A newbie's guide to UAVs

[Chris Anderson]

 

 

What is an amateur UAV?

An Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) is an aircraft that has the capability of autonomous flight, without a pilot in control. Amateur UAVs are non-military and non-commercial. They typically fly under “recreational” exceptions to FAA regulations on UAVs, so long as the pilots/programmers keep them within tight limits on altitude and distance. Usually the UAV is controlled manually by Radio Control (RC) at take-off and landing, and switched into GPS-guided autonomous mode only at a safe altitude. (Confused by all the acronyms and unfamiliar terms in UAVs? A glossary is here.)

What do I need to make one?

---1) An RC plane, muticopter (quadcopter/hexacopter/tricopter, etc) or helicopter (see good starter plane options here)
---2) An autopilot (see below)
---3) Optional: a useful “payload”, such as a digital camera or video transmission equipment

What does DIY Drones have to offer?

The DIY Drones community has created the world's first "universal autopilot", ArduPilot Mega. It combines sophisticated IMU-based autopilot electronics with free Arduino-based autopilot software that can turn any RC vehicle into a fully-autonomous UAV.

A full setup consists of:

• APM 2 autopilot: The electronics, including twin processors, gyros, accelerometers, pressure sensors, GPS and more (shown at right). Available from 3D Robotics ($199).
• Mission Planner software:  Desktop software that lets you manage APM and plan missions, along with being a powerful ground station during flights and helping you analyze mission logs afterwards.
• Autopilot software:
  • Arduplane: for any fixed-wing aircraft
  • Arducopter: for any rotary-wing aircraft
  • ArduRover: for any ground- or water-based vehicle 

You can buy Ready-to-Fly UAVs (both planes and multicopters) from uDrones:

 

[tycinis]

Great guide , can you do a FAQ for the ardupilot ?

[Chris Anderson]

We have a proper manual coming for ArduPilot.

[tycinis]

Thanks chris , it very helpful for people like me who start building an easy-star Uav.

[vova reznik]

Thermopile-based autopilot, 335 USD + FMA sensors

[Chris Anderson]

Note: the RVOSD (the thermopile-based "autopilot" mentioned above) is just return-to-launch. It's not programmable, and not really in the class of what we consider full autopilots.

[jonny]

What, no Picopilot?

[Chris Anderson]

We don't recommend Picopilot. We've had several and they're poor performers with even worse customer support.

[jonny]

Vova, very impressive OSD, is that 2.4gig?

[vova reznik]

Thanks, its 1.3GHz/300mW and KX191 camera.
To Chris,
It has waypoint navigation, but not automatic flight to waypoints. The waypoint navigation is like the home arrow, just a smaller arrow in the center of screen. The distance to waypoint is also shown.

But we can also add heading hold to this. Then you simply use the waypoint navigation to point the plane in the right direction and there is your full featured autopilot !

[Chris Anderson]

Hi Vova. Is that a single waypoint, or multiple waypoints? We usually define a full-featured autopilot as one that can allow you to program a "mission" of multiple waypoints.