Sender

Als Fernsteuerung ist die MX16s (35MHz Band) von Graupner im Einsatz, welche später auch noch mit dem Jeti System auf 2,4 GHz umgerüstet werden könnte. Zu beachten ist, daß der Senderakku das erste Mal mit 150 mA über einen Zeitraum von 12 Stunden geladen wird. Um den Sender mit dem Mikrokopter verwenden zu können muss noch auf dem Linken Stick die Feder ausgehängt bzw. montiert werden, damit der Stick nicht selbstständig zurück in die “0-Stellung” gelenkt wird. (Es gibt ja kein Negativ Gas/Pitch beim Mikrokopter, also ist der Stick ganz unten auch Gas Null)

Ladegerät

Als Ladegerät ist das ULTRAMAT 14 plus von Graupner in Verwendung welches mit jeglichen Akkutypen zurecht kommt. (Senderakku: NiMH, Flugakku LiPo)

AXI Motoren

Der erste Schritt war die Montage der Motoren. Dazu wurden die LED, Motor und Buzzer Kabel in die jeweiligen Ausleger eingezogen.

Kamerahalterung HiSight II

Zur Erholung nach dem Kabelwirrwarr und hin- und herquetschen der Kabel wurde die Kamerahalterung HiSight II mit Nick- und Rollkompensation zusammengebaut und geklebt.

Montage der Ausleger, FlightCtrl, BlCtrl

Ein weiterer Schritt war die Montage der Ausleger und das sortieren der verschiedensten Anschlusskabel.

Als nächstes wurde die FlightCtrl ME vervollständigt

Montage der BlCtrl an die Verteilerplatine

Montage der Verteilerplatine sowie der FlightCtrl an die Rahmenkonstruktion

Nach dem Anlöten der Motor, LED und Buzzer-Kabel an die Elektronik wurde dann noch die NaviCtrl sowie das GPS montiert.

Anschließend ging es ans lackieren der Abdeckhaube, dremeln der Ausnehmungen der Haube und bohren der Befestigungslöcher – fertig ist der HEXA

Natürlich wurde dieser Mikrokopter auch für die kommerzielle Nutzung für Luftbilder und Videos von HiSystems bzw. Holger und Ingo vom Mikrokopter Shop lizenziert.

Nice Video (+ editing) from Nebukad (location: Lichtwiese).

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Update! – Another really cool flight of Tensor

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Also enjoy the Mikrokopter group on Vimeo.

In January an article on Hacked Gadgets showed a Mikrokopter from Nicoleto.
After visiting his homepage I saw a really nice concept for the HD camera mount.

There are a lot of photos and one video of the construction and the Mikrokopter in action available.

Video (construction, flying, on-board camera)

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So I ordered some evaluation boards (about 100€/pcs) for me and two collegues who are studying with me at the NTB. Our goal is to have fun with wireless applications.

The RN-131 GSX Module is a 802.11 b/g wireless LAN Module with a lot of features – Details see datasheet.

If you already have a GSX Module you can use my LabView source below to show the UDP packets which the module sends in default configuration every 7 seconds.

The packets include

• MAC address of AP
• WiFi-Channel
• RSSI (quality)
• local TCP port
• RTC (real time clock value)
• NTC temperature option (if temperature sensor connected to module – otherwise sensor 7)
• Spare sensor reading
• ASCII time
• Version string with date code and Device ID string

This information can be used to open a TCP connection to the module or to configure it over WiFi. The module has to be in the same subnet as your PC or MAC if you want to receive the packages.

Here are some pictures of the Module in action:

Here is the LabView (8.6) Source as LLB: wifly-monitoring-distribution

I attended the 3rd outdoorflying in Zürich and it was a lot of fun. Of course I had my digital video camera with me and now you can watch the whole day in a short 9 minute clip. Of course there are some scenes with the EPI-OSD hardware with the new C-OSD software from Cascade. A short clip with EPI-S (current measurement) is also included. It was really fun to meet some guys from the forum and to have “real” talks. And of course we had some sausages over the fire (The fire was heated by Mikrokopter(s))

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To improve my Kopter for this event I finally found the time to mount the PET “Haube” onto the Kopter. Pictures will follow in the next days.

Yeah, it’s summer and now I have time to continue my investigations in FPV-flying. Some weeks ago I had a little disaster and crashed my FlightCtrl and my NaviCtrl (shortcut in the connection cable).
So I had to order a new NaviCtrl immediatly. I had luck, the MK-GPS and EPI-OSD survived.

And now – my Kopter is back (better than ever *ggg*)

Ok, let’s get to the topic.

A lot of people asked me, how I mount the camera and the EPI-OSD on my Mikrokopter. Thats a little bit complicated to explain and so I took some pictures to show you how I did it.
Update – 30.05.09: Attention, if you want your C-OSD Version to work fully together with the NaviCtrl you have to connect the EPI-OSD to the debug port of you NaviCtrl!

