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Air Force Planning Giant Spy Airship

Posted by Tom in NOVA on March 18, 2009 at 3:30am
From article below:"The final version of the airship will be about 450 feet long. However, the prototype will be only a third of that size. The craft is known to military planners as ISIS, or Integrated Sensor Is the Structure, referring to the radar system built into the structure of the craft.The ISIS has a hull made of a lightweight, thick skin. Zeppelins - like the Hindenburg - have a rigid external structure. Blimps are not rigid, and are given their shape from the pressure of the helium gas. According to military, the ISIS is closer to a blimp than a zeppelin, but officials most frequently call it an airship. "Airship," like "dirigible," is a broader term."http://www.military.com/news/article/March-2009/air-force-planning-giant-spy-airship.html
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So glad to hear that you've recovered your aircraft.

Posted by Dick Kline on March 17, 2009 at 2:34pm
Matthias... little did you expect to get your plane back. Have you flown it since its been repaired? I hope you'll have many more great flights with this aircraft. The KF airfoil concept continues to grow. Did you ever get to see Dave Powers "KF Airfoil Testing" on YouTube. It turns out that the KFm4 is faster than the other versions. Maybe its because 50% of this airfoil is air against air, thus no direct friction or drag. Be well.Dick Kline
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new here

Posted by evilmacaw on March 17, 2009 at 12:19pm
hi all ,i am new to RC and very intrested in building an AUV ,so in what is going to take some time to buy and assemble all the elements project, i have just ordered an EasyStar as my base unit off of which i will build my own drone , in my area finding a thermal is as easy as follow the Buzzard :) cause i have plenty of them around here LOL . i have spent two days going thru some of the forum and posts and can see i have a lot to learn and will need the help from other members to get this project off the ground as i am a low level computer user and know nothing about programming , my only redeeming quality is that i am a master craftsman in 11 diffirent trades and i do know a little bit of electronics (one of my surface supplied diver com`s has been running for 8 hr /5 days a week for over 18 years ).i live with my namesake a 18 year old, 40" long, beak as big as your fist , folds pennys in half for fun, Miligold Macaw , a boy names Lola (i think thats what makes him so mean lol )in a self built small 2 1/2 story log cabin set back in the woods on 5 acres of wood land and a spring fed creek running across it , it is a very rough mile out to the mailbox on what is recognised as the Worst dirt road in the county (got to love it )i have a few neighbors and unfortunately one is a known drug dealer , he lives at the very end of the road and his clients and him self are known thief`s having hit a number of my neighbors, but not me due in part to Da Macaw and my being heavily armed and an ex special service operator (read it how you will ) . due my age and the toll my profession has taken on my body , i need a way to keep an eye on that slimy bastich and as a FO in case i need to drop a few 2.77" BP mortar rounds on him and his lab MUW HA HA HA HA ha ha ha (but i really don`t need that kind of trouble !!!! )i am already very familiar with Thermal and extreme low light cameras 0.0004 Lux, better than 99% of the NV gear currently in usei hope with the assistance of you all i will be able to field a Spy in the sky so i can keep tabs on him and help keep my neighbors safe so we never have to use lethal force to protect our selvessincerlyEvilmacaw
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Predator UAV Model Control Software

Posted by RDorsey on March 16, 2009 at 11:45pm
Hello all, I am new to the community. I currently run an afterschool program for k-12 students and we are going into aerospace. We recently purchased a UAV Predator model to build and fly and we were wondering if there is any type of software that works directly with the drone where the students can actually build a control station and program the model from there as opposed to your standard remote control. Email me at rdorsey@wizkidztech.org
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Waypoint editor?

