[Canberrauav] Keeping on track. Jack Pittar jpittar at bigpond.net.au Fri Jan 21 22:38:01 EST 2011 Hi team. Have a look at this website. It looks like we are to be presented with a Mugin. http://www.fpvflying.com/categories/FPV-UAV-RC-modelplanes/ Our aircraft will be more like the Hugin, also on this site. It will have a moderate wing loading, and be reasonably fast. It will be quite steady, and not be affected very much by wind or turbulence. It will handle minor tumbles and heavy landings with minimal damage. It will be designed around our equipment, including antennas and odd shaped electronic equipment. It will never hover. Whatever we go with, we need two, with interchangeable parts. The rascal is a nice aircraft. It is very light, and quite fast. This design is typically subject to turbulence. It is an expensive ready built aircraft. I am guessing our load will be in the order of 10KG. At this weight, it will not stand up to many bad takeoffs or even good landings. I have purchased all the items for the latest ardupilot mega (APM), including the ublox GPS. I have loaded ArdupilotMega Version 1.0, and tried a few of the servo driving tests on it. Right now, I am concentrating on building another aircraft. Then I will get the APM working on it. I considered playing with the simulator, but really, I think it may lead us up a blind alley and have us worrying about all sorts of things that may not turn out to be a problem. Maybe we need a meeting earlier than Thursday to get us on track, bring the recent members into the picture, and who would like to concentrate on what. I will be meeting a prospective new member to the Model Aircraft club on Saturday afternoon, 3:30. He wants to know if he can use video and play with telemetry at the field! I will also be there Sunday morning with a new plane or an old one patched up. Jack.
[Canberrauav] Keeping on track. tridge at samba.org tridge at samba.org Sat Jan 22 11:48:02 EST 2011 Hi Jack, > Our aircraft will be more like the Hugin, also on this site. Do you know what the limits on size and weight of onboard electronics will be? If we want the possibility of automatically finding the target then we'll need a lot more CPU power than we can get with a Arduino. There are lots of possible on-board computers we could use. Here are a few likely choices: gumstix: http://www.gumstix.com/store/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=256 weight: 43g size: 17mm x 58mm x 4.2mm cpu: 600MHz ARM A8 + a DSP core memory: 256M cost: $229 has a USB host adapter for a camera beagleboard-xM: http://beagleboard.org/hardware-xM weight: 37g size: 76mm x 76mm x ??mm cpu: 1GHz ARM A8 + a DSP core memory: 512M has a 4 port USB hub cost: $139 pandaboard: http://pandaboard.org/ size: 102mm x 114mm x ??mm weight: 74g cpu: dual core 1GHz ARM A9 cost $174 has 2 USB host ports plus a OTG USB port memory: 1GB If the pandaboard will fit in the cargo bays of the Hugin then I think we should go for it as the extra CPU power will make a huge difference for image processing. All of them have low power usage. It looks like the pandaboard uses around 4W when both CPU cores are running and about 2W when idling (using a 5V DC source - see http://www.omappedia.org/wiki/Panda_Test_Data) If you think the pandaboard will fit in the Hugin OK and nobody else has a better suggestion (Matt?) then I'll order one for us to experiment with. I know that we may end up deciding to do the target finding manually using a groundstation and a human, but I think we should get the equipment needed to have the possibility of finding the target automatically. If we don't end up using it then it just means I have another little embedded system to play with at home. Cheers, Tridge
[Canberrauav] Keeping on track. Jack Pittar jpittar at bigpond.net.au Sat Jan 22 14:04:13 EST 2011 Hi Trige, The aircraft will be designed around the equipment, even if it turns out to be a funny looking aircraft. I would prefer the computer to be mounted in a plug-in module up to 150 by 150 so you can take it home and play with it by yourself, but if the computer becomes a structural part of the aircraft, so be it. Power will come from batteries and an onboard generator. Keep your power requirement down, but don't waste time by trying to skimp too much either. Jack. -----Original Message----- From: tridge at samba.org [mailto:tridge at samba.org] Sent: Saturday, 22 January 2011 11:48 AM To: Jack Pittar Cc: canberrauav at canberrauav.com Subject: Re: [Canberrauav] Keeping on track. Hi Jack, > Our aircraft will be more like the Hugin, also on this site. Do you know what the limits on size and weight of onboard electronics will be? If we want the possibility of automatically finding the target then we'll need a lot more CPU power than we can get with a Arduino. There are lots of possible on-board computers we could use. Here are a few likely choices: gumstix: http://www.gumstix.com/store/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=256 weight: 43g size: 17mm x 58mm x 4.2mm cpu: 600MHz ARM A8 + a DSP core memory: 256M cost: $229 has a USB host adapter for a camera beagleboard-xM: http://beagleboard.org/hardware-xM weight: 37g size: 76mm x 76mm x ??mm cpu: 1GHz ARM A8 + a DSP core memory: 512M has a 4 port USB hub cost: $139 pandaboard: http://pandaboard.org/ size: 102mm x 114mm x ??mm weight: 74g cpu: dual core 1GHz ARM A9 cost $174 has 2 USB host ports plus a OTG USB port memory: 1GB If the pandaboard will fit in the cargo bays of the Hugin then I think we should go for it as the extra CPU power will make a huge difference for image processing. All of them have low power usage. It looks like the pandaboard uses around 4W when both CPU cores are running and about 2W when idling (using a 5V DC source - see http://www.omappedia.org/wiki/Panda_Test_Data) If you think the pandaboard will fit in the Hugin OK and nobody else has a better suggestion (Matt?) then I'll order one for us to experiment with. I know that we may end up deciding to do the target finding manually using a groundstation and a human, but I think we should get the equipment needed to have the possibility of finding the target automatically. If we don't end up using it then it just means I have another little embedded system to play with at home. Cheers, Tridge
[Canberrauav] Keeping on track. tridge at samba.org tridge at samba.org Sat Jan 22 14:46:09 EST 2011 Hi Jack, > I would prefer the computer to be mounted in a plug-in module up to 150 by > 150 so you can take it home and play with it by yourself, but if the > computer becomes a structural part of the aircraft, so be it. ok, the pandaboard fits in that space requirement (102mmx114mm), so I'll order one. > Power will come from batteries and an onboard generator. Keep your power > requirement down, but don't waste time by trying to skimp too much > either. The pandaboard will draw about 2W continuous, rising to 4W when under heavy load. eg. if using both CPUs doing image processing. We could get away with a smaller onboard computer, but having a dual-core 1GHz A9 will give us heaps of power for some quite sophisticated algorithms. The pandaboard doesn't have firewire, but I can't find a suitable board that does have firewire. That limits our camera choices a but, although I've noticed that some of the fly cameras from pointgrey have USB2.0 as well, which we can use on the pandaboard. Cheers, Tridge
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