Spitfire76

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Posts posted by Spitfire76

  5. Help me to choose my first drone

    in Regulations Discussion

    Posted · Edited by Spitfire76

    17 hours ago, Janis Taranda said:

    If you know any other ready-to-go programmable drones that I can buy, let me know. 

    Well you might simply want to check out the SDKs on some of the ready built drones like DJI and Parrot to see if they fit your needs. 

    https://developer.dji.com

    https://developer.parrot.com

    You mentioned in your initial post that your target area for flying is in woods so collision avoidance is important. I know that DJI has collision avoidance on most of their mid to high end drones but not sure about Parrot. There is also Skydio as they have what looks like great collision avoidance technology but not sure if they have an SDK and currently only ship to USA and Canada and since you mentioned you budget in Euros I assume you are not in those countries. 

    https://www.skydio.com/

    There is also Altel and Yuneec but I haven't been following those companies lately. 

    https://auteldrones.com

    https://www.yuneec.com/en_US/home.html

    I should point out that I don't own any of the above drones so can't really recommend any particular one. 

     

  6. Help me to choose my first drone

    in Regulations Discussion

    Posted · Edited by Spitfire76

    58 minutes ago, Janis Taranda said:

    How do I figure out all the hardware I need and find the stores? I'm good at programming but total zero about how to build a actual drone from parts. "off the shelf" sounds good, but I found nothing like that in page. Could you elaborate, please?

    This is just an example and may or may not be the type of drone that you need but a drone development kit like this would avoid you having to source parts.

    https://docs.px4.io/master/en/complete_vehicles/px4_vision_kit.html

    Looks like you would need to contact Holybro for pricing and availability but their email is provided in the above link.

    Here is another from NXP. 

    https://www.nxp.com/applications/solutions/industrial/aerospace-and-mobile-robotics/uavs-drones-and-rovers/nxp-hovergames-drone-kit-including-rddrone-fmuk66-and-peripherals:KIT-HGDRONEK66

    It would help if you could provide some more details on exactly what you want to achieve.

  7. Help me to choose my first drone

    in Regulations Discussion

    Posted · Edited by Spitfire76

    10 hours ago, Janis Taranda said:

    I want to buy a programmable drone (c++, Python preferable). Fly zone is in the woods, so max flight time is important as well sensors for obstacle avoidance. I must be able to code & process the camera input and do pretrained object recognition (like with openCV lib.). Any suggestions? Budget is 500EUR max :/

    There are 2 open source flight stacks that you may want to consider that run on a variety of hardware. Also they have simulation tools so you can get to know them without hardware to start.

    https://ardupilot.org

    https://px4.io

    I am more familiar with the first one and have built several drones with that stack. The second one though is often used in some "off the shelf" drones so that could be better if you don't want to assemble the hardware. Both provide a SDK for several languages including C++ and Python. The core software mainly handles the flight control functions and typically a companion computer is required for video processing. I often thought about using one of these but have not got around to it.

    https://openmv.io

    Hopefully this helps.

  8. HoverGames Challenge 1: Fight Fire with Flyers

    in News & Events

    Posted · Edited by Spitfire76

    I see that the 2020 Hovergames challenge is open until the end of July. I think that this type of challenges are great especially for educational institutions. 

    https://www.hackster.io/contests/hovergames2

    Also, I really liked NXP's recent collaboration with FliteTest in which they together designed a tail sitter drone. I've built drones using open source software as well as several FliteTest's DIY planes and this looks like a great combination so look forward to the plans being available. 

    Also I just followed the NXP presentation at this weeks PX4 summit and will post the link to this thread to the YT recording once its a standalone video. 

  10. DJI Launches Global Drone Rescue Map, A Living Record of Drone Rescues throughout the World

    in News & Events

    Posted · Edited by Spitfire76

    1 hour ago, Zacc Dukowitz said:

    Agreed! You actually anticipated a writeup I'm doing next week on the ANAFI USA—working on an in-depth review of it, looks like it it could present some real competition for the Matrice series when it comes to public safety applications.

