Planet Multicopter

Lighthouse mission!

2012-05-08T19:20:00+00:00

I have been a fan of Björn's Lighthouse missions every since his very first one almost 5 years ago!

This year he replaced his stable plane with a fast funjet. And a gluonpilot in it! The fastest lighthouse mission so far, the best images so far, and the first with take-off and landing on autopilot.

A big applause for Björn!

Enjoy his beautiful video (enable 720p/HD):

A small note on the upcoming 0.8 release: The beta's keep coming, but there's one reason for this: BAD WEATHER! I managed to do 3 testflights in the last 4 weeks. It just keeps raining... But it is nearly finished, and there will be a LOT of new features in it!

FreeNAS AFP Problem mit OSX Lion 10.7

2012-03-23T11:52:33+00:00

Seit kurzem habe ich ein MacBook Pro mit OS X Lion 10.7. Ich muss zugeben, der Umstieg von meinem alten MacBook auf das aktuelle Pro-Modell viel mir nicht sonderlich schwer. Leider bringt neue Hard- und Software immer neue Probleme mit sich. Auch hier kam nach kurzer Nutzung schon das erste Problem auf: OS X [...]

my 20%

2012-03-05T12:53:13+00:00

after traveling the world for quite some time I had to replace some hardware - so I decided to take a paid job in Berlin at EyeEm this year. The team is nice and multinational. Most conversations are in English. But there was a downside: I had to fix bugs all the day - the guy working on the code before is a very good coder, but was in a hurry with a lot of tasks ( back-end,tech-lead and the android client) Fixing bugs is OK for a while, but I need creative coding to stay happy..
I have one very important motto in life "Love it, Change it or leave it" - in this case I selected [x]change and convinced the founders to let me do a small side project for the company in 20% of my work time. And this is a message to all the people saying "Oh my company has no 20% project" - just ask them - the worst they can say is "no"
So what is it? In buzz words: EyeEmTV is one hyper-local, inter-connected and soon intelligent personalizable picture display for Android devices with focus on big screen devices like Tablets or now especially Google TV.

That means it can continuous play photos which are relevant to the audience and also the position and time of the playback. It is designed to require minimal interaction - just run in the background and show relevant photos with some Meta information ( if the user wants it - user is able to switched off nearly all elements - so that the Picture is the only thing seen ). In most cases we can add the meta-information without making the Image smaller as a lot of pictures are like 4:3 and the TV 16:9. Another Design decision is that the most recent images are preferred. That means if you shoot an image that belongs to the selected album -> your image will be the next to be displayed. There is not much user-interaction, but there is the option to display a BarCode with every Image which users can scan and then interact with the image ( like,comment,..) with an app on their own device.

At home playing a stream of photos from family/friends
At office playing a stream of photos from the Team members
At events playing a stream of photos via big screen or beamer of pictures shoot at the event.

Çan also be used as a form of visual communication. Sometimes taking a picture is faster than writing what you are up to or where you are.

EyeEmTV is using our official API which was released not long ago. The APP is not yet released ( you can ask me for an beta-APK ) but it will be released this month to the Android Market and ( which makes me very happy ) the code to GitHub!
Next step in bringing a fresh wind into the company is to equip the office with a table football. It could replace the - for communication so important - but because of biological reasons not happening anymore - cigarette breaks . Beside that - every cool start up has something like that ..

Flightplan creation with the ground control station

2012-02-10T20:44:18+00:00

I've made this video some weeks ago, but being buried deep into the documention almost nobody watched it. To get some more attention, here it is :-)

Any cool other stuff you'd like to see: just let me know!!!

Simulation mode

2012-01-27T21:42:50+00:00

The latest development code (due in release 0.8) contains a lot of new features!

In my opinion, the simulation (hardware-in-the-loop) is the most exciting one. It allows you to test out all kinds of navigation routines without having to test them out at the field. AND it allows me to develop new navigation stuff without having to do a lot of flight testing before getting it right. All this is very easy in the current autumn days with very little flying opportunities.

This picture explains how it all works:

Actually there aren't a lot more screen shots to show: from the Gluon Control Station it looks as if it is a real flight :-)

More documentation on the simulation page.

Aktuell: Landkamp 3.12

2012-01-26T17:34:56+00:00

Das erfolgreiche Landkamp wird fortgesetzt:

Das Landkamp 3.12 findet erneut in Ostheim an der Rhön statt - und zwar vom 17.05. - 20.05.2012. Zu dem Treffen sind alle Kopterbegeisterten und solche, die es werden wollen, eingeladen!

Eine Beschreibung, was Euch dort erwartet, sowie die Anmeldeliste und aktuelle Infos sind unter www.landkamp.de zu finden.

UAVP-NG @ 28C3 - Chaos Communication Congress 2011

2011-12-20T17:25:20+00:00

It's winter again and I did not update my blog for half a year. Evil me. Let's change this...

Let me start with this summer's CCC Camp, which was a great event and everybody who joined us in the UAVP-Village in Finowfurth had a lot of fun. If you head over here, then you will find some pictures of the event.

After the camp we had a nasty surprise, when we found out that our new hardware HW-0.22-mini-r2 of the Mini-NG had a non recoverable bug on the PCB. It was nobody's fault in special, we all should have take more care in checking the changes, which have been done. To make up to our users, who already got a revision 2 board, we replaced them for free with a HW-0.22-mini-r3 board, produced immediately after we found out about the bug.

The new HW-0.22-mini-r3 of the Mini-NG performs admirably and many of us are now flying these boards, which offer exactly the same features as the big HW-0.22 tower, except that it's only one board with 55x55mm.

In the meantime we also developed new features for NGOS. Having received my new ACT 2.4GHz Kit with Diversity on both sender and receiver side together with telemetry, we decided that it would be time to support the telemetry system from ACT (M-Bus) and Multiplex (M-Link). Both systems are essentially identical. The new NGOS supports up to 14 different on-board values to be transmited on the back channel to the sender. The user is free to define which of the 14 slots should transmit which on-board data. A ACT UDP or a Multiplex sender is able to show these slots on his display to the pilot. Documentation and configuration examples can be found here, in the extensive NGOS documentation.

Having completed my new Mini-NG with all sensors, including GPS and compass, I decided to give Position Hold, Coming Home and Waypoint flying a bit of priority.

Having already completed the new NGCTRL2 communication protocol in summer, I decided to give Qngctrl a update and visualize all the new navigation stuff using the new features of NGCTRL2.

NGCTRL2 is a framed packet based communication protocol, where each packet may contain an arbitrary amount of data-sets which in turn each contain a type and a payload. The packet content is encoded with the COBS (Constant Overhead Byte Stuffing) algorithm making sure we only use up 1 byte in 256 for byte stuffing (worst case) which in turn makes sure we can always detect our framing byte and also assures, that we may use all possible byte values inside the packet. The COBS encoded packet content then gets a XOR checksum and a framing byte at the end and is sent over the unsecured serial connection.

Each of the NGCTRL2 data-set packed into a packet contain a type value, describing the payload type and it's implicit length. libng, our PC client library for NGOS communication has a poll() API allowing client applications to easily receive and parse the NGCTRL2 packets. As each data-set contains a type field, a client can request arbitrary dump intervals for each data-set type. A NGOS is even able to send data-sets which were not even requested by a client, thus allowing NGOS to inform a client of events happening on the copter side.

I've implemented waypoint flying on the NGOS side by giving NGOS a new waypoint table, which describes the coordinates of the available waypoints. The table can be manipulated with the normal "show" and "set" commands in the NGOS shells. There is a new suite of shell commands starting which the keyword "nav", allowing the user to issue navigational commands like "nav position-hold" or "nav fly-waypoint-fdw". The amir-ng controller was changed to understands the concepts of target, waypoint and it's navigation algorithms were adapted to be able to fly with different behaviors. Each waypoint is defined by it's coordinates, a dwell time and a action and argument, which will allow for a lot of new cool features in the future. At the moment, we only know two actions called "reach, next" and "reach, dwell, next". More actions are to be expected.

On the client side I implemented a new GPS Map view, which visualizes all navigational information received from a NGOS and displays it's position, it's target, it's waypoints as well as all navigational data needed to calculate the curse, consisting of target deviation and target distance. A nice small navigational control shows the headings of the different target/waypoints/home positions and also shows the result of the navigation algorithm for debugging purposes.

This is the above mentioned GPS Map. At that moment it shows a NG flying in a simulated flight using real GPS data and currently doing waypoint flying forward with 5 waypoints currently heading towards the first of them:

As you can see the GUI not only shows multiple waypoints and targets but also many of the on-board states like the battery voltage and the controller flight state. These get transmitted to the client whenever they change. Altitude Height controls are missing yet and will be implemented soon.

