Blogs

After a successful KickStarter tour featuring showings at The White House, TechCrunch Disrupt, DARPA Robotics Challenge and countless flights around the US, CyPhy Works LVL1 Kickstarter has come to an end. We were unable to make the even a delayed delivery schedule due to the maturity of the sourced video components, especially EIS (Electronic Image Stabilization). All money and associated credit card and Kickstarter fees were returned.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1719668770/cyphy-lvl-1-drone-reinvented-for-performance-and-c/comments

Traditionally, drones have used low bandwidth radio communication to connect to ground devices. Last year, when we started building the FlytPOD Flight Computer (next generation autopilot), we wanted to equip it with a better communication system. Drones today need to share rich media and scale-up to support swarm applications. Keeping this in mind FlytPOD is designed to provide high bandwidth link and scalable networking layer.

Going forward we decided to integrate WiFi module with FlytPOD. But we wanted something more than a USB WiFi dongle; we had tested nearly all popular high power USB dongles including ALFA, TP-link, Netis, Netsys but were either not satisfied with performance or not happy with other constraints(weight, size, power, etc.).

Unsatisfied with dongles, we decided to break the usual practise and put a router onboard, instead. Only routers can deliver the power and flexibility for the complex networking scenarios involving multiple drones. We decided to use a router module with powerful Mediatek MT7620N SoC. The default firmware was quite dumb. So, to do justice to this great hardware we ported OpenWRT firmware to this board, including key packages, like 'relayd' for client mode connection, etc. This SoC is already being used on ASUS RT-N14U, WRTnode, many other well-known routers.

So now every FlytPOD powered drone has an on-board router!!

It runs OpenWRT barrier breaker and supports AP/Client/Router modes. The SoC can output upto 20 dBm with two 5 dBm antennas, included for better reception. FlytPOD, along with a high power router on ground (maybe, with an antenna tracker), could be the best solution for long range applications. Anyway, 4G dongles can be used for longer/unlimited range on a FlytPOD.

By the way, the on-board router on FlytPOD has its own USB port, that supports direct IP camera streaming and media sharing (without loading FlytPOD's processor). It can be put to several creative uses in the future!

MediaTek MT7620N SoC on FlytPOD

Yet something was amiss. To geeks, this combo of router and companion-computer would sound like a powerful dev kit. But for rest of the users, even switching between AP and Client modes would be a nightmare. So, we rolled out the FlytConsole widget for easy WiFi configuration via the GUI. Earlier, to put FlytPOD (OpenWRT router) in client mode (connect to your office/home wifi network) users would have followed this long guide.Now, the FlytConsole GUI makes it as easy as connecting your phone to a WiFi network.

Easy WiFi setup with FlytConsole

With all this in place, we are proud to introduce the world's first flight computer system with powerful on-board wifi router to our users. We look forward to your feedback to help us further improve the design.

Sign up for FlytPOD Beta here: FlytPOD

Checkout the Flyt documentation here: FlytDocs

Join Flyt Users group on DIYD

A year from now I published Andruav latest article. Since then a lot of improvement have been applied.

What is Andruav in FPV ?

Andruav Video Streamer has been re-written to make use of modern Video Streaming technologies. Now Andruav stream video almost in real-time, it also can broadcast video from a single drone to multiple GCS including Online Web.

What is Andruav in Telemetry ?

Andruav already supports Telemetry for multiwii, APM & PixHawk. Now Telemetry is even better and more easy to configure.

The below video starting from minute 4 shows how can Andruav connect to Tower App, and stream data over Internet, while still you can access Video and other drones from Andruav GCS and on the same Device. 

What is Andruav as a Standalone App ?

Andruav connectivity has been expanded to connect using 3DR Services .

3DR Services already provide multiple options for connectivity, Andruav also provides Dual Connection i.e. Wifi & 3G/4G so that you can connect to SOLO and access it from Internet.

One of the distinguished feature of Andruav is the ability to many-to-many connections. i.e. You can use multiple GCS & multiple Drones all connected to each other.

In this video we can see Andruav GCS tracking two Drones running as Simulators.

What does it cost you to use Andruav ?

Andruav is a free app, you can download it for free from Google Play and use its full features for no cost.

As for hardware, you can use inexpensive, small, light weight yet powerful mobiles that supports 4G such as Micro-X-S240

As for ground station you can use your own mobile, a TV BOX -if you want a wide view-, or you can even access it online via Internet with much more features using Global ARC.

I hope you find Andruav interesting, and share your experience and feedback to make it even better.

Until Then...

To good to be true? Leading smart phone company Xiaomi to launch a 4k Camera Drone. When it comes to new drones and claims from companies that their latest start up will shake the market of UAV, always brings a little of suspicion. I have to say Xiaomi has a good track record and its latest offering of a 4K drone at a remarkable price $456.00 had me shaking with excitement. But like any serious hobbyist , I turned to the faithful Youtube for test and example footage.

