Build your very own UAV drone spy plane

by sparknlaunch • 14 years ago

80 20 14 years ago

Ralith2• 14 years ago

> Instead of the usual Kalman filtering, I've devised my own IMU sensor fusion algorithm which is super easy to visualize and doesn't require a PHD in mathematics. Further, it works as well as the complex filters you'd find in the conventional approach.

I wonder what evidence he has for that. It sounds awfully suspect.

Qworg• 14 years ago

I'd love to see his code and compare it side by side. Sadly, it appears he's considering it proprietary.

Ralith2• 14 years ago

Which worsens its image further--"I've got an amazing new method better than the scientists could come up with, but it's secret!" smells of incompetence at best.

abstrakraft2• 14 years ago

He published it in Circuit Cellar magazine. Code is at http://www.dtweed.com/circuitcellar/caj00238.htm#3973

noonespecial• 14 years ago

In the few cases I've come across where people have claimed this, the stuff behind the curtain has usually turned out to be a muddled simplification of the original made possible by additional constraints.

Think Kirchhoff's circuit laws vs Faraday's law but with less math and more crackpottery.

jfoutz• 14 years ago

Other than a working system?

Sure, he's probably doing something goofy, but it is demonstrably good enough for a toy UAV. Also, I don't think he's claiming a general solution, just something that works for his problem.

mikeevans• 14 years ago

If you're interested in UAVs and looking for other resources, I'd suggest http://diydrones.com/.

konstruktor• 14 years ago

Can anybody explain to me how he can legally use amateur radio bands to communicate with this drone? He is a licensed ham, but the device is neither a beacon nor a repeater (and both would need a callsign, at least where I live).

younata• 14 years ago

It is legal to control model aircraft with ham radio if you have a ham license.

Forget which part of the law says that, but it's one of the things you learn about when studying for that test.

bri3d2• 14 years ago

FCC 97.215 [0] makes it legal for a ham to transmit up to 1W in any band they're licensed for for the purpose of model aircraft control, without any callsign identification being necessary.

0: http://www.arrl.org/part-97-amateur-radio

bri3d2• 14 years ago

I believe this system was constructed in 2008/2009, which is impressive given the nascent state of open-source drones at the time.

However, today, ArduPilot and Paparazzi are both fairly full-featured in terms of supporting ground stations, waypoints/missions, and autoland, MultiWii/PARIS is very cheap and stable for multirotors (albeit with a more limited feature set), and OpenPilot is developing rapidly. All are open-source and they all use real sensor fusion and stabilization code rather than some sort of Kalman-filter free special sauce like this guy.

It's truly amazing how far we've come in just a few years - ten years ago a small quadcopter would have been hard to imagine (due to a lack of decent micro-sized IMUs as well as a lack of easily-obtainable large high-density LiPos), five years ago a project for only the brave, talented, and well-backed, and now we can buy them as toys!

excuse-me• 14 years ago

Pah - we had a guy doing this 70years ago with just a gyro compass and a prop shaft counter.

And he managed to hit London most of the time.

josephcooney• 14 years ago

This is kind of in poor taste.

pserwylo• 14 years ago

If you are interested in this, I strongly encourage you to watch Andrew Tridgell's talk from linux.conf.au 2012: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ML__e_ZcWiQ. It was close to my favourite talk at that conference.

From the youtube video: "This talk is all about the technology and techniques that we have developed for building an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) that can search for and find a lost bushwalker in outback Australia"

Tridge is a great speaker, and discusses the nuances of this topic really well.

gouranga• 14 years ago

I reckon legislation will soon fall which makes these illegal unless you are law enforcement or military. If it makes either party potentially more accountable then it's going to cause problems.

Great piece of kit though!

redwood• 14 years ago

I'd love to see el-wire glowing drone "night birds" flying around at night @ Burning Man

Build your very own UAV drone spy plane

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