In the meantime our hardware developers were busy too and they redesigned the Mini-NG in HW-0.23-mini-r0. The new prototype will use the MPU6050 3D acc and gyro sensors and features an on-board GPS. First prototypes have been built and we hope to bring some of them to 28C3.

Last but not least work on our next-generation hardware platform HW-0.30 has begun. It will feature 2 STM32 CPUs with single precision FPU running at 168MHz combined with a dual-port RAM for fast direct memory communication. We hope to port NGOS to the STM32 architecture during summer 2012 and so support multiple architectures within one source code.

Currently everybody is preparing and packing for the 28C3, this years Chaos Communication Congress in Berlin where we will participate as every year.

On the 28C3 we plan to work on the NGOS software for the upcoming HW-0.23-mini release. Also we plan to further develop HW-0.30. Everybody interested in our project is invited to visit us at 28C3.

Besides our new hardware revisions, some developers are currently working on new brushless-controllers, a controller for lights called NGlight and other fun projects. We're looking forward to discuss, improve upon and show prototypes of them on 28C3.

28C3, we're incoming... ;)

Funjet endurance flight

2011-11-20T09:52:17+00:00

The auto-throttle feature makes it really easy to test the maximum flight time of you UAV. In the upcoming new release, a "Battery alarm" feature will be available too. This will allow you to configure "warning-levels" and "panic-levels". When, the panel level is reached, the autopilot automatically jumps to a configured navigation line (landing in my case). Very safe and easy!

My old funjet managed to fly 33minutes before deciding to land. A new wing that I'm building should fly at least 45minutes! Can't wait until the build is finished :-)

A video of the automatic spot landing of yesterday's endurance flight:

GluonCS auto takeoff

2011-10-31T17:12:51+00:00

Somebody asked if I could shoot a video of the gluonpilot auto takeoff and landing. As you can see, I still have a lot to learn about video tutorials. I even failed at getting a nice video of the automatic landing :-) It's hard to aim on a small plane in the air!

The result is a video of the gluonpilot taking off automatically after an awful throw. After that some basic explanations on how I prepare for auto-landing:

Release 0.7.2

2011-10-23T13:12:43+00:00

A new release for gluonpilot!

Short overview:

1. New and prettier waypoint icons!

2. Minimum and maximum pitch angle can now be defined separately:

This has several advantages:

We can climb faster (especially important during takeoff)
We can descent more gentle

The recommanded settings are the one from the screenshot. This mean the new firmware has additional configuration settings. Please save your current configuration to file before upgrading to the latest firmware.

3. Improved auto landing! The auto-landing is now completely automated!

Right now you have 2 options for autolanding (see Helpers -> Add block)

manual-land: This will give you a "Descent" and a "Flare" button. Descent will fly along the defined circle to loose altitude. When the plane is heading in the right direction, and the altitude is fine too, you can press "Flare" and the plane will fly in the direction of the Flare waypoint. Motor will be turned off
auto-land: The autopilot will automatically glide towards the Flare waypoint when the altitude and heading is correct!

These 2 options are not recommended when you have a plane with a really good glide angle. In this case it will need a long distance to reach to ground. Experimentation is key here! There are 2 options:

FLARE_TO: perfect for deltas and flying wings. The target altitude (e.g. 15 meter) will try to be reached without any motor running! This will result in a pancake-like landing.
GLIDE_TO: The autopilot will try to follow the altitude line between the Descent-circle and the Flare-waypoint. Be carefull of steep descents & hard landings!

It should be noted that before or after take-off, you will need to move the Descent-circle and Flare-waypoint to make sure you will flare with head wind.

4. Wind vane

Thanks to the work of the folks at gentlenav/matrixpilot it has become possible to calculate wind without hard calculations! Now included in Gluon Control Station!

5. New settings:

Default altitude for new waypoint
Default circle radius for new circles
Custom UAV name

New firmware and install file can be downloaded in the download section!

An improved tutorial

2011-10-05T18:33:25+00:00

Alex from UnmannedTech has a lot more writing-skills than I do, and he has put this talent to a use to write a tutorial on the Gluonpilot kits he also sells.

The first episode is about soldering and wiring everything up, and his next eposide will cover the configuration part.

Thumbs up for Alex!

GCOPTER is now part of the CoCo standard Software

2011-09-27T15:45:54+00:00

I’m happy to announce that after several month of work the GCOPTER SW including the possibility to extend the functionality using the 2nd serial interface is now included in the latest SW update from Conrad Electronic. This update is available for all Conrad Quadrocopters (450 and 650) and will also be available for the upcoming MEMS version.
In Addition the configuration Software known form the GCOPTER is now compatible with the Conrad Quadros. However the “old” way to configure the Quadro by using the Transmitter is still available.

I’m still happy to provide additional information for those who are willing to extend the Conrad Qadro or would like to build professional applications with the Conrad Quadro electronics.

DUBwise UI over time

2011-09-18T19:41:21+00:00

Today I got some amazing images for DUBwise for UAVTalk from a really cool and professional guy called grass man which enabled me to make DUBwise for UAVTalk look really sweet:

I am working on the mother project DUBwise since 2007 and this is the first time I like the appearance of it. I always had the problem that I cannot simply take free images of the web as DUBwise has this crude (but important for me ) non-military creative-commons licence-construct. Anyway seeing my baby in such a glance today inspired me to look back a bit. Starting with a small step back in time:

The above screen was the state after I came back from my trip around the world I tested all these shiny new UI Patterns like the popular pagers / dashboard / actionbar - was not feeling bad but needed attention from GFX-Pro's e.g. the connection indicator was just a drawColor ( green or red ) - the rest are images that "fit" which i took with my IXUS 80 - and my IXUS is much more like flying and taking pictures like these :-)
But it gets even worse. In Android beginning I did most stuff with ListViews and icons from android.R.drawable:

Now with big steps deep into the dark J2ME area. There I did nearly everything via an LCD+4way-input style interface but with light and dark theming - voice output and a lot of nifty useful things:

and finally this is the very beginning - just plain text writing values from the UAS ( MK at this time ) and the insight that the RC and the Mobile belong together:

Replay: funjet flight

2011-09-17T10:19:50+00:00

GCS in replay mode

The Gluon Control Station has the unique capability to replay a logged flight.

This allows Gluonpilot owners to analyse their flights, but also allows non-gluonpilot owners to get the feel of the Gluon Control Station!

Attached at the end of this post you will find my latest funjet flight. As you will see when flying circles, it was very windy (+- 7m/s), but no problem for the gluonpilot! For the demo, it was a short flight with only few waypoints, but with auto-takeoff and auto-landing.

The flight plan is as follows:

Block Takeoff
- This will fly in the take-off direction until the desired altitude has been reached (40m)
Block Standby
- In this block, the UAV is waiting for input, and flies in a circle while waiting
Block Route
- Here a very basic 3-waypoint route is flown using the FLY_TO command
Block Descent
- This circle is used to lose altitude. When the descent is done, the plane will fly 30m above ground in a circle
Block Flare
- This command will make the UAV cut throttle and glide on the line between the descent-circle and the flare waypoint.

Using the buttons on the GCS, you can switch between the different blocks. The current block-button is highlighted in yellow.

Some tips when using the GCS:

Pressing "i" will zoom In
Pressing "o" will zoom Out
Pressing "c" will center the view on the plane
Pressing the first letter of a block will make the UAV go to this block (not available in replay mode :) )
Draw the map with your left mouse button
Right click on the map or a waypoint to see the context menu
Waypoints can be dragged, but they will remain gray because they won't be synchronized with the Gluonpilot

Download Gluon Control Station 0.7.1 (or newer) to replay this flight.

Download the Flightlog for replay.

Quadshot – an aerobatic blend of RC quadrocopters and airplanes

2011-09-15T00:47:12+00:00

Hi everyone,

As you probably notice I am very busy lately. Together with some friends we were working on the Quadshot an aerobatic blend between a quadrocopter and an airplane.

It takes off and lands vertically like a quadrocopter as well as it can fly forward like an airplane using its wing to add additional lift extending flight time.

We submitted the project to Kickstarter and we are very happy to see that we got such a great response. The Kickstarter funding runs for another three days and if you pledge you can get a Quadshot at a discounted price as a reward.

At it’s heart Quadshot is using the avionics and software framework of Paparazzi. We developed the additional necessary controls for Quadshot and released them. So Quadshot has Open-Hardware electronics and Open-Source firmware making it a great platform for research and hacking.

