Latest Activity

Alex Arevalo commented on Chris Anderson's blog post GPS loss plus faulty inertial code caused fatal Camcopter crash
"From the first sentence in the statement:  "Schiebel says its Camcopter S-100 drone...should have coped in any case because GPS can be lost for many reasons,...".   That implies that there was code to handle the lost of…"
33 seconds ago
Jared S commented on Chris Anderson's blog post "How to become a police UAV pilot"
"@Doug: A uav operator typically acts as mechanic, flight planner, safety officer, pilot, etc. Only one of those can be automated (until robots become self aware). For example, a uav operator needs to look at the flight vehicle before it takes off to…"
2 minutes ago
Vernon Barry replied to Søren Kuula's discussion So which message format does ArduPilot use??
"Why not use some code from one of the projects that already reads the mavlink from the current ardupilot firmwares like minimOSD? Again, If I was trying to read mavlink data, this is working code. Why re-invent the wheel when it's done…"
4 minutes ago

Moderator
Ellison Chan commented on Fab - Arduino for Visual Studio's blog post FreeIMU 4.0 and MultiWii - Is your copter trusted enough to fly above your car in a confined space?
"Martin, in fact any autopilot can be upgraded to have nav, like the navi board for KK.  I was actually thinking of modifying the AC code so that it provide yaw/roll/pitch/throttle to the Naza.  The AC can do all the navi functions, and…"
6 minutes ago

Moderator
Jack Crossfire commented on Chris Anderson's blog post GPS loss plus faulty inertial code caused fatal Camcopter crash
" There's nothing about faulty inertial code, unless Wired has a mole.  N Korea jammed their GPS, a human took over, & as usual for a human, he crashed it. "
13 minutes ago

Distributor
Martint BuildYourOwnDrone.co.uk commented on Fab - Arduino for Visual Studio's blog post FreeIMU 4.0 and MultiWii - Is your copter trusted enough to fly above your car in a confined space?
"@ Jason J "Ellison, yep i know. I have seen few NAZA's flying. But you also need to remember that NAZA cannot do any navigation/auto take-offs/landings and things like that. It's just mainly a flight stabilization system. Could we be…"
14 minutes ago
Søren Kuula replied to Søren Kuula's discussion So which message format does ArduPilot use??
"Hi, OK after a little more reverse engineering: v0.9 does not use this extra addition of field hash to CRC. Its frame start character is 0x55, not 0xfe as in 1.0. My program decodes and verifies correctly the 0.9 mesages generated by the C code…"
16 minutes ago
Alex Arevalo commented on Chris Anderson's blog post "How to become a police UAV pilot"
"I think Arizona's Sheriff Joe Arpaio should take your suggestion to show how tough his deputies are. After all, he makes the prisoners wear pink underwear! Wan't there a Susan Korman breast cancer movement recently, where they asked…"
16 minutes ago
Boris posted photos
20 minutes ago

Moderator
Ellison Chan commented on Fab - Arduino for Visual Studio's blog post FreeIMU 4.0 and MultiWii - Is your copter trusted enough to fly above your car in a confined space?
"Fab, there's a Chinese restaurant in Italy?"
22 minutes ago
Dean Wynton posted a discussion

The difference between Loiter and Auto Params?

Here are two sucessful logs of a Loiter  the first being Loiter and the second a mission flown in Auto..Whilst analising the logs you can see that the loiter drifts off and the apm follows it almost precisely to correct the drift. Now in the Auto looking at the log it appears that the apm does nothing in regards to correcting the drift? but from where I was standing it looked very controlled? If I increase the parameters involved in Navigation it will not follow the course I have set and even…See More
27 minutes ago

Distributor
Martint BuildYourOwnDrone.co.uk replied to Jill Freise's discussion Can't Calibrate ESCs and Loss of Power to APM
"Hi Jill,   It could be either, the only way to know is to walk through each part of the "chain" and see where the power stops, I have never had a faulty PDB, if there is power in the battery, the battery will feed the ESC the ESC will…"
30 minutes ago
DOZDOG replied to Cyrus Abdollahi's discussion ArduPilot - Newbie Here
"I just got my APM2 and got APMPLaner running on WinXP. Now, how do I hook up my ARM2 board to a USB port?  I have a working  Sparkfun FTDI basic board, but it has  a 6-pin connector.   The APM2 board doesn't seem to…"
36 minutes ago