Posted by Pedro on March 16, 2009 at 7:16pm

I am interested in using the Ardupilot for a ground vehicle application, and I need to enter a large number of waypoints for many different parts of the country. Saving and retrieving the waypoints is a must. I will also need to use an external EEPROM, but that is a different story. I wrote a waypoint editor that can help users manage a large number of files, and, also, save *.KML files for display on Google Earth. I will be very glad to share the editor with anybody, and, if enough people have interest, I'll post both the executable and the source here. It also allows you to create a track with the shape of a regular polygon. Here is a screen dump of a track at the Boulder , CO Model Airplane field on Google Earth.

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3D Robotics

Switching between Waypoint and RTL modes in ArduPilot 2.0

Posted by Chris Anderson on March 15, 2009 at 11:43pm
One of the cool things about ArduPilot 2.0 is that it supports three in-flight modes: manual, autonomous (waypoint) and autonomous (return-to-launch/RTL). These are selected with your autopilot-enable toggle switch on your transmitter. If you have a three-position switch the middle position defaults to waypoint mode. The up position is RTL mode. You can also use a proportional dial for this channel; half-way turned is the middle position. Or, if you have a mixing Tx, you can mix two toggles switches to create an in-between state on the enable channel. When the autopilot is in waypoint mode, the yellow Mode LED will be on. It is off in manual and RTL modes. If you want to modify these defaults, you can change them in the software. I've posted on how to do that here.
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T3

Roll-pitch-yaw demo of the direction cosine matrix is complete.

Posted by William Premerlani on March 15, 2009 at 4:21pm

RollPitchYawDemo.JPG

Implementation of the direction cosine matrix is complete. Firmware and documentation are available. Those of you who have purchased a UAV development board are definitely going to want to try the demo to gauge the possibilities for IMU based flight control. Performance is impressive.The picture above is the setup that I used to test the firmware. There are 3 servos, a GPS, the board, and a battery that are attached with velcro to stiff cardboard. I used it to walk the board around the neighborhood. I also attached the whole thing to my car dashboard with velcro, and went around a local traffic circle as fast as I could.Best regards,Bill Premerlani
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Developer

2.4ghz: How to read 7 channels with one wire (NOT PPM) with Spektrum modules...

Posted by Jordi Muñoz on March 15, 2009 at 12:00pm
Since i got my new 2.4ghz spektrum radio (I FALL IN LOVE) i always wonder how the daughter receiver send data to the mother, maybe PPM? mmhh not! With a little help of an oscilloscope i started to reverse engineer the protocol used, well i saw only steady digital signal with lows of 8.6 useconds, that responded to the movements of my radio, so i quickly realize that is some kind of serial communication, and i did the calculations (1000000us/8.6us=116279bps) and i thought that maybe the serial speed was 115200bps. So i attached my FTDI cable and start analyzing the data, and i got this:Spektrum daughter board is sending 16 bytes of information using a serial com. running at 115200bps. As you see in the picture above, the two first bytes are the preamble or sync bytes (0x03, 0x01). The data comes in integers that response precisely in the order is labeled in the picture...So Paparazzi users this is a way to switch 2.4ghz (only in American), the back of my Specktrum radio says: "NOT FOR USE IN EU", uuh!I hope somebody can do something usefully with it, enjoy!
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How to make a more stable UAV plane platform.

Posted by Pekka Ahola on March 14, 2009 at 4:57pm
Ever heard of "Moment of Inertia"? Neither had I, but it's quite simple really.Object with the most of it's weight at the center of it's gravity is easier to rotate than one with the weight on the outer edges. So why put all the electronics and batteries in the center under the wing. By distributing the weight to the wings, should create a platform that has steadier flight characteristics.More on this and a few pictures in my personal UAV blog.
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YARB robotic blimp now available for purchase