Having an autopilot makes it also very easy to fly for a beginner RC pilot.

I hope to find some more time in the future to get into more details about Quadshot. But till then check out the following links:

Cheers Esden

Little UAV's grow up: Gluon Control Station!

2011-09-13T19:58:55+00:00

Wanted for years, anticipated for months, under development and rigorous testing since May. Here it finally is: the first public release of the Gluon Control Station :-)

Despite it young age, it is already quite advanced. I tried to steal functionality from all systems I liked:

Automatic navigation blocks + goto buttons (as in paparazzi)
On the fly (airborne) change of waypoints/navigation commands (as in micropilot)
Simple scripting
On-screen documentation
Live and in-flight configuration

Next to more common functionality

Drag and drop of waypoints
Status of all subsystems
Navigation information
Graphs
...

Thanks to a commercial partner (who already spent a lot of time on it), it has been tested in numerous flights and is thus safe to use.

This is released together with v0.7 of the firmware. The main new functionality is the addition of checksums during communication (to make sure we can drag and rop our waypoints safely during flight :-) ).

Stay tuned for video tutorials, log files for replay (yeay!) and many new features.

Download and play: firmware | Gluon Control Station installer

If you are interested in gluonpilot, please check out our ready to fly modules: they are the perfect and quick match for Gluon CS!

Project Voyager

2011-08-16T13:19:01+00:00

For my backpacking trip I was in the need for a new kopter. My old one was too cumbersome for transport and not reliable enough because I crashed it a lot when testing software or by brutal fun flying. At home this was no problem, but on the trip I can only carry few tools and spare parts. I decided to build an koax y6 because:

is good collapsable
has some redundancy
has good orientation visibility

On my trip there where minimum 5 flights with a plane planned. And I know that they sometimes handle the baggage

very roughly, so I had to build a good case. I decided to use an KG tube which is normally used to transport fecals under the earth. These tubes are available in DIY superstores, but not in the size I needed them. My centerplate

is 180mm so I needed the

200mm tube (they are available in 50mm steps). The maximum sized tube I found in the local DIY superstore

s where 100mm. I luckily got the tip by djrobby to look in a civil engineering shop

for tubes that size

and was lucky there. These tubes are very stable (I can even use it as a chair) but that comes with the cost of heaviness. The tube with caps for both sides weight 3.5 kg which is very heavy when you carry it some kilometers.

I call this Kopter Voyager mainly because when I collapse it - it looks like a NCC and I really like Star-Trek ;-) Beside that this Kopter is for traveling purposes and voyager reflects that very good.
Here are some aerial Pictures taken with this MK.
And Here is the ( sorry german - but you can look at the images or use google translate ) blog of this trip.

New gluonpilot kits

2011-08-12T15:18:12+00:00

On request, I updated the webshop with more kits:

Extension board kits + optional OSD
Ground Control Station kits contain the extension board and everything else needed (including XBee's!).

Using these kits, people with a busy life will be able to stop at one shop and buy everything they need. For more information, please do not hesitate to contact me.

New release: v0.6

2011-08-11T16:39:59+00:00

The new basic configuration screen

A new release is available!

Release 0.6 contains a lot of fixes and improvements. One of the new features is automatic throttle, depending on the target altitude of the next waypoint. Currently no "security mechanism" has been implemented, so watch your propellor when enabling auto-throttle!

Gluonconfig now also includes a "Basic configuration" window. It contains all the settings you need to change when buying a RTF kit. Also, changes you do are direct: no write or burn needed.

Attention: the new firmware uses 57600 baud. Firmware upgrade is still done using 115200 (automatically when upgrading the firmware using gluonconfig).

Let yourself go: ~~gluonconfig and the firmware.~~

UPDATE

Due to some "imperfections", version 0.6.1 is available! Firmware and Gluonconfig

NOTES

Before the update, make sure to backup your configuration and reload it when using the new firmware.

For seeing the 3D plane (see thumbnail), please install the DirectX runtime environment: http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=35

This new release uses .NET 4.0, please upgrade if needed: http://www.microsoft.com/net/Download.aspx

Poolparty.at Video

2011-08-09T18:29:59+00:00

I did a short video for a friend of mine. The video was taken with a Hexakopter and a fixed GoPro HD was mounted directly under the LiPo Battery. Details about the party can be found on www.poolparty.at

[Im Feed kann dieses Video nicht angezeigt werden.Klicke zum Blogeintrag um das Video anzusehen.]

Back in stock!

2011-07-27T18:30:25+00:00

Module 100!

After a long delay, the gluonpilot modules are back in stock!

I am more than happy to mark one of them with serialnumber 100!

Go to the webshop and don't forget the GPS module and FTDI cable to program & configure your UAV!

Stay tuned: in the coming days & weeks the upcoming v0.6 firmware and accompanying Gluon Control Station will be announced.

UAVP-NG @ Chaos Communication Camp 2011

2011-07-23T19:05:19+00:00

The time is near... The Chaos Communication Camp 2011 will start the 10th August and continue until the 14th August in Finowfurt near Berlin, Germany Europe, Earth, Milkyway!

Chaos Communication Camp 2011 Trailer from elektropunk on Vimeo.

The Chaos Communication Camp 2011 is an international, five-day open-air event for hackers and associated life-forms. It provides a relaxed atmosphere for free exchange of technical, social, and political ideas. The Camp has everything you need: power, internet, food and fun. Bring your tent and participate!

Make sure to join us in the UAVP-NG Village at the Chaos Communication Camp 2011 in Finowfurt!

Pimp my wi232

2011-07-09T17:05:31+00:00

Ahoi,
da das dauerhafte Adaptiere von Pegelwandler auf wi232 Modul auf Dauer doch etwas nervig ist am Rechner musste etwas neues her. Auf dem Weg zum LandKamp hat mir Marc (Stars112) dann seine Adapterplatine vorgestellt, auf welcher direkt ein FTDI Chip zur Anbindung via USB untergebracht ist und auch die normale UART Verbindung heraus geführt ist. Genauere Informationen dazu findet man hier.
Nachdem der Adapter dann bestückt war musste noch eine anständige Antenne her, welche an den R-SMA passte. Kurz in der Bastelkiste gekramt fand ich dann noch eine Linksys Antenne, welche bei der Arbeit mal zu Hauf übrig waren. Die Antenne war für WLAN gedacht und um dem Kunden eine höhere Leistung zu simulieren, war das Gehäuse natürlich “etwas” größer dimensioniert. Hier der direkte Vergleich:

Da nun in dem Linksys Gehäuse noch ordentlich Platz war, konnte der originale Strahler durch einen 8,6cm langen Strahler für 868 MHz ersetzt werden.

Und im Betrieb sieht das Ganze dann so aus

Reichweitentest folgt

Stay tuned
Matze

UAVP-NG: Taarek's first pirouettes

2011-06-29T18:40:16+00:00

Hi all!

As you probably know, neighter Taarek nor I ever flew anything before we found out about quadcopters. We were real noobs when we started with the stuff and trough having flown the old UAVP and the commercial MK we both never had a lot of pilot experience.

Switching to the UAVP-NG did not really help the issue. As a test pilot you are never sure if the fault was yours or if the software or hardware failed... ;)

Still after a while you get a bit of feeling for piloting and it seems that Taarek finally got the groove. Using a not so heavy NG probably helped too as we did this using our new Mini-NG, which you can see on the following picture:

Using the above Mini-NG it has suddenly become quite easy to fly pirouttes and I did a small movies of Taarek's first stunts. Flying NG is fun... ;)

UAVP-NG - The OS Multicopter: Taarek's first pirouettes from Amir Guindehi on Vimeo.
These are Taarek's first pirouttes flown with my brand new Mini-NG

Best regards!
- Amir

UAVP-NG: Size comparision NG / Mini-NG

2011-06-28T14:14:32+00:00

Hi all,

I would not let you miss the great photo Timo has shot showing the size differences between our normal size NG (HW-0.22) and the Mini-NG (HW-0.22-mini):

Cheers!
- Amir

UAVP-NG: The 5. NG Developer Meeting in Heidelberg

2011-06-28T11:08:30+00:00

Hello everybody!

Finally I found the time to update my blog! End of last month we had the 5. NG Developer Meeting in Heidelberg. Ben and Volker organized the event and it was a lot of fun! Peoples from all over Europe showed up and we had 3 days of BBQ, discussions and flying.

Now, a month later some of the movies shot have been cut and posted to the net. Below you find Robert's and my moving pictures of the event.

