Lego Autopilot: working!

Chris Anderson
The Long Tail

April 08, 2007

[Just an update for those following the Lego Autopilot project. The project diary on this and a load of other fun science and technology stuff to do with your kids is at GeekDad [ http://blog.wired.com/geekdad/ ], where I'm posting every day with a dozen other geeky dads. The following is cross-posted from there.]

Our summer project is to create a sub-$1,000 UAV [ http://www.longtail.com/the_long_tail/2007/03/the_sub1000_uav.html ] as a proof-of-concept for a drone competition for kids [ http://www.longtail.com/the_long_tail/2007/03/lets_start_a_3d.html ]. This weekend we passed a major milestone with a successful ground test of the key elements. The video below shows the prototype working.

We'd initially intended to do all the autopilot functions in Lego, but the gyro programming turned out to be beyond our abilities [ http://blog.wired.com/geekdad/2007/04/the_oh_crap_mom_1.html ]. So we switched to a commercial stabilization unit ] http://fmadirect.com/detail.htm?item=1768&section=29 ] to keep the plane level and just use the Lego Mindstorms for waypoint navigation. In the next few months we'll integrate a Bluetooth GPS module, but for now we're just using a HiTechnics compass sensor [ http://hitechnic.com/ ] for basic navigation. The mechanical components are the same as they will be for the GPS (ailerons and elevator for flight stabilization, rudder for navigation), so the below looks and works very much like the final version.

Next weekend, we take it to the air.

[ Video ]