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Everyone's Blog Posts - DIY Drones

DIY Drones in Unmanned Systems magazine!Today

Very cool: ArduPilot, BlimpDuino and the rest of DIY Drones are the subject of a three-page feature in this month's Unmanned Systems, the official magazine of AUVSI. The issue hasn't gone online yet, but here are scans (click on them for readable versions):

AttoPilot's battery/motor sensor board now availableYesterday

Another one from Sparkfun, which is quickly becoming a serious UAV parts supplier: the power monitoring sensor board that Dean Goedde uses for AttoPilot. If you want to add motor current and battery voltage measurement to your autopilot, this is a good way to do it. Analog output, so you'd want to add it to a port with an ADC (ArduPilot has six free ones so it would work well with that). Oddly expensive at $26, given what's on the board, but perhaps that reflects the low production run.

Help Wanted - Opportunity to map several large African cities...Yesterday

An opportunity to carry out aerial mapping of several large African cities using RC aircraft is being discussed. These discussions are at an early stage but if the project goes ahead then I am unlikely to have the time to do everything myself and will concentrate on the business side and managing the technical side. Anyone interested in getting involved please mail me at datapolo@yahoo.com

Both individuals and corporate organisations welcome.

It is likely that we will be competing for the job against satellite imagery - not necessarily easy but possible. As an example one of the larger of the cities requires imagery within a 30km radius....Where we can compete is on resolution and maybe cost.

If you want to get involved you need to be available to work flexibly and to be competent in all the necessary data acquisition skills - from flying, maintaining and repairing the platform to planning the flight paths and checking the data. Processing for mapping can be taught as long as you are very capable on a computer and have a good understanding of co-ordinate geometry and maps.

I stress that this is all at an early stage and I will be meeting the client in-country in February to discuss in greater detail our capabilities and their requirements. Hopefully I will also be able to make a demonstration flight and show them what we can do.

Look forward to hearing from you,
Mike

UAV Challenge - Outback Rescue will take place in 2009Yesterday

We are pleased to announce that the UAV Challenge - Outback Rescue will take place in 2009 in the regional Queensland town of Kingaroy. The event will take place on 28 September - 1 October 2009.

Aerospace students and enthusiasts alike will again have the opportunity to find and assist 'Outback Joe', a lost bush walker in Australia's vast outback, using UAVs.

We look forward to your continued enthusiasm and support for this event.

See you in Kingaroy!

http://www.emailer.sd.qld.gov.au/em/mail/view.php?id=970246831&k=4ee7e9a

Another Sparkfun autopilot--this one with a full IMU!January 7

It's raining autopilots! Sparkfun has just released a new and much improved version of Bill Premerlani's original IMU-based autopilot board. The previous one was just a 5 DOF board, but this one has a full six degrees of measurement, with three gyros and a three-axis accelerometer. Also has a faster CPU and other goodies (see below).

The code is open source and available in C (a big improvement over the assembly code of the first version).

We'll be hosting the home page for the autopilot board here at DIY Drones, and you can now see it in the tabs above. I've set up a discussion forum here.

If you want to move from a basic entry-level autopilot to a full IMU-based one and stay open source, this is a great way to go. IMUs are a lot more expensive than thermopile-based units like ArduPilot, but if you want full control they're wo