ,and GPS and a few other parts but things are procceding . the more i look at the OSD the more i like it but i wonder if i can run it in base station with video feed to an Aspire One 8.9" 8 Gig memory solid state drive XP based computer ?as far as the coding for the Ardupilot i am in over my head and i know it (sitting here with eyes bugged out in amazement and more than a bit glazzed over )i am going to have to learn to fly the Easy Star so i got a cheap battery for my Crash practice .i just hope this old dog isn`t too old
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Anyone know of low-cost option to geo-reference a panoramic (stitched) image? I'm familiar with AutoPano Pro for example to do the actual stitching (there are multiple freeware options also) – now need a low-cost way to geo-reference the panorama image. Familiar with Pict'Earth solution, but, I fear that it will out of budget range. Anyone have any experience with open source GRASS for both stitching and geo-reference image processing? Any other solutions?
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I have started to assemble my parts list for my Globalhawk[1] UAV.
Google Docs: Teque5 UAV BuildI am having trouble deciding on a lot of specifics, but i hope to have something conclusive before the weekend is over. I am very open to comments on my first foray into the DIY Drones world. I am specifically looking for recommendations on a battery. Is is possible to get 2+ Hours long duration w/some kind of LiPo pack?ps. Have you guys checked out Wolfram Alpha? It launched today and is sweet as hell.[1] I haven't settled on the RQ-4 Global Hawk airframe yet, but this one looks pretty nice.
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Folks,
As you know the FAA is midway in a long rulemaking process to figure out how to integrate UAVs in the national airspace, but the bottom line from the inititial recommendations are as follows:
For us (non-commerical hobbyists), you must stay within these limitations:
--fly within line of sight
--under 400' alt
--under 30 knots
--under 4.4lb
--Fly at least 3 miles from any airport
As you're designing your airframes, keep these limits in mind!
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The theme of the 2009 competition was supporting forest fire management. First place was awarded to students from the Universite de Sherbrooke.
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Fleet of eight-foot-long Mantas, a sub-50-pound autonomous aerial vehicles are helping scientists understand the link between air pollution and climate.
Read more…T3
AMA Site for proposed Rules(Sorry if this is a re-post)This is not the complete document it only pertains to AMA / model aircraft aspects of the proposed rules.According to a statement from the president of the AMA a full document can be found here however I cannot locate anything.
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Team OSAM has been working hard to get ready for the 2009 Student UAS Competition. Eventhough we are having issues with the new airframe (see http://diydrones.com/video/first-flight-of-the-new ) all is going to plan. The backup airframe is flying great and is still has that new plane smell.Our in house IMU (AggieNav) is also nearing completion... We are currently working on the kalman filter and ironing out the bugs. In other news we have started pushing harder for multiple UAV formation flights. One 48" plane has been made autonomous and another will follow soon. Unfortunately for this project the competition preparing takes up a lot of this projects time.For the competition we also have a few tricks up our sleeve that everyone will have to wait till after the competition.
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