I was disappointed when I found in examples and official videos a wonky at least gimbal and fish eye camera.

I hope that this is a pre release bug that will be fixed before the full product launch.

Maybe this drone can bring serious competition to DJI and Yuneec? In the mean time I wait in hope that this new offering opens the market for more affordable camera platforms.

Never did I set out to make a documentary of my experience with drones. With all the bad press recently I felt maybe my short film may show so people of the public that film makers use drones and we all dont have to fly around airports and aircraft. 

(shown above, the fastest ArduRover yet, an electric go-kart built by Autodesk CEO Carl Bass [shown with author Kevin Kelly] and run at the Self Driving Cars track day this weekend)

From the announcement thread:

Hi everyone. The ArduPilot team has created a new Rover beta. You can download the binary directly here
http://firmware.ardupilot.org/Rover/beta/
or if your using a GCS like Mission Planner tick the box to see the Beta downloads available.

If you have any comments or questions please post them in this topic and I'll do my best to answer.

Whats changed?
Fixed arming for Skid Steering rovers. You should now be able to arm your skid steering rover using the steering stick. NOTE skid steering Rovers - you will not be able to disarm. The reason for this is zero throttle full left turn is a perfectly valid move for a skid steering rover as it can turn on the spot. You don't want to be executing this and have the rover disarm part way through your turn so I have disabled disarming via the steering stick. You can still disarm from the GCS.

Improved Steering Control:
For historical reason's the steering controller was using the raw GPS data without any filtering. If you have every graphed this data you will see on a rover its very spiky and all over the place. This spiky'ness was feeding directly into our steering controller and causing inaccuracies. Now we using the EKF GPS filtered data which is much smoother and accurate and the steering control has greatly improved.

Improved Cornering:
Previously when corning we didn't take into account any "lean or tilt" in the rover - we assumed the turns were always flat. We have changed this to now take into account any lean so turning should be more accurate. Boat users should really benefit from this too.

EKF2 improvements - its continues to get better and better.

There have been other changes but the above ones are the big ticket items for Rover users.

Thanks, Grant.

Meet Age of Drones Expo in Hamburg, Germany on 14-15 October 2016!!!

Age of Drones is the first Specialized Exhibition and Conference with deep focus on drone cinematigraphy that will take place this autumn in Germany.
The two-day event will feature an exhibit hall displaying a variety of drones and accessories for commercial applications in cinematography and photography. The first day of an expo will give a great opportunities for key manufactures, distributors, resellers of UAS as well as cinema and production studious to expand business connections, and share working experience with each other.

Moreover, all participants will have a chance to visit specialized conference and find out the very latest news and trends of drones market. The second day is open for the general public. Saturated show program is planning. 

More than 60 exhibitors - market leaders from Germany, Great Britain, France, United States, China and other countries will gather to become a part of Age of Drones Expo:

· UAV manufacturers

· Component Suppliers

· Service Providers

· Software Developers

· Insurance Companies

For any additional information about trade fair, please, visit: http://www.ageofdrones-expo.com/

Interesting article in EE Timers Europe. http://www.electronics-eetimes.com/news/light-centimetre-level-slam-drones/

Working deeply with CERN (European Centre for Nuclear Research) in 2012, French startup Terabee has taken IR-based time-of-flight (ToF) to centimetre-level, boasting update frequencies up to 1kHz for fast moving robots and drones.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UP0T4fIuDAg

Hello drone lovers, 

we are so excited to finally open up GlobalARC to all of you who are flying UAV's for fun or work around the world.

We built a first of a kind platform that allows you to not only plan and manage your flights, but also watch real time video and receive data from your vehicles anywhere in the world. You can use GlobalARC to check the airspace zoning and act accordingly or create a complex mission and upload it to any connected vehicle around the world. It's instantaneous and it's FREE for one user. 

You can also sit back and enjoy the scenery or share this experience with anyone online. Add your teammates to help you plan missions together or assign them different roles within the organization. Upgrade to Professional for $9.95 and run your whole commercial drone business using GlobalARC. We also offer fully customised solutions with private secure servers as an Enterprise level. 

Each connection is super-secure and all video streams are encrypted and private. To get it working just download our app from the Google Play Store and enter the code from your dashboard. You can add multiple drones to your fleet and access real-time data and video from them. (This feature currently works best with Pixhawk and APM, but we are working on a version for integrated crafts like SOLO and Phantom). Here is a quick tutorial on connecting the app to your drone. 

Go ahead test it out and tell us what you think. We are looking forward to hearing your feedback! 