UAVP-NG - The OS Multicopter: 5. Developer Meeting in Heidelberg from Amir Guindehi on Vimeo.
This is a summary movie of the 5. NG Developer Meeting in Heidelberg, which took place the 27./28./29. May 2011

NG UAVP Meeting Heidelberg from Rob Robot on Vimeo.
Short Movie of the NG UAVP Meeting in Heidelberg Germany from 27 to 29th May 2011

I would like to thank all visitors and special thanks goes to Volker and Ben for organizing the great event!

Best regards!
- Amir

Landkamp 2011

2011-06-02T20:13:52+00:00

Das diesjährige Landkamp findet vom 02.06 bis zum 05.06.2011 in Ostheim vor der Rhön statt.

Für Kurzentschlossene gibt es hier alle weiteren Infos: http://landkamp.de/

UAVP-NG: A fully assembled UAVP Mini-NG

2011-05-30T13:46:32+00:00

Hi guys,

Timo did some very nice shots of an fully assembled Mini-NG, which I could not let you miss:

Cheers!
- Amir

Landkamp 2.11 – Es geht los

2011-05-30T10:24:44+00:00

Freunde des Proppelleraufwindes. Es geht los. Das Kopteruniversum öffnet übermorgen für 4 Tage seine Pforten in Ostheim vor der Rhön. Es erwarten dich spannende Kontests, UFOs, Lichtspektakel, elektronische Basteleien, das große Kamp-Feuer und die frisch erledigte Kamp-Wildsau!

Jetzt wird es Zeit dein Lötkolben, deinen Kopter, die Akkus startklar zu machen – Zelt, Isomatte und Schlafsack nicht zu vergessen und sich auf den Weg ins Paralleluniversum zu begeben.

In den letzten 6 Monaten haben wir uns einiges einfallen lassen um das Erlebnis rund ums Kamp unvergessen zu machen. Sogar der Wetterserveradmin ist auf unserer Seite und wird uns ziemlich gutes Wetter bescheren.

Es stehen ein paar interessante KampTalks an. Besonders freue ich mich auf die Geschichte zu Lunars RGB LED Cube. 8x8x8 LED Reihen in Form eines Borg-Würfels der mit Hilfe eines selbst geschriebenen Winamp Plugins tolle Animationen wiedergibt. Das Teil gab es schon beim letztjährigen Landkamp und ist einfach überawesome schick.

Ohne unsere vielen tollen Sponsoren, wäre das Landkamp nicht möglich. Ich möchte mich hier in meinem kleinen Blog nochmal höchstpersönlich bedanken, bei:

antennendiscount.de – Antennen und mehr
Mikrokopter.de – Die Kopterdoktoren
TLV Ritter – Veranstaltungstechnik
K&C Netfox
Beckstage – audiovisuelle Kommunikation
Streckbräu – Das Kamp Bier

und ganz besonders, der Stadt Ostheim, ihren Bürgern, den lokalen Geschäften und ihrem Bürgermeister Ulli Waldsachs sowie der Jule Seibert von der Touristeninfo Ostheim für ihre tolle Unterstützung! Danke Leute.

Es steht soweit alles an Organisation und die neusten Informationen gibt es im Kamp Wiki. Viele, viele Teilnehmer haben sich bereits vor Monaten angemeldet und in den letzten Tagen gingen die Anmeldezahlen nochmal sprunghaft nach Oben. Es ist nie zu spät! Denn wer nicht kommt, war nicht dabei!

Ab Mittwoch gibt es Liveberichte über Twitter, Facebook und ja natürlich, auch wieder hier im Blog. So stay tuned. Landkamp is coming.

http://www.landkamp.de

Open-BLDC and the CLogic story

2011-05-15T22:58:53+00:00

Hi,

It was again a while since my last post, but as always I was quite busy. :)

The last news about Open-BLDC was about its V0.3 iteration. A lot has changed and happened since then. I was realizing that I am getting more and more inquires where people were asking about obldc being able to control very different sizes of motors, ranging from 12V and 10A up to 48V and 200A.

This requirement does not really ask for different logic and controls but it definitely asks for many different power stages. Open-BLDC was designed to be modular from the beginning but still to accomodate that kind of a power range it would be necessary to design and create quite a big lineup of hardware.

Around that time I had the opportunity to take a look inside a dead motor controller from Castle Creations just to realize that these guys seem to know what they are doing and that they went with a modular design too. To make a long story short I decided that it will be better to buy one of their of the shelf motor controllers and retrofit them with my logic. That is how CLogic was born.

As it seems other manufacturers are selling ESCs that have the same interface between the logic and the power stage too. Tekin for example. But my guess is that they are just OEM of castle themselves. But who knows. :)

Turingy also came out with an ESC that seems to have the same interface, the Turingy dlux. I ordered a few of them to take a look for myself and see if CLogic will fit in there. That would be a great source of cheep power stages. :)

CLogic has most of the functionality the Open-BLDC v0.3 had. Because of the size constrains I had to get rid of the dedicated i2c and PPM connectors, but I added isolation on the CAN interface that should provide additional safety when used on a 50V and bigger systems. The i2c and PPM interfaces are still available either over the new AUX connector or through the UART interface connector.

The new AUX connector gives the possibility of easily connecting encoders or hal sensors for sensored operation. So the interfaces stay very flexible with added flexibility due to the big variety of power stages you can use, while being very very compact.

Sure some people complained “The power stages are not Open-Source!!!”, yes that is true. Also these systems start at a higher power and weight class than some of you would want to operate them. That is why there is CPico Power. It is a very small, low power and a hopefully cheep power stage that we are putting together for those who want it all fully open! So no worries. :)

I think that wraps up the news about the new direction Open-BLDC is going. I hope you like it. I am looking forward to your comments.

Cheers Esden

Sold out!

2011-05-05T16:39:29+00:00

I have been very busy lately with, amongst others, the Gluonpilot system. Currently everything is out of stock! I'm doing a slight redesign of the module and the extension module, so they should be back in stock by the end of June (rough estimation). If you are interested and would like to reserve a module (before they are sold out again), please drop me a mail.

HelgaNG is Airborne

2011-04-20T17:32:15+00:00

Ahoi,

nachdem es mir die alte FlightControl (FC) beim Heading Hold Fliegen zerlegt hatte war für mich klar, dass etwas Neues her musste. Diesmal sollte es aber etwas mit mehr Rechenpower für diverse Spielereien sein. Da ich mich auf dem 27C3 recht ausführlich mit Amir vom UAVP Developer Team unterhalten hatte (ja ich kann mich sogar noch an ein paar Sachen erinnern ^^) und dazu noch der erste Prototyp vom neuen Mini-NG gezeigt wurde, war für mich klar, so was will ich auch haben (Auch einfach mal aus dem Grund, dass ich so Out of the Box diverse Teile recyclen konnte)

Nachdem die ersten PCBs für die Betaphase bei Amir angekommen waren, ging es daran die Teile zu ordern. Leider hat die Lieferung von Digi Key ewig auf sich warten lassen, so dass ich erst letzten Freitag mit dem Löten anfangen konnte.

[Show as slideshow]

Da ich aktuell weder Klausuren noch Vorlesungen habe und darauf warte, dass mein Praktikum am 02.05.2011 losgeht, konnte ich die komplette Lötorgie an einem Tag durchziehen. Am nächsten Tag ging es auf Grund einer Whiskey Probe (man soll mir ja nicht nachsagen, dass ich ohne Grund eine Pause eingelegt habe ) in die Heimat wo ich dann die Platine gesäubert habe und mit der Kamera meines Vaters ein paar Detailaufnahmen gemacht habe.

[Show as slideshow]

Nachdem ich mich dann mit dem NGOS vertraut gemacht hatte, konnte es an die Konfiguration gehen. Da ich als Linux User ein CLI gewöhnt bin, kam mir die integrierte Shell im NGOS doch sehr gelegen an dieser Stelle. Als dann alles eingestellt und Rahmen, Motoren, Regler usw. zusammen gebaut waren konnte ich gestern Abend in meinem Schlafzimmer schon die ersten Hüpfer machen. Leider waren die Akkus meiner Kamera leer, so dass ich den wirklichen Erstflug auf Heute verschoben habe. Die Einstellungen sind definitiv noch nicht perfekt, aber es fliegt und wie es scheint ist mein Mini-NG das Erste (nach den Prototypen vom 27C3) welches nun mit den “offiziellen” Platinen fliegt.

An dieser Stelle ein dickes fettes DANKE! an alle Developer und Beta Tester des UAVP NG Teams.

Weitere Artikel zur neuen HelgaNG werden definitiv folgen

Stay Tuned
Der Matze

DUBwise for UAVTalk

2011-04-08T21:33:32+00:00

There is now a new Version of DUBwise - this Blog-Post intends to give some background and insight about this new thingy.