    You may have seen this interview that Gary Mortimer, founder of sUAS News did with Henri Seydoux CEO, Parrot. Henri explains how Parrot got into the business of making drones and more recently how they got involved with making a drone for the US Army which resulted in a commercial version called the ANAFI USA.

     

     

  15. Using Raspberry Pi as Flight Controller Board

    in The Pilot Lounge

    Posted

    1 hour ago, Muritadha said:

    Okay

    I want to learn how to make my own FC with raspberry pi from scratch 

    Ok, I understand but that's quite a task. For a start you need to add sensors to the Pi. The basic sensors would be a gyro and accelerometer but then you might want to add a barometer or range finder for altitude and compass and GPS for direction and positioning. As I previously posted there is a "HAT" for the PI than makes it easier to add these sensors. 

    https://emlid.com/navio/

    Even though you need to develop the software from scratch you may want to leverage from existing open source software like 

    https://ardupilot.org

    The software, which will run on the Navio boards, can also be run without the hardware in a simulation environment which could be a good way to start.

    https://ardupilot.org/dev/

  17. Powering my drone

    in DIY

    Posted

    On 5/21/2020 at 6:50 AM, marouane said:

    I choosed APM 2.8 as an autopilot

    That's too bad. That hardware has been "end of life" for awhile now and the last version of ArduCopter that will run on it is 3.3 and the latest is 4.x. That being send APM and 3.3 should still work.

    On 5/21/2020 at 6:50 AM, marouane said:

    would it be possible to power the APM using the ESCs and use a power module to power the raspberry ?

    If you have a 3DR type power module then it will pass battery power to the ESCs and also supply +5v to the APM but you should have a separate BEC for the raspberry pi. Some ESC have a built in BEC but I see that the ones you are using are "opto" and don't have a BEC. 

  18. One motor doesn't rotate with all the motors but if a little throttle is given then the motor rotates

    in The Pilot Lounge

    Posted

    2 hours ago, Rahul said:

    Can someone help??

    Have you calibrated the ESCs ?. If not you do this by connecting a ESC directly to the receiver's throttle channel. Do one ESC at a time without the the flight controller involved.

    First make sure that the props have been removed. 

    • Turn on the transmitter and move the throttle to full.
    • Connect the battery so the ESC and RX are powered on.
    • You should hear some beeps and then move the throttle to minimum. You may hear some more beeps.
    • Disconnect the battery.
    • Reconnect the battery and check that when you move the throttle up the motor RPMS increase.

    The above procedure sets the min and max range for a ESC.

    If you already did the above and its still not working then

    what happens when you change that motor with one that's working ?. Does the problem move or stay with the ESC ?

    what happens when you connect that ESC to another port on the flight controller ?. Again does the issue move or stay with the FC's port ?

    If the issue follows the same ESC its possible that the configuration has changed or was not set like the others - what make and model of ESC are you using and what firmware is loaded ?. 

     

     

     

     

  20. Using Raspberry Pi as Flight Controller Board

    in The Pilot Lounge

    Posted

    5 hours ago, Sana said:

    Hello , I'm an engineering student and I have to design a drone controller using raspberry pi .. so do you have any useful research or links to follow up to built mu controller  

    Hello @Sana and welcome to the forum.

    To use a Pi as a FC you need of course to add sensors (gyro, accelerometer, etc) that are typically built into a FC like the Pixhawk but it looks like there is still a solution from 

    https://emlid.com/navio/

    Like most I personally prefer to use a Pi as a "companion computer" connected to a FC like the Pixhawk. 

    Maybe you could provide some more details about your project and what you need to demonstrate to your professors. 

  23. Win a DJI Mavic Mini (Limited Time Entry Period)

    in News & Events

    Posted

    I would use it as a mini search drone to find downed model RC planes at my local AMA club field. It can be really difficult to find crashed planes and club members, including myself, have had to walk around the field for over a hour to locate an aircraft as typically they are not equipped with GPS. I was planning to use one of my home built drones for this purpose but they are large and take up valuable plane space in my car. 

    Cheers

    Richard