Sign up for free now at www.GlobalARC.us

Best, 

Your Easy Aerial Team

I was interested to see this in the fantastic new Maritime Museum in Amsterdam. Those big canisters on each side of the ship compass are iron slugs designed to compensate for the "hard iron" magnetic distortions of the iron ships they were mounted on. Now we do it in software, but the principle is the same. 

Hello all.

I got this lowepro CS300 drone backpack from fry's electronics while traveling in LA, California. 

This back pack is perfect match to my drone project as it can accommodate all the gears and spare parts for not just one but two drones as seen below picture.

5 battery modules are inside the upper band wrapped pocket.

I think the folding mechanism of Mantis280 really gives advantage of moving stuffs compact and easy.

Kyu, 

There're many techniques to make this simple recovery, i personally believe that this is the most immediate.
English subtitles available... good watching!

Marco

In earlier posts I wrote about  PyQuadSim, a Python-based flight simualator built on top of the Virtual Robot Experimentation Platform (V-REP). Although PyQuadSim enabled some pretty cool projects, it relied on a client/server model that limited the simulation speed to an unrealistic 10Hz, and required configuration steps that made it difficult for people to use. It also used an ad-hoc stabilization algorithm that was not easy to relate to actual firmware code.

So as an upgrade to the simulator I naturally thought of using actual firmware like the minimal Hackflight firmware I wrote about in my previous post. The result is HackflightSim, which incorporates this firmware as a V-REP plugin, allowing 100Hz updates -- still slower than the cycle time of Hackflight and other firmware, but fast enough so that the firmware can be tweaked to work with the simulator.

This brief video shows a test flight of HackflightSim. Like the Flip32 flight controller on my quadcopters, the simulator has a green LED that is solid during the initial gyro-calibration phase and flashes when the pitch or roll goes above a critical threshold (25 degrees), and a red LED that indicates whether the vehicle is armed.

HackflightSim currently requires Linux to buld the plugin, and a FrSky Taranis transmitter with USB cable. If there is enough community interest (and time!) I will try to support other OSs and controllers.

Instructions here

Another great swarming demo from the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California. Not a new record of planes in the sky (which is 50), but an impressive launch rate of nine drones in nine seconds. All Pixhawk-powered Skywalker X8s.

Copter-3.4-rc1 has been released for beta testing and can be downloaded using the Mission Planner's Install Firmware screen's beta firmware link.  Some of the changes since Copter-3.3.3 are listed below.

1) EKF2 allows "boat mode" (attitude initialisation without gyro calibration)
2) Throw mode by Paul Riseborough
3) Terrain following:
    a) Support terrain altitudes during missions using GCS's map data or rangefinder (i.e. Lidar)
    b) LightWare range finder driver fixes (I2C works but we still recommend using Serial interface)
    c) Bebop sonar support (we strongly recommend the Bebop2 over the original Bebop)
4) Precision Landing using IRLock sensor
5) Attitude controller re-organisation (all parameter changes automatically moved and scales adjusted)
    a) RATE_ parameters become ATC_RAT_ (i.e. RATE_RLL_P becomes ATC_RAT_RLL_P)
    b) Rate Roll, Pitch, Yaw P, D are reduced by 10% for X, V, H frames, increased by 27% for all other frames
    c) STB_ parameters becomes ATC_ANG_ (i.e. STB_RLL_P becomes ATC_ANG_RLL_P)
6) Motors library improvements:
    a) support OneShot ESCs (set MOT_PWM_TYPE to 0 for Normal, 1 for OneShot or 2 for OneShot125)
    b) TriCopter compensates for tail servo angle
    c) SingleCopter, CoaxCopter adjust control surfaces based on throttle output
    d) MOT_PWM_MIN, MAX allow specifying output ranges to ESCs which are difference from throttle input channel (i.e. RC3)
    e) TradHeli servo objects moved into heli class (HSV_ parameters become H_SV1_)
7) uAvionix Ping sensor support (ADS-B vehicles appear on GCS, avoidance will come in future release)
8) Improved Solo support (gimbal and buttons now work)
9) Pixracer support
10) Safety:
    a) warning if GPS update rate is slow (under 5hz, does not stop arming)
    b) RTL cone (vehicle won't climb to the full RTL_ALT if it is RTL-ing from close to home)

Warning: It has been reported that Tower's Follow-Me mode causes a rapid descent with Copter-3.4 so we recommend not using Follow-Me until this is resolved (it's likely a mix-up as we've added support for absolute and terrain altitudes).

For this release we will be doing the support on the new ArduPilot discourse server instead of creating a monster thread here on DIYDrones.

This beta testing include both multicotpers and traditional helicopters.  We're also starting beta testing of the Antenna Tracker (Release Notes here).

Thanks in advance to the beta testers!

P.S. I would like to personally thank EnRoute (youtube channel) for stepping in to support my ongoing development efforts on ArduPilot and Colestl/GatewayGeospatial for their sponsorship of the Terrain following work.