Why UAVtalk?

UAVTalk is an open protocol designed for communicating with UAVs. It is originated by the great OpenPilot-Project but can also be used in other projects. It is very efficient and flexible by using xml for the protocol description but raw binary values for transfer.

Why a new version?

To be honest, I tried to make the recent DUBwise speak UAVtalk but I failed badly. This has two main reasons: #1 DUBwise is grown wild over about 2 years and especially with its roots in J2ME and the MikroKopter Protocol. I have to confess that it has grown to a big and fragile beast. #2 When I really started the project I was on a backpacking trip to the other side of the world which consumed and is consuming a lot of my time and abilities.

I realised that way to late after wasting a lot of precious time walking in the wrong direction. But better now than never I started DUBwise for UAVTalk as a new project when I had the van all for myself for three weeks. What does that mean for the user:

- no J2ME support ( as this was the biggest problem with the DUBwise code base - perhaps I will do a minimal J2ME version when I have a week in a dark cellar, but just because my UAVTalk protocol code had J2ME still in mind and to justify the pain and uglyness of that )

- very limited functionality on the start ( The initial version in the market has only a UAVObject Browser and Audio Voice output - but even that little bit could help on the field so I am releasing it now as it is)

That is bad for the user on one side, but on the other it is better in the long-run because I also gain more flexibility and am not bound to old ideas. For the example of the Audio Voice Output ( StatusVoice ) this means that the user can not only switch on and off stuff that is spoken statically - he can also define text blocks which can contain UAVObjects that are spoken. That is a very flexible approach and so much closer to the flexible OpenPilot way of thinking.

Release steps:

I uploaded the version to the market and commited the rest of the protocol stuff to the OpenPilot repository. I released the protocol stuff ( juavtalk and juavobjects ) in their svn repo with "OpenPilot Team" as author and unter the GPL but I will stick with my non military cc license for the DUBwise code. I will publish the DUBwise code as usual on my github account - but I need to do a cleanup first and I am going to a 5day-ish backcountry hiking trip now, so there could be a delay with that and the reply from me - but are now probably used to that fact since as a backpacker now I am not on my PC 24/7 anymore at this moment ( will change ) ..

Forecast:

As I said for approx. 5 days I will be in the bush without equipment the next time, but after that I will try to reply to the feedback. After that I will build a screen to show an artificcial horizon and values. I will use the same mechanism I produced for the StatusVoice to pick UAVObjects to display. These are the two things which are used most in the MK-DUBwise Version so I will polish them first ( like adding conditions to the StatusVoice blocks ) before adding more features. It is getting colder and colder here in New Zealand so I think I will find more time for coding now.

iPhone 4 mit Bob und Mobile Hotspot

2011-03-28T20:37:53+00:00

Das neue iOS (4.3 bzw. 4.3.1) bietet jetzt auch die Möglichkeit eines mobilen Hotspots.

Da ich in letzter Zeit vermehrt Anfragen bekommen habe, ob Bob diese Funktion unterstützt, habe ich mal ein paar Screenshots angefügt. Wenn die Netzwerkeinstellungen richtig sind (wie in diesem Post erklärt) dann kann man auch den mobilen Hotspot aktivieren.

Es werden bis zu 5 Geräten unterstützt, wobei ich das persönlich erst mit 3 getestet habe. Sollte in den nächsten Wochen das iPad 2 eintrudeln, kann ich dann auch gleich den Praxistest mit dem iPad machen.

Mit Bob ist man also auf der richtigen Seite, wenn man wenig telefoniert und günstiges mobiles Internet haben möchte. Ach ja, Skype über Bob ist natürlich auch kein Problem.

Update iOS 5 und BOB mit Mobile Hotspot (19.10.2011)

Falls du Probleme hast den mobile hotspot mit iOS 5 zu aktivieren, dann musst du unter Einstellungen – Allgemein – Zurücksetzen – Netzwerkeinstellungen wählen und dann die BOB Daten erneut eingeben. Gegebenenfalls ein mal kurz in den Flugmodus wechseln und dann hast du den Persönlichen Hotspot wieder zur Auswahl. Der Fehler ist bei mir beim Update auf iOS 5 aufgetreten und konnte so umgangen werden und Tethering mit dem Mobilen Hotspot funktioniert jetzt wieder.

Gruß, Speedy

Sprengung der Schornsteine – Alte Ziegelei Groß-Zimmern

2011-03-26T18:57:28+00:00

Heute um 14:30 Uhr fielen die zwei Schornsteine der alten Ziegelei in Groß-Zimmern. Der Clemens, Stefan und ich waren vor Ort und haben uns das Spektakel fast aus der Nähe angetan.

Wir haben aus 3 Perspektiven gefilmt, davon eine aus der Luft. Im Luftvideo ist ein Kratzer im Bild zu sehen der von der GoPro HD Plastik-Linse kommt. Danke Clemens für die Unterstützung und deinen Mikrokopter.

Da das Ereignis nicht wie geplant um Punkt 14.00 Uhr stattfand, sondern 30 Minuten später, fand der Start des Kopters etwas hektischer statt. Das Footage aus der Luft ist unbearbeitet und absolut not-deshaked.

Hoffentlich finde ich jetzt ohne diese 2 markanten Symbole meinen Wohnort noch.

Youtube Direktsprengung

UAVP-NG: The new Mini-NG - a full NG on 5.5x5.5cm

2011-03-22T11:47:39+00:00

Hello everybody!

It has been a while since my last post, again. In the meantime we survived winter and had a lot of fun at the 27c3, the yearly CCC Congress in Berlin.

Spring is coming - and as every year, we need something new to play with... ;)

The new Mini-NG hardware has arrived!

Over winter time Volker redesigned our original HW-0.22 into a HW-0.22-mini. The new hardware is fully feature compatible to the old one, is running the normal NGOS and was shrunk to a size of 5.5cm x 5.5cm on 4 layers!

The RC-Controller was moved to a small separate PCB so that only folks needing additional DSL channels or servo channels will have to use it. The functions of the SB-Controller are provided by the LPC itself.

Here are the first shots of the PCBs...

Top side:

And bottom side:

Next, we will test the new PCBs and should everything work out, we will make them available in the NG Shop. Please note that the boards need to have a LISL acceleromenter directly soldered to the board. This means you need hot air to solder it by youself.

Our first Mini-NG prototype was airborne in december 2010 at the 27c3 congress!

A fully assembled HW-0.22-mini (this is our prototype which was airborne at 27c3) looks like this (courtesy of KeyOz):

Volker did a great job and the new Mini-NG looks nice and cute (at least for my humble eyes)!

We hope to be able to provide Mini-NGs with pre-soldered LISL and eventually even with pre-soldered LISL and ADXRS620 gyros in limited numbers in the NG Shop.

Check the NG Forum for Project News on that.

Cheers!
- Amir

OSD demo in good weather

2011-03-20T19:13:22+00:00

Finally the weather is clearing up! Time for a sunny instead of foggy demo: The "arrow" on the top-center of the screen (under the flight mode) still isn't working correctly, but I discovered why so it will soon be fixed!

This demo also features the "real" extension board instead of a hand-made prototype!

OSD extension board

2011-03-16T18:16:15+00:00

Stackable extension board showing the polarised battery connector, XBee socket and switched power supply

Finally it's ready: the first version of the OSD extension board:

Features are:

Battery input (no longer 5V)
- Supply 5V to the gluonpilot board using a switched voltage regulator
- Used to measure the battery voltage
- Supply 3V3 to the XBee module
- Supply battery voltage (12V) to the camera)
OSD chip
- Camera in (a solder jumper allows you to use the 5V or battery to power the camera)
- TX out (a solder jumper allows you to use the 5V or battery to power the video transmitter)
XBee socket (not recommended using powerful XBee modules)

Both the bare PCB and the assembled module will soon be offered in the webshop!

Gluonpilot + magnetometer

2011-03-11T18:28:05+00:00

The gluonpilot module was designed to mate with the HMC5843 breakout board from sparkfun. This is a low-cost 3D magentometer that is easy to use.

Until now the software was never really implemented to use this sensor (fixed wings can live without a magnetometer). Because I'm going to focus more on quadrocopters the coming weeks, t The first step has already been made: gluonpilot + HMC5843 works!

I bought the very cool KK micro multicopter. This small quadrocopter will allow me to flight-test my code indoors :-)

Stay tuned :-)

New gluonpilot long distance record!

2011-03-09T20:07:36+00:00

Philippe established a long distance record with his very cool gluonpilot-enabled Skywalker: A total of 26.9km was reached using half of the battery capacity! Congratulations!

