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Re: [LUG] engineering floss

 

On Wed, 12 Oct 2011, tom wrote:

On 12/10/11 13:23, Gordon Henderson wrote:
On Wed, 12 Oct 2011, tom wrote:

I donʼt mean making quality string either
http://www.linuxjournal.com/content/computer-aided-engineering-linux

And on the subject of engineering I looked at a microdrone:http://www.microdrones.com/index-en.php
They say I can have an ex demo model for £11k
and am wondering if an android device could control the motors necessary - and take the pictures too

There is a huge "industry" built up round these things. Well, maybe I exaggerate... But there's a lot of it about. I'm currently playing with some instrumentation units with a view to producing some alternative software and I'm working with a friend on a proposed very high quality video/camera platform. It's all exciting stuff.

However, as for control... Well, the 8-bit micro platform I'm using (Arduino based), running at 16MHz can handle 270,000 cosines a second and that's fast enough... Faster than you can read most sensors.

So an android phone is overkill - the real issue is getting data OUT of it to control the props.

Here's a commercial site for bits:

http://www.buildyourowndrone.co.uk/

and a "community" site for an open source platform based on Arduino:

http://diydrones.com/

Also google for FreeIUM for some nice stuff. There's a huge amount of stuff coming over from China/HK, etc. too. most is pretty good too (from what I've been told)

Anyway, if you want to get into it, then you can have a fully flying quadcopter for well under a grand. Personally, I'm looking at hex and octocopters as have a grand or 3's of camera kit slung under 4 props is somewhat risky IMO... I need to withstand the failure of one prop which isn't possible in a quad. (they really can't fly with 3, although a "controlled" crash landing might be possible!)

Gordon
Your missing the point about the android - it comes with everything you need - camera/wifi/mapping/logging software etc all for a couple of hundred that would withstand most crashes if cradled properly.

Except a means to actually control props, etc. And all phone cameras are pretty rubbish anyway. But it depends on what you're after.

You can't control a flying device on GPS alone - you need a good IMU with a gyro and accellerometer and a 3D magnetometer, if possible - although most android phones come with that now. (if it's got a "spirit level" app, then it's got at least the first 2)

You can get complete (and open source) IMU and processors for much less than the cost of a phone though.

As for data transfer bluetooth or usb should hack it and I'd go for the 'failsafe' petrol driving multiple vented props - a 15cc motor will lift 7.5kg so you should get about 5 hours fuel on board and you donʼt control the props but the lift they provide. Brute force and pig ignorance work for me!

er, good luck with the flying pig then :)

Gordon
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