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Best Way To Build A DIY UAV?
Shojun writes "I am very interested in building my own UAV. Not just one that can fly around happily, but one that I can program to say, take photos every second as it does a barrel roll under a bus (ok, that part may be a pipe dream). I have enough embedded programming experience — it's the hardware which I'm uncertain about. I can go the kit way, and then build the remaining stuff, or get some Dollar Tree Foam boards and build it all. I'm in favor of ease, however. Once the plane is built, buying a dev board seems like a possibility, but I wonder whether it's overkill. Alternatively, if there was a How-to-build example on the net for such an activity that I could adapt, to the degree that I could then program in even completely hardcoded flight instructions, I can certainly take it from there. Thoughts? Has anyone here tried something like this before?"
http://paparazzi.enac.fr/wiki/Main_Page
Open source autopilot/software/hardware design for small UAVs. Check succes stories and links on their webpage for a quick overview of what (quite a lot!) can be reasonably easily achieved.
One that hath name thou can not otter
Link to old contest stuff
Less is more.
go to the http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/index.php RC forums there is alot of info in what you want to do. and here is the forums you want http://www.rcgroups.com/uav-unmanned-aerial-vehicles-238/ Note that if you live in USA it is illegal to make UAV. Even first person view flying is illegal. But first you need to learn how to make stuff fly before you even attempt to do the UAV stuff.
Too boring, already been done: New Zealand man builds cruise missile in his garage.
UAV has been a buzzword for the past 10 years. You could've learned it by now even without leaving your mother's basement.
I'm a just-graduated aerospace engineer from Notre Dame. For our senior design project, we build uav's... well, really RC planes. Everything had to be constructed from scratch, except for the electronics (motor/battery/GPS/receiver/etc). This year's goal was to have a mothership-daughtership configuration where the daughtership would detach mid-flight and maneuver on its own. Believe me, it's loads of fun to build everything from scratch, but it is a lot of work. And I definitely think it is doable by anyone, not just aerospace engineering majors.
Here was my team's plane: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eW68B3DnNWA
If you're interested in actually constructing the structure by yourself, I'd definitely suggest picked up a book on model airplane construction. Hobby shop dudes are also a big help, just go in and throw some ideas out and most hobby store owners will be very enthusiastic. And, if you're _really_ interested, I'd suggest Aircraft Design: A Conceptual Approach by Daniel Raymer. Link: http://www.aiaa.org/content.cfm?pageid=360&id=1396
Oh, also, flying a model aircraft requires a hell of a lot of skill- we get the awesome dudes down at the South Bend RC Plane Club to fly ours.
Have a look at this project: http://www.mikrokopter.de/ucwiki/en/Mikrokopter-Get-started
They offer assembly instructions and software.
Some pictures: http://gallery.mikrokopter.de/main.php
and videos: http://www.mikrokopter.de/ucwiki/VideoListe
I hope you have a few spare thousand dollars.
From your post you clearly know nothing about r/c aircraft. Learn to fly an r/c aircraft well without crashing. Go find a club and an instructor who'll teach you. Also get hold of a good simulator unless you want to spend thousands. That'll take you at least 6 months, probably closer to a year. (Longer if you don't have any aptitude for it). Flying r/c planes takes more practice and skill than you might think. It'll also cost more than you think. Once you have an appreciation for the difficulties of flying R/C you might stand half a chance programming one with a robotic interface. You'll also want to be able to take over manually from time to time when you're programming the thing so if you get something slightly wrong you've got some chance of saving it.
You could also learn about the robotics more simply with an r/c car. R/c cars can move slowly without any risk of falling out of the sky. Some of what you learn will translate to air, other parts won't.
If you want something off the shelf, I did read about robotised r/c helicopters for commercial applications like security