FLOSS-JTAG V1.0 Released and Available

2011-02-22T01:13:27+00:00

Hey everyone,

As you might know some time ago I have developed a small JTAG adapter based on the FT2232H chip. I gave it the name FLOSS-JTAG as the idea was that it should be absolutely OpenSource and OpenHardware.

You can find the project at GitHub and some more info at it’s random projects wiki page.

FLOSS-JTAG not only has the high speed 24MHz FT2232H chip (there are some designs based on my idea that are using a low speed version of the same chip). It provides the new standard 0.05″ pitch 10 pin Cortex JTAG header as well as a TTL level serial interface on it’s second interface.

I am glad to announce that I have reached the V1.0 with it. All necessary files to make your own are in the GitHub repository. But if you don’t want to go through the pains of ordering PCB, sourcing parts, assembling QFN SMD packages you can also purchase it in the Joby Robotics online shop.

At Joby Robotics you get a cable assembly to connect the FLOSS-JTAG to a target. This allows you to debug and connect to targets that are difficult to reach otherwise. You also will get a cortex connector to old standard 20pin 0.1″ pitch connector adapter.

The adapter is small and will make it also easier to debug targets that are difficult to reach.

You can get precrimped Molex Picoblade wires in 10 different colors at Joby Robotics too. This way you can easily build a UART cable that connects FLOSS-JTAG to a device.

I am very happy that FLOSS-JTAG is finally easily accessible to anyone who needs it.

FLOSS-JTAG works perfectly together with Openocd and Summon-ARM-Toolchain.

Cheers Esden

First OSD flight test

2011-02-20T20:15:00+00:00

After some problems with my video transmitter equipment, everything was finally working well for a new test-flight! Unfortunately the weather didn't cooperate, but here we go:

The only thing not functioning correctly is the "heading home" symbol in the top center. Other planned improvements:

Waypoint overview/status
Switch between meters/feet
Turn OSD on and off
Altitude plot?
Overview of all waypoints on a map?

Let me know what you might find interesting!

The OSD extension module (stackable on top) will be available in a few weeks. Stay tuned!

New shop

2011-01-30T22:22:42+00:00

A new batch of modules has arrived! FTDI cables and GPS modules can now be purchased separately. Also, a new "RTF kit" is available. This kit has all headers and wires already soldered into place and includes the GPS module and FTDI configuration cable as well!

GPS modules are almost out of stock (and as a consequence the "kits" as well), but for those who are quick there may still be one available! I'll do my best to have new GPS modules in stock ASAP. Bare modules don't have any stock-problems yet :-)

UAVP-NG: Source code release of NGOS - The NG Operating System

2011-01-07T04:02:15+00:00

The Next Generation Multicopter team would like to announce the source code release of NGOS - The NG Operating System under a GPLv3 license after 3.5 years of intense development time.

Check out the UAVP-NG homepage for more informations!

Official binaries:

* http://ng.uavp.ch/moin/Download

Release source code repository:

* https://pub.uavp.ch/svn/releases

List of supported platforms:

NG HW-0.10
NG HW-0.20
NG HW-0.21
NG HW-0.22
NG HW-0.22-mini

For a complete list of changes refer to the Release Notes at http://ng.uavp.ch/moin/Download

The Beginning

This project was started in summer 2007, half a year after the original UAVP, also a GPL project, was released. All over the world UAVPs started to get built. At that time, many of us started dreaming of bigger and more powerful processors, peripherals and sensors. The current projects available at that time seemed not to be able to scale according to our needs, so the idea of something new was born. In April 2008, about a year later, there were about 500 UAVPs airborne around the world.

Having flown most of the other open projects available at that time some of us decided that they did not offer the resources we wished to have on our copters. Especially when looking into the future it seemed that none of them had the scaling possibilities needed. Studying the available processors we realized that we needed to switch processor types to get the computing power we dreamed of. Neither PIC nor Atmel could provide what we needed.

In the end we decided to go for an ARM7 and started the Next Generation Multicopter Project.

Our Goal

The development of a free Open Source Multicopter software and hardware framework for further research based on a high performance 32bit ARM7 RISC CPU.

The Story

We started work in August 2007 as a small team which met on IRC. The first hardware (HW-0.10) went airborne in January 2008. The software has been extended with a lot of new features after that. We then worked on a new hardware revision (HW-0.20) in summer 2008 and the first prototypes were produced some weeks before the 25C3 congress. The new hardware got airborne in December 2008. After 25C3 we improved the flight control software immensely and started working on the peripheral controllers software support for the new hardware. Having tested and flown HW-0.20 a lot we decided to improve the hardware in summer 2009 and so we started work on the next hardware revision (HW-0.21). We finished that in June 2009 and produced enough boards for all beta testers and developers to thoroughly test the hard and software. The new hardware got airborne in August 2009. Discovering small problems and print issues we decided to produce one last hardware revision 0.22 fixing those before a final release. We hoped to produce this revision before 26C3 and have it ready for a first public release at 26C3. We succeeded and did a hardware release with HW-0.22 at the 26C3 Congress in Berlin.

Finally having a stable hardware platform out in the green, we started working on the source code immediately after returning from the 26C3. Cleaning out the source, commenting and polishing while still implementing new bells and whistles took the time from then until today.

Be aware that this still is work in progress. We decided that it's time to let everybody play with it, now that the hardware has reached a stable state but this is still a very livid project and new hardware revisions and software changes have to be expected any day... ;)

The Design Principles

The design principles of the NG project are simple:

"Complexity, modularity and encapsulation where performance allows it, simplicity and directness where performance requires it."

This has led to a quite complex framework which we started calling the NG Operating System. The system uses abstraction and complex pointer tables where necessity requires it and performance allows it. It uses global variables and breaks encapsulation where performance requires it. We use classic Open Source tools like the autotools suite, gcc and gnu make. We adhere to common C design rules. And we try to provide a user friendly interface with features like help for commands and verbose error messages.

The Key Features

The NGOS has a design rather different from most available flight control software. Instad of building a fully synchronous system as most did, we built a fully asynchronous system which only synchronizes when needed. This allows for a much more modular design and also allowed us to implement modern operating system like features.

A Multicopter only flies as good as its algorithms allow. Since the model is inherently unstable the closed-loop control algorithm is most critical for flying. People tend to have different ideas about the right algorithms. In order to allow different developers to implement different algorithms and to help compare them we designed the NG controller framework.

Our NGOS uses a modular, pluggable extension framework for closed-loop control algorithms, called controllers, and allows for several of them to be implemented at the same time using a simple abstract programming interface. This enables simple extensions to the system's closed-loop control algorithms by people not used to firmware and system programming. The modular controller framework is coupled with a modular configuration framework, allowing each Controller to have a different set of parameters in different configurations. Several controllers have been implemented. We have a good flying heading hold controller, a Kalman filter based integral controller with a lot of features like PT1-compensation and more and last but not least a port of the old Wolferl-controller from the old UAVP, which, BTW, flies very good with a closed-loop running at 1kHz... ;)

The system allows multiple interactive command shells and their spawned commands to be used concurrently on the different physical i/o devices. This means you can log in to your NG several times through one of the two UARTs or the USB port. Other available character devices could be supported as well. The shell command interface is also very modular and allows developers to add new commands quickly for debugging and testing purposes. A command can "take over its controlling tty", which allows an implemented shell command to put the shell to sleep, take over the physical i/o device and start doing with it what it likes. This allows for implementing new communication protocols (for ground station communication or similar) side by side with older and/or different protocols without having side effects or worse.

Controllers and configurations can be manipulated online using one of mentioned shells above. The controllers output the results of their calculations to a physical hardware abstraction layer called HAL which uses a similar modular framework as the controllers. Different multicopter models (eg. QuadCopter, OktoCopter et al.) can be implemented and flown using different HALs. Different flight styles can be implemented this way as well (X-mode, Reverse-Mode). It's even possible to mix different actors (eg. i2c bl-controllers, pwm-servos and i2c-servos) to control models different from the common multicopters. We already support a whole bunch of HALs (quad, quadX, quadR, Y6, X8, X8X) and new ones are implemented easily.

The above is tightly coupled with a behavior system which allows the user to configure arbitrary behavior rules using simple behavior conditions and behavior actions. Users can customize these behavior rules according to their needs. A behavior rule is defined by a behavior condition (which can have arguments) which, when triggered, executes a defined behavior action (which can have arguments too). Conditions and actions are arbitrary functions implemented separately in the NG framework. The implemented console commands can be used to inspect the currently defined behaviors as well as the predefined conditions and actions. Users are able to define custom new behaviors using the predefined conditions and actions. As each condition and action can receive user chosen parameters these allow further customization by the user.