Developer
R_Lefebvre commented on Fab - Arduino for Visual Studio's blog post FreeIMU 4.0 and MultiWii - Is your copter trusted enough to fly above your car in a confined space?
"Chris, for those of us new to the scene (me) why is Arduino dominating the market?  All I see are criticisms from some "experts"."
37 minutes ago
Fab - Arduino for Visual Studio commented on Fab - Arduino for Visual Studio's blog post FreeIMU 4.0 and MultiWii - Is your copter trusted enough to fly above your car in a confined space?
"Well if you get to a certain chinese resturant on Saturday hopefully Mr Arduino (Massimo Banzi) will have something interesting to tell you :) Obviously with the ARM annoucement from Arduino at the end of last year, Saturday, might be a good day for…"
47 minutes ago
Søren Kuula replied to Søren Kuula's discussion So which message format does ArduPilot use??
"Hi, Thank you very much. I find no description of the frame format in Mavlink except that link I posted before with the image in it. The only other information I have found it to generate C code with the Python generator and then reverse engineer…"
49 minutes ago

Moderator
Ellison Chan commented on arashi's blog post My Arducopter UAVforge competition entry
"Arashi, you're doing a lot of pioneering and advanced stuff!  I would love to hear some detailed accounts of all your experience for the competition."
50 minutes ago

Moderator
Ellison Chan commented on Chris Anderson's blog post "How to become a police UAV pilot"
"Alex, I was talking about the drones, but come to think of it, I think we should force all cops to wear neon pink.  That would make them less likely to go on power trips.   Here in Canada, there's going to be a lot of cops in Toronto…"
55 minutes ago
F11music.com commented on Luiz LoTiTo's blog post FPV Blessing in Rio
"What are your flight times and what battery do you use? I'm planning a 3km flight but haven't done it yet. Only went 1km so far. I'm using 5.8 VTx and ezUHF and 6000mAh 4S nanotech. I get about 45 minutes of easy flying."
56 minutes ago

Moderator
Ellison Chan commented on Fab - Arduino for Visual Studio's blog post FreeIMU 4.0 and MultiWii - Is your copter trusted enough to fly above your car in a confined space?
"Chris, yes it's definitely a plus to keep within the "Ardu" environment.  I would hate to have to move to any of the proprietary or Eclipse environments.  My current information about the AQ Baloo is that Maple is being…"
59 minutes ago

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Forum

Can't Calibrate ESCs and Loss of Power to APM

Started by Jill Freise in ArduCopter 2.x (multicopter). Last reply by Martint BuildYourOwnDrone.co.uk 30 minutes ago. 4 Replies

ArduPilot - Newbie Here

Started by Cyrus Abdollahi in ArduPilot Mega hardware: tech support. Last reply by DOZDOG 36 minutes ago. 11 Replies

Gas Engine Quad, Ideas and Solutions...

Started by Jake Stew in Quadcopters. Last reply by Kevin Finisterre 1 hour ago. 21 Replies

Sonar Noise Reduction update

Started by Greg in ArduCopter 2.x (multicopter). Last reply by Lloyd DeForrest 3 hours ago. 73 Replies

Maestro Tracking and Telemetry Files

Started by Andy Demartini in APM Mission Planner. Last reply by Andy Demartini 4 hours ago. 9 Replies

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All content is free to use under a Creative Commons attribution license.

 

Welcome to DIY Drones


This is the home for everything about amateur Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs). Use the tabs and drop-down menus above to navigate the site. (About us)


This community created the Arduino-compatible ArduPilot, the world's first universal autopilot (planes, copters of all sorts, ground rovers). The APM 2 autopilot hardware runs a variety of powerful free Arduino-based UAV software systems, including:

  • ArduPlane, a pro-level UAV system for planes of all types.
  • ArduCopter, a fully-autonomous multicopter and heli UAV system.

I'm new to all this--where do I start?                    Are amateur UAVs legal? (yes)

How can I join a DIY Drones project?                 Glossary of confusing terms

Blog Posts

FPV Blessing in Rio

Posted by Luiz LoTiTo on May 18, 2012 at 8:47am 7 Comments

 

I don't usually post my FPV videos here, but I think this one is special and worth sharing.

 

I think I've been dreaming about flying around Cristo Redentor since I started FPV. Based on the comments I got, I was not the only one... But I began to plan it seriously when I moved back to Rio a few months ago.



The plan and…

Continue

UAV FAQs for Canada

Posted by Robert Sinclair on May 17, 2012 at 9:00pm 9 Comments



I put together an overview of what we found when looking into the legalities of UAV use in Canada.  Our hope is that as a community we can have a rough outline for each of the countries that the members are from.

Notes: I'm not a professional I've just collated what I found.  Please let me know of any mistakes or changes.



Q: Are UAVs legal in the Canada?