I've been using my RasperryPi's more and more with Dronecode software, including with the fantastic Navio2 autopilot shield and the slightly more basic Erle 2. I've also got Erle's new PXFmini shields for the Raspberry Pi Zero, but unfortunately no Zeros :-( Since the release of the new version with a camera port (which I need) they're out of stock everywhere.  Fingers crossed they become available soon. In the meantime, enjoy Erle's post on Hackaday showing how to get a PXFmini flying:

Great news for Solo owners: the impressive Pix4DCapture app for iOS and Android is now available for the 3DR Solo. 

From the Pix4D site:

Plan and Fly

Easily define single or multiple flight missions around your area of interest: Customize altitude, image overlap, and camera angle for optimal results. For complex missions or more manual control, choose Free Flight mode.

Quick 3D Preview Post-Flight

Right after flight, upload the images to Pix4Dcloud directly from the app and receive a Quick 3D Preview on the phone within minutes.

Once the images are uploaded, you can also download the dataset from your Pix4D user account page and open the project inPix4Dmapper Pro or Mesh on your computer.

 

Transfer to Pix4Dmapper

After your mission, just transfer the project from your phone to computer, either directly from the drone or via Pix4Dcloud.

With your Pix4Dmapper Pro or Mesh license, process the project in full resolution, verify and improve the project quality, edit the point cloud, export professional outputs, and measure features with survey-grade accuracy.

 

New Mission Manager for Android

 

• Pix4Dcapture 3.0

  Map bigger areas by creating multiple missions, which you can save, duplicate and combine into projects. Plan flights from your office and press START in the field for fast and efficient mapping, then easily visualize the images from each mission . Project details are saved and organized for optimal access.

Sky-Drones has recently announced the release of SmartAP 4 - the latest generation autopilot. Now, SmartAP 4 and other products are available for purchase in online store. All SmartAP products are based on custom hardware and software and oriented at the wide range of applications, including hobby, professional and industrial ones. The key features of the systems are easy configuration, excellent flight performance and intuitive ground control station. More information can be found on the official website http://sky-drones.com/ and in the description below. 

SmartAP 4 Flight Controller

Specifications:

• Powerful microcontroller 32 bit 168 MHz STM32F4 ARM Cortex M4
• Compatible with GPS/GLONASS receiver
  - UBlox NEO8, GPS/GLONASS, up to 24 sats, 10 Hz) active antenna
• Up to 12 PWM I/O support (5V out)
• USB interface for configuration / firmware update
• Various communication lines (UART, I2C, SPI)
• MicroSD, 4-bit SDIO interface for data-logging / parameters storage
• Backup battery for RTC
• 2x ADC inputs for battery voltage / current monitoring
• Electromagnetic sound audio indicator
• 3-channels LED support (up to 500mA / ch)
• 2-channels solid state relay

SmartAP 3 Flight Controller

Specifications:

• Powerful microcontroller 32 bit 168 MHz STM32F4 ARM Cortex M4
• Compact board size of 8x8 cm (3.15"x3.15"), weight 60g, 6 layers PCB design
• Power supply from main LiPO battery (3S - 8S) support, up to 36 Volts
• Power supply from BEC 5V support
• 12V, 5V, 3.3V generated onboard
• Integrated telemetry module (100 mW), external module is supported as well (up to 5V@1A powered)
• Up to 24 PWM I/O support (5V out, high-power), SBUS support
• USB interface for configuration / firmware update
• Various communication lines (UART/USART, RS232, I2C, SPI)
• MicroSD card driven by 4-bit SDIO interface for data-logging / parameters
• Backup battery for real-time clock and GPS receiver
• Integrated main LiPo battery voltage monitoring
• - Electromagnetic sound audio indicator
• - 4-channels bright LED support (up to 100mA/ch)

Flight performance

• Extremely stable flight in stabilize (user control), position hold (semi-autonomous control) and auto (fully autonomous navigation and control) modes
• Native support of SmartAP Ground Control Station and Configuration Tool
• Accurate GPS Position hold (up to 40cm), manual position override
• Accurate Altitude hold (up to 10 cm), manual altitude override
• Fully autonomous waypoints flight
• Return to home mode
• Failsafe detection and event triggering
• And many more…

SmartAP Ground Control Station

SmartAP GCS (Ground Control Station) is the software application which allows you to plan autonomous mission for SmartAP Autopilot as well as control the drone using intuitive high-level commands:

Also, SmartAP GCS supports real-time video display:

More information and ordering at http://sky-drones.com/

If you care about our hobby at all, we need to put pressure on the FAA about drone flyers like Casey Neistat.

Wow this is amazing! pity Im left handed!

Imagine flying your MR with this!

Ground Station

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o33wEsdpSD8