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On Wed, 12 Oct 2011, tom wrote:
I donʼt mean making quality string either http://www.linuxjournal.com/content/computer-aided-engineering-linuxAnd on the subject of engineering I looked at a microdrone:http://www.microdrones.com/index-en.phpThey say I can have an ex demo model for £11kand 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
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