A: Unmanned Aerial vehicles are permitted to fly in…

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Tricopter made by dummies [Part 1]

Posted by Maxime Carrier on May 17, 2012 at 7:22pm 2 Comments

Prelude :

Hi folks

This is the short version of a very long story about how to create a Tricopter from almost nothing. A story of trial and error, frustration and hard time. Maybe this story will allow future people to make less mistake than I have done myself (with some help by a…

Continue

"How to become a police UAV pilot"

Posted by Chris Anderson on May 17, 2012 at 5:16pm 9 Comments

From PoliceOne.com: an article on how to prepare for the new career of Police UAV Pilot. Includes advice from Curtis Sprague, a retired SWAT Officer and former Federal Air…

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Western Australian companies COPTERCAM & Pixelcase team up to produce an Aerial 360 of Perth in just 60 minutes.

Posted by Hai Tran on May 17, 2012 at 6:32am 9 Comments

Click on the following link to view 
360 Interactive of Perth

Western Australian companies COPTERCAM & Pixelcase team up to produce an Aerial 360 of Perth in just 60 minutes

 

COPTERCAM is Perth's only licenced UAV aerial photography company. …

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Some FPV with the 3DR - Testing the Quad

Posted by Eric Tweet on May 17, 2012 at 5:30am 3 Comments

 

Finally managed to get everything together in reasonably working order. Lucky for me, the weather has been mostly perfect as well. The video is taken at about 9:30 pm, with plenty of sunlight to spare. Gotta love Alaska!

I figured the parking garage at the UAA campus would be a decent place to fly around. Not many people, no wind, good view - a good way to…

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Display RSSI with ArduCAM OSD

Posted by airmamaf on May 17, 2012 at 4:30am 1 Comment

Firmware : ArduCAM_OSD.rssi.hex

Windows client : OSD_Config_Rssi.exe

I you want to build your own…

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Successful Shrike Re-Maiden

Posted by Trent at MyGeekShow on May 17, 2012 at 3:38am 7 Comments

 

We successfully re-maidened the Shrike! Turns out that our elevons had excessive throws, we had insufficient expo's and the wing mounted too far to the nose causing a tail heavy environment. 

 

It's still a little tail heavy, but we're getting closer! Anything you notice that demands to be fixed/improved?

 

See you Saturday,



-Trent & Nick



--Shrike--

Tx:…

Continue

IEEE Spectrum on laser-guided aggressive maneuvering research

Posted by Chris Anderson on May 16, 2012 at 1:00pm 5 Comments

This is just a good journalistic summary by …

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Contests

Season Two of the Trust Time Trial (T3) Contest has now begun. The third round was a reliablilty/aerial photography round for both planes and copters, which is now closed. Stay tuned for the next round, beginning soon.

A list of all T3 contests is here

 

UAV news from sUAS News

Egypt: Nation Produces UAV in Cooperation With China

Chairman of the Arab Organization for Industrialization, Hamdy Weheba said that Egypt has started the second phase to produce 12 Egyptian unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) “ASN-209″ in cooperation with a Chinese company. He added that the local manufacturing in this plane reaches nearly 99.5 percent. Weheba noted that the first phase has produced 6 aircrafts of this type. He stressed that the organization, in cooperation with the Chinese company, succeeded in the manufacture of 120 advanced training aircraft of the type “K-8″. Details of the platform from the ASN site. ASN-209 UAV System is a multi-purpose UAV product with mature technology. Via data link and ground control subsystem, ASN-209 UAV can perform aerial reconnaissance, battle field survey, target location, destroy validation and artillery fire adjustment in day and night in real time. ASN-209 UAV System is consists of aircraft, airborne mission payload, GCS, launch and recovery equipment. ASN-209 uses digital flight control and navigation system, its flight control mode has manual, program and emergency control.It wasGPS and data link to locate the aircraft. The system operation is easy to master. ASN-209 uses rocket booster launch, parachute recovery, no need to use the airport makes the system operation flexible. GCS adopts [...]

AUVSI Rejects Calls For Unlawful Destruction Of Unmanned Aerial Systems

In a statement issued on May 18, the president and chief executive officer of the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International (AUVSI) Michael Toscano responded to recent comments by media pundits and television programs that seem to advocate shooting down domestic unmanned aerial vehicles. The coming wider use of UAVs in the U.S. has drawn protests from privacy and civil rights advocates because they say it is intrusive and possibly dangerous. On May 16, syndicated newspaper columnist and Fox Television commentator Charles Krauthammer called for a ban on the vehicles and intimated that others with similar beliefs will shoot the aircraft down and become heroes. “I would predict — I’m not encouraging, but I would predict, the first guy who uses a Second Amendment weapon to bring down a drone that’s hovering over his house is gonna be a folk hero in this country,” said Krauthammer on a May 14 panel on Fox New’s Special Report. According to AUVSI, a recent episode of NBC’s television show “Harry’s Law” also portrayed its main character shooting down a “drone” in just such a situation. Toscano called such talk irresponsible and that vigilante approaches to the vehicles could have dire unintended consequences. “To advocate [...]