Posted by Howard Gordon on March 14, 2009 at 1:30pm
Since posting our Google Android G1 control console for the YARB robotic blimp, there has been a fair amount of interest in an assembled version of the 66" blimp, so we have decided to make YARB available for purchase.Cost is $875, which is $200+ more than the cost of buying the various kit components, or equivalent to the cost of approx 8 BlimpDuinos , but some users are less DIY, and it is somewhat easier for us to support a fully assembled version.The YARB controller includes a 500MHz (1000MIPS) Blackfin processor, 1.3 megapixel camera with 3.6mm or 2.2mm lens, 802.11bg Wifi radio, motor and servo controllers for vectored thrust, and 800mAh battery + charger. Firmware is open source, and includes support for 4 Maxbotics EZ1 sonar modules and the Honeywell HMC6352 compass.For more information, visit -http://www.surveyor.com/YARB.htmlhttp://www.surveyor.com/blackfin/http://surveyor-corporation.stores.yahoo.net/yarobl.html
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3D Robotics

New EagleTree OSD Pro with return-to-home

Posted by Chris Anderson on March 14, 2009 at 11:29am

We like the EagleTree gear a lot, so we were pleased to see that they've just announced an upgrade of their OSD to OSD Pro. Along with a bunch of cool features, such as an on-screen map and voice status reports, it includes what appears to be a rudimentary GPS-only autopilot that can return home in the case of radio failure. The pricing seems pretty reasonable, too: around $300 for the device, or as little as $20 to upgrade if you have the current OSD and send it back. I was interested to see that EagleTree hasn't figured out the universal failsafe problem yet, either. The OSD Pro description says that the failsafe is intended for RC gear that doesn't have a built-in failsafe. For most modern RC systems, which only allow you to program channel 3 (throttle) actions in the case of radio failure, we're still looking for a good way for autopilots to recognize the difference between failsafe and manual signals.
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New FPV / UAV startup.

Posted by John M. Smith on March 13, 2009 at 9:30pm
We are embarking upon a new type of "All Encompassing" sort of offering that accomodates the public, private and commercial sectors for the UAV, FPV, RPV needs and appetties. Our products can make huge life savings difference's and save hundreds of thousands of dollars over current operations. Ultimately we are looking to attrack Homeland Security, Borber Patrol, Police, Fire depts. County DA's, Search and rescue, etc.However our Number 1 goal is for the weekend FPV flier that wants to take things to the next level.Ardupilot is a great start off point. It however is far from where we want to end up at.Interested parties apply.Thanks,John M Smith
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Prototype what?!?!?!?!?!?

Posted by rad man on March 13, 2009 at 3:49pm
I just recently got done watching "Prototype This!", they finished making a UAV that drops a life preserver within swimming distance of the victim! The victim wore a device that transmitted its location to a base station. This could be used as a valuable tracking device for police work because the UAV creates its own way points in order to follow and observe a suspect. The top programmers name is Joe Grand, his website is Grand Idea Studio (for those who are interested). If this is a double post I will remove it! (i seem to be beat to the punch when it comes to this stuff!)
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Bidirectional RC transmitter with ARM7, Xbee PRO, Bluetooth and a PDA (2)

Posted by jlcortex on March 12, 2009 at 12:37pm

I am working in my bidirectional transmitter. i has built parts in plastic with my hobby cnc machine. it looks very technical device!!!i have not received PCB yet.i post some pictures of not finished assembly.We are testing XBee Pro Series 2 with ZB firmware now, it seems than 5 Kbytes/sec is possible. We publish transfer rate speed as soon as we finish testings.jlcortexnmine.com

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Burning Arduino Bootloader without external AVR-Writer

Posted by Roberto on March 12, 2009 at 2:38am
Hello,I write this post for who like me have an Arduino Mini USB Adapter and want to upload code (or burn bootloader) by ISP on ATMEGA168 or Attiny45.This is the connection schema from Mini USB (or any FTDI cable based on FT232RL chip, you can also use an Ardunio Diecimila) to Ardupilot ISP port:

You must also connect power source to Ardupilot (BEC, Mini USB or what u like).For programming Attiny45 you must use the Attiny45 ISP port.Here the complete guide to burn the bootloader.In this way i've readed the fuse from Attiny45 and I find that my ATMEGA168 is probabily dead (when i try to read fuses i have the error message "signature error").
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