If you ponder the above behavior concept you will see that every and all of the current UAV features can be mapped to behavior rules. You need calibration on channel 5? You want your camera to make a photo when channel 8 goes to 100%? You would like to turn on the lights, when you have reached 10m or more... it's all possible.

The NGOS supports several different types of RC receivers. It supports the normal sum-signal input as well as the faster sum-signal from the ACT 4+2XS 2.4GHz sum-signal receiver. Furthermore it supports the proprietary serial DSL protocol from ACT which allows us to attach any ACT DSL receiver to the NG. ACT produces great cheap and expensive PPM, PCM, SPCM and 2.4GHz receivers and most of them have a DSL interface. The NGOS contains an rc-mixer which allows to mix several rc input signals in different ways. Currently a primary and a secondary device are supported which can be mixed as teacher/student or for diversity. As the DSL protocol contains the signal quality received the diversity mixer can mix the two signals accordingly. If in teacher/student mode, the mode can be switched using arbitrary behavior rules defined by the above user configurable behavior system.

The NGOS

Do you wonder why we call the firmware an Operating System? Now, we all agree, it _is_ a firmware, but it has become a firmware with many, many operating system like features. The NGOS does hardware probing on startup and activates hardware dependent interrupt handlers. It outputs bootup messages while starting. It is split into user, system and irq context, the closed-loop controller is running on the system level, the user mode shells have to use system calls to use privileged opcode. Furthermore it has a timer scheduler and a task scheduler with a process table, it has a device table and it has tools to inspect all of them. The NGOS's device-probing dependent interrupt handlers could be called drivers. The started consoles implemented as cooperative shell tasks in user context (which are able to fork off commands) executed by a round-robin scheduler conclude the operating system like features.

The Developers and Users

Essentially the NGOS provides a simple API for controllers, configurations, HALs and behaviors programming for developers while giving users of the system very broad possibilities to customize their multicopter and the available features. This way the whole system will be interesting to users and developers with its unique options and possibilities.

The firmware is built modular and enables different closed-loop control algorithms to run side by side to allow different developers to share and compare their algorithms and designs. The abstract closed-loop controller framework allows non-programmers like mathematicians, closed-loop engineers and similar minded folks to implement new closed-loop control algorithms without having to understand more than input and output structures of their algorithms.

The Catch ;)

Please be aware that much of this source code was written by a single person - me. I am an EE engineer specialised in computer sience, system programming, network protocols, high-availability, clustering and security. I'm in no way a specialist for closed-loop controls, embedded system programming and aeronautics. Please be aware of this when studying the chosen solutions and implementations in these fields. I'm sure many experts out there could contribute a lot better solutions.

This all was - and still is - a very interesting experience and a lot of fun for me and I learned more about embedded programming and closed-loop control than I ever imagined I would... ;)

Your Contribution

If you would like to contribute to the project make sure to check the development page in the NG wiki.
It can be found at http://ng.uavp.ch/moin/Development

Thanks

I would like to mentions some great guys who joined our team and contributed to improve hardware and software to where we stand:

Markus Bechtold
Michael Buhr
Axel Burri
Patrick Schmid
Nabil Sayegh
Ralf Hager
Stefan Agner
Tim Pambor
Nabil Sayegh

Also special thanks goes to Wolfgang Mahringer who built the original UAVP and infected many of us with the multicopter virus and to Bernd Richter who infected us with a lot of new ideas and who was a great source of information and knowledge to us.

The Spirit

We hope to be able to provide a platform for experiments, new ideas and research for all Multicopter fans out there!

Best regards!
- Amir Guindehi & The NG Team

New hardware

2010-12-28T10:41:34+00:00

As announced some time ago, the new hardware prototypes arrived and have been tested succesfully! Right now the production batch is being assembled and will be available in early January (damn Christmas holidays ;-) )

As you can see in the picture, some changes have been added:

6 PWM inputs (for those who don't like PPM)!
8 PWM outputs
3 types of GPS connectors (EB-85, EM-406 and a normal 4-pin header)
ISZ-600 gyroscope (cheaper!)

Soon a stack-on extension board will also be released!

It has been snowing a lot here lately, so flight tests had to be made in a freezing cold weather!

Gluonpilot OSD - preview

2010-12-18T17:06:06+00:00

Most of the OSD code for the gluonpilot is finished. It auto-detects the MAX7456 chip connected on the SPI port and updates the OSD chip in a separate thread.

It currently shows:

Heading to home
Distance to home
Altitude
Compass with heading and home location
Number of GPS satellites being tracked
Artificial horizon

Still to add:

Speed
RC-reception link quality (in case PPM is used)
Voltage of the battery
Flight time

Any ideas are welcome on the forum!

Another gluonpilot

2010-11-25T20:09:06+00:00

Eric sent me this photo of his very nice looking easyglider with a gluonpilot.

The motor mounter on the pilon caused quite a large downwards pitching moment. Right now he's building a funjet very similar to mine:

Hands up for Eric!

Lumix DMC-TZ7 on Hexakopter

2010-11-11T14:56:36+00:00

Short test-flight with a Lumix DMC-TZ7 Camera mounted on a Hexakopter with the HighSight II camera mount.

The Nick Axis is very jittering because of the servo. A servo with a higher resolution or a gear (for example 3:1) would be a solution to reduce the “shaking” effect.

But no “wobbling” or “rolling shutter” effect

No filter applied to the material. Check it out (available in 720p on Youtube HD):

[Im Feed kann dieses Video nicht angezeigt werden.Klicke zum Blogeintrag um das Video anzusehen.]

New IMU milestone

2010-11-09T18:03:19+00:00

Invensense (the manufacturer of the gluonpilot's X and Y gyroscopes) now developed a 6-DOF single chip solution. Read the press release here.

The IC contains a 3-axis gyroscope and a 3-axis accelerometer. An on-board microcontroller does the calculations (optionally using data of an external magnetometer).

The specs of the IC in questions aren't good enough for out purpose, but I'm sure it won't take long before a "one-chip" UAV stabilization solution finds it's way to the market.

Smallest gluonpilot

2010-10-20T18:01:01+00:00

Florian managed to integrate the gluonpilot into a tiny 40cm-something airplane: the Simprop Zaunkönig.

According to him, everything works perfectly!

Congratulations!

LED Stripe ist umgezogen

2010-10-17T19:13:26+00:00

Alle Informationen zur LED Stripe (Beschreibung, Schalt-/Bestückungsplan, Firmware, LED Stripe Tool, etc.) sind ab sofort unter www.ledstripe.net zu finden!

New release: version 0.5

2010-10-13T17:44:57+00:00

Good news! Version 0.5 is finally ready to be installed on all your planes!

Important new features:

Firmware upgrade via gluonconfig
Easy editing of navigation commands
Dashboard added to follow the flight in real time
Auto-tuning of gyroscopes (small changes to the gyro bias will be done automatically, basic estimation using gluonconfig is still required)
Navigation commands (waypoints, circles, ...) can be exported to a KML file
Bug in circling algorithm: smaller circles can be reached
Height to pitch PID can be tuned
Take-off in navigation mode supported (climb command)
Aileron differential added
Automatically go to navigation mode when no valid RC-signals are detected
If() commands supported
While() changed to ... Until()
RC-Channels added as navigation-variable (If(Channel7 < 1500) goto 11)
FLY_FROM_TO implemented to fly along a straight line between next and previous waypoint
Various small bugs in Gluonconfig

New files can be found in the download section. Make sure to backup your configuration before upgrading to a new version! From v0.4, you'll still need the "ds30 loader", but from v0.5 on firmware upgrades will be possible using the Gluonconfig tool without the need to manually reset the module.

If you encounter bugs, please add them to the bug tracking system.

For those interested, I also uploaded the configuration file for my funjet ultra.

Real time google earth visualisation

2010-10-08T15:53:29+00:00

The in-flight telemetry and visualization options of the gluonpilot are not so known. I made a short demo flight to show the possibilities.