UAV Flight Training and Simulation Market Worth $451.9m in 2012

Visiongain’s analysis indicates that the UAV flight training and simulation market will reach a value of $451.9m in 2012, as increasing demands for UAVs around the world drives the creation of formalised pilot and sensor operator training and simulation apparatus. A Visiongain analyst commented that: ‘Growing requirements for UAVs will lead to continued demand for more immersive operator training. This will result in spending on UAV flight training and simulation products and services continuing to grow over the coming decade’. The report contains 102 tables, charts and figures that quantify and forecast the UAV flight training and simulation market. Visiongain provides forecasts for the period 2012-2022 in terms of value (US$) for the UAV flight training and simulation market. In addition, the report quantifies, analyses and forecasts 15 leading national UAV flight training and simulation markets from 2012-2022 in addition to providing rest of the world figures. The report profiles 20 leading companies operating within the market, and includes interviews with L-3 Link Simulation and Training, a major US technical systems and service provider to both the public and private sector, CAE Inc, a Canadian company specialising in the provision of modelling, simulation and training, and Israeli Aerospace Industries (IAI) [...]

New Scientist:GPS loss kicked off fatal drone crash

This single incident might well put the integration of civil UAS into American airspace back by several years. Paul Marks, senior technology correspondent In a statement supplied to New Scientist, Schiebel says it’s Camcopter S-100 drone, a 150-kilogram rotorcraft capable of 220 km/h flight, should have coped in any case because GPS can be lost for many reasons, such as an inability to access the positioning satellites due to obstruction by high buildings. The Camcopter has multiple inertial measurement units that “allow safe operation and recovery in the absence of GPS signals” the firm says. “All information recovered to date indicates that after a loss of GPS signals to the aircraft’s receivers incorrect handling and omissions over a time period of a number of minutes, resulted in an unfortunate chain of events that ultimately led to the crash,” the statement says. Emergency procedures “to ensure a safe recovery in such a situation” do not appear to have been “correctly and adequately followed” it alleges. The Schiebel aviation engineer who died – a 50-year-old Slovakian with much experience of the technology – was assisting two remote pilots working for one of Schiebel’s South Korean partners. He was not in control of the aircraft, the firm [...]

Drones: Unmanned, but Inherently Governmental?

U.S. Air Force Captain Keric D. Clanahan has written a paper on the legal and policy controversies surrounding the Air Force’s use of unmanned aircraft systems (UAS), more commonly known as drones. Specifically, Clanahan examines the kinds of tasks contractors are performing in the Air Force’s drone program and discusses whether these tasks should be entrusted to contractors. Drones have profoundly changed the nature of warfare in the last few years. The drone program greatly depends on private contractors, from drone manufacturer General Atomics to the hundreds of employees of companies like SAIC and BAE Systems who help the Air Force conduct drone missions. According to Clanahan, the U.S. military’s fleet of drones has grown from 167 in 2002 to over 7,000 in 2011, and the Air Force plans to acquire hundreds more over the next few years at a total cost that will exceed $20 billion. Clanahan argues that government personnel should perform many of the roles necessary to sustain the drone program because they are inherently governmental functions, or functions which must be performed by federal civilian or military employees. Clanahan is somewhat vague about whether contractors in the program are performing or have performed inherently governmental functions, [...]

UAV news from Flight Global

Chengdu J-20 could enter service by 2018

The stealthy Chengdu J-20 fighter could enter operational service by early 2018 and join a rapidly improving Chinese military armed with long-range strike...

PICTURES: Schiebel Camcopter S-100 operated from Chinese frigate

A Chinese frigtate has been photographed operating a small unmanned helicopter that appears to be the Schiebel Camcopter S-100.

Finland to get first Orbiter 2 UAS this year

The Finnish army will receive its first Aeronautics Orbiter 2 unmanned air system before the end of this year ...

India’s Rustom 1 reaches 50km flight milestone in test flight

India's Aeronautical Development Establishment (ADE) Rustom 1 unmanned air system is still undergoing testing and recently completed its 14th successful...

Israeli know-how boosts Russia's armed UAS project

Technology transferred from Israel is helping Russia to design its first strike unmanned air system ...

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