I hope that I will have some time in the next weeks to do my first FPV Tests with video recording to post it here (maybe the weather is nice

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Greetings,
Speedy

In the last days i tested the new version of DUBwise (Digital UFO Broadcasting with intelligent service equipment – coded by LiGi). The Kopter is connected via Bluetooth to the mobile device. In my case this was a Sony Ericsson W810i.

The actual Version has the possibility to adjust all Settings (like the MK-Tool) and nice features are the Graph indicator and the Cockpit which displays a virtual horizont.

It’s a amazing tool and supports a lot of mobile devices. Ligi is also updating and patching all night long to be in sync with the latest released Software from the Mikrokopter project itself (FlightCtrl, NaviCtrl)

The tool is also able to talk and tell you how full the Lipo is (Voltage). Other nice informations are the number of satellites, height over ground, heading, distance to home position and so on…

To see how the tool looks in action here is a short clip:

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Details about the project you can find at  http://www.mikrokopter.de/ucwiki/en/DUBwise or http://www.ligi.de

Update 14.04.2009: Because some guys asked me how to install the application on their mobile phone, here is an instruction. For the installation you can use the “Installer” from LiGi (http://ligi-tec.blogspot.com/2009/03/dubwise-installer.html).
If you have no internet connection, the installer shows you which file you have to install for your specific device. The sources and binaries you can find here: http://svn.mikrokopter.de/mikrowebsvn/listing.php?repname=Projects&path=%2FDUBwise%2Ftags%2Fv0.52%2Fmisc%2F#_DUBwise_tags_v0.52_misc_

Additionally i “reactivated” my bluetooth device and added a BT-AP10 to the BT-Module. Now everything looks clean and smooth – and – I’m able to test LiGi’s very cool DubWise again! I’ll try to make some screenshots or a video next week (Yes, I can’t believe it, I’m “on holiday” next week)

The weather gets better and better, snow has gone and the “freezy fingers” from flying in winter are also history. The new Mikrokopter season has started (For the most Mikrokopter freaks in the form it never ended)

Additionally my NaviCtrl got a Micro-SD card with 2Gig capacity for recording flight tracks and telemetry.

Here are some photos of my current Mikrokopter status:

Greetings,
Speedy

Finally I finished the first semester of the NTB in Buchs.
Beside working for my company I had to learn a lot – but – I also had some time to combine the requirements for the “robot” project in the first year with a possible nice feature for the Mikrokopter.

I’m talking about the “traditional” IR (infrared) distance sensors from Sharp. There are different types of them, for example: GP2D12, GP2D120, GP2Y0A02YK (GP2Y0A02)
These three types are sensors that have an analog output (there are also other sensor-types from sharp with adjustable or fixed digital outputs)

The sensors have a very simple interface:

• Power Supply
• GND
• Analog Out

That’s it!

The difference of these three types that I tested is the measuring distance or let me say their “sensitivity”.

For example the GP2D12 specification is:

Range: 8cm to 80 cm
Supply: 5,0V;
Vout: 0,4V bis 2,6V typ. (80cm – 10cm);
Current: 33mA typ.

Typical feedback:

As you can see the output voltage is not linear to the distance – but that is not a big problem for the softare, if you know that behaviour

The GP2D120 if from 4cm to 30cm and the GP2Y0A02YK is from 20cm to 150cm.

One Measurement cycle:

The principle of the measurements is alwas the same. The IR-Led is driven by the sensor electronics to send 32 pulses. The electronic is then measuring the response of the receiving circuit and setting a output voltage, equivalent to the measured distance.
That means that you have a analog signal that updates its value about every 40ms.

Startup:

Be aware that the sensor needs some time to get the first “serious” output (about 60ms). Here is a startup plot of the GP2D12 with a obstacle in front of it.

Measuring sequence in detail:

One measuring pulse in detail:

As you can see in the picture above you can see that the sensor needs about 220mA for each measuring pulse. So the power supply sould be designed to filter such short current spikes. In average the current consumption of these sensors is ok.

I have made a short video of the tests that i have done with the AVR-USB-uC board, connected via UART to the PC and visualized with LabView.

More tests will follow…

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Maybe one of these sensors (or a combination of mutiple sensors) can be used to assist the Mikrokopter at automatic landing.

Finally the mikrokopter has now his (it’s ?) official logo. Small modification of the logo are possible, but in general the logo will look like this:

My new Fatshark goggles have also arrived. My sparetime to test the goggles is very rare, because I started to study system engineering at the NTB in Buchs (beside working for my company).

I’ll try to update my blog with activities beloging to the mikrokopter and the new project at the NTB.

Greetings,
Speedy