First of all I stuffed my funjet with an XBee module and an extra battery:

(The extra battery is optional)

I flew a short route (4 waypoints) at 155 of altitude, and ended the mission circling above the home position at 250 meters altitude:

CLIMB(40m)
CIRCLE_RELATIVE(lat: 0m, lon: 0m, radius: -110m, height: 150 m)
UNTIL(Height (m) > 145)
FROM_TO_ABSOLUTE(lat: 50,85389°, lon: 3,67180°, height: 155m)
FROM_TO_ABSOLUTE(lat: 50,85641°, lon: 3,66584°, height: 155m)
FROM_TO_RELATIVE(lat: 0m, lon: 0m, height: 155m)
FROM_TO_ABSOLUTE(lat: 50,85028°, lon: 3,66928°, height: 155m)
FROM_TO_RELATIVE(lat: 0m, lon: 0m, height: 155m)
CIRCLE_RELATIVE(lat: 0m, lon: 0m, radius: 150m, height: 250 m)
GOTO(9)

The telemetry it sent back to a laptop at 4Hz. This allows the model to fly smooth in google earth. Altitude and speed are shown in a figure, number of GPS satellites is shown for safety.

Attempt at a videolog of the flight. Next attempts will probably be better :-)

Flight at a sunny fall evening

2010-10-06T21:38:34+00:00

Some time went by since my last post! In between I fixed the problems with my new quadrocopter, in the end I had problems with my altered brushless controllers. I had to resolder some soldering joints. But now it is flying quite nice, but see yourself:

Flight at a sunny fall evening

My next goal is flying with first persion view (FPV). For that purpose I bought a Headplay Eyewear and started soldering on a 5.8 GHz NGvideo. Therefor I also started flying in X-Mode (instead of + mode, which I did until now). With X-Mode you have a free view between two arms of the quadrocopter, its easier to place the camera that way. Expect more about this soon!
There is also another quadrocopter meeting at Amir’s place in the mid of october. Don’t miss it!

Patrolling the street

2010-09-30T21:18:50+00:00

How do you organize a long distance flight? Launch the plane, cross your fingers and wait for it's return? Icebear flies over water and follows the plane with a boat. Unfortunately, I don't live by the sea. So I came up with the idea to follow the roads. This way I or somebody else can "hunt" the plane by car.

Today I did a first try-out. Using a few waypoints, the funjet flies a route above 2 streets:

The plane follows the streets perfectly! The maximum distance from the take-off position was only 700 meters, but step by step we'll get more experienced and become confident to go further.

Navigation:

CLIMB(40m)
CIRCLE_RELATIVE(lat: 0m, lon: 0m, radius: -100m, height: 150 m)
UNTIL(Height (m) > 145)
FROM_TO_ABSOLUTE(lat: 50,85022°, lon: 3,66951°, height: 150m)
FROM_TO_ABSOLUTE(lat: 50,85366°, lon: 3,67180°, height: 150m)
FROM_TO_ABSOLUTE(lat: 50,85669°, lon: 3,66533°, height: 150m)
FROM_TO_ABSOLUTE(lat: 50,85394°, lon: 3,67152°, height: 150m)
GOTO(4)

Remark the "navigation commands to KML" feature on the google earth screenshot.

Download the KML and XML files here

Patrolling the street

2010-09-30T21:18:50+00:00

Today I did a first try-out. Using a few waypoints, the funjet flies a route above 2 streets:

The plane follows the streets perfectly! The maximum distance from the take-off position was only 700 meters, but step by step we'll get more experienced and become confident to go further.

Navigation:

CLIMB(40m)
CIRCLE_RELATIVE(lat: 0m, lon: 0m, radius: -100m, height: 150 m)
UNTIL(Height (m) > 145)
FROM_TO_ABSOLUTE(lat: 50,85022°, lon: 3,66951°, height: 150m)
FROM_TO_ABSOLUTE(lat: 50,85366°, lon: 3,67180°, height: 150m)
FROM_TO_ABSOLUTE(lat: 50,85669°, lon: 3,66533°, height: 150m)
FROM_TO_ABSOLUTE(lat: 50,85394°, lon: 3,67152°, height: 150m)
GOTO(4)

Remark the "navigation commands to KML" feature on the google earth screenshot.

Download the KML and XML files here

Flight Time Calculation for Mikrokopters using Matlab

2010-09-25T15:53:56+00:00

Hi Guys!

This week Holger wrote a request in the Mikrokopter forum for a tool to calculate the flight time of a Mikrokopter based on basic parameters:

Thrust curve of a Motor (grams over current)
Number of Motors
Mikrokopter Weight without Lipo
Lipo Weight
Lipo Capacity
Payload
Losses
LipoFactor (g per mAh – typical 50-100 g/Ah) – Here is also a nice List from Nabazul from the MK-Forum

With this data it is possible to calculate the flight time.

Also I created very interesting plots of flight time over Lipo capacity and flight time over payload. (It would also be possible to creat a 3D plot with both parameters)

I decided to make the calculation with a little Matlab script (M-File) that you can download here.

Here are some plots with the following settings (these settings are not very realistic, sorry – they are only choosen to test the skript):

Motors = 4
MKWeightWithoutLipo = 500g
LipoWeight = 800g
LipoCapacity = 2500
Payload = 100;
Losses = 0.1;

Thrust Characteristic (source: http://www.mikrokopter.de/ucwiki/FlugZeit)

Roxxy2827-35
10” EPP
4s Lipo

Polynomial (3rd grade) fit of the measurement points.

Flight Time over payload calculated out of the thrust characteristic curve.

And the most interesting plot is the plot of the flight time over capacity of the lipo battery. Here also the weight of the MK changes with the capacity of the lipo. This is done by the LipoFactor which is calculated by LipoWeight / LipoCapacity * 1000 (about 320 g/Ah in this example)

As you can see there is an optimum at about 3500 mAh for this setup. After that it does not make sense to take a lipo with a higher capacity (assumption: the LipoFactor is constant over capacity).

If you want to play around with your data, you can download the Skript here and have fun and leave a comment if you like it

Speedy

TUHH Quadrocopter Project

2010-09-24T10:52:03+00:00

Long time no post. I was moving to the new house (and the new 40 m2 workshop) and we were busy on working on the Conrad Copter extension boards coming out soon. Too much stuff was happening during the last year to keep this blog up to date.

This time I would like to draw your attention to a amazing Quadrocopter project using the Conrad platform. However it’s not a CoCo anymore it’s something much more powerful, but it is still using the CoCo Frame and BLC’s. Better Sensors and a ATOM Processor provides enough power to do real image processing and better processing of the sensors.

Find out more: http://quadro.fst.tu-harburg.de/

The TUHH Quadrocopter with 450er frame and “Stabiplatte”. Looking forward to see it flying soon!

Open-BLDC V0.3 Hardware Based Closed Loop Control

2010-09-19T02:03:40+00:00

Hi,

Good news everyone!

After again a way too long time some new news! I finally implemented hardware based commutation detection and the associated closed loop controller.

That was quite a run because of a cascade of timing and timer problems. And a very nasty compiler bug. But now it works and very well on top of that. Woohoo \o/ But see for yourself in the video.

The video also shows the new implementation of the startup routine. It uses now a separate software timer. It was made possible by using SysTick as timer base and implementing the timer in software. This way it is easy to add new timers that don’t need to be very time precise, as it is the case in startup, or ignite as I like to call it. :) The old implementation was using timer overflows of the commutation timer that led to nasty speed jumps while starting up and made the startup unreliable.

Next step, put Open-BLDC on a plane! :)

As always you are welcome to drop by in #open-bldc channel on freenode if you have questions or just want to hang around to follow the cutting edge development. :)

Progress towards v0.5

2010-09-16T18:36:54+00:00

The gluonpilot UAV firmware is slowely catching up with the mature systems. Those mature systems are catching up with the gluonpilot to make their code more readable :-) (see news items August, 2010) Release 0.5 of the gluonpilot firmware is almost ready and will make the system a complete and usable UAV.

I just made a nice flight this evening to show the current status:

Navigation commands:

1. CLIMB(35m)
2.     CIRCLE_RELATIVE(lon: 0m, lat: 0m, radius: 100m, height: 150m)
3. UNTIL(Height(m) > 145)
4. FLY_TO_REL(lon: -150m, lat: 150m, height: 145m)
5. FROM_TO_REL(lon: -150m, lat: 150m, height: 145m)
6. FROM_TO_REL(lon: 150m, lat: 150m, height: 145m)
7. FROM_TO_REL(lon: 150m, lat: -150m, height: 145m)
8. FROM_TO_REL(lon: -150m, lat: -150m, height: 145m)
9. GOTO(5)

You can clearly see:

Auto take-off in navigation mode
Climbing up wind until 35 meters height
Circling towards 145 meters height
Flying a square (and tracking the sides of this square) at 145 meters height.

Even though the Funjet was flying at 100km/h down wind, he reached the square's border before reaching the waypoint on the corner. When flying upwind, the funjet nicely follows the line. The height was tracked correctly with a margin of +-5 meters.

Download the kml and datalog.

A full list of the new features will be made available at the release.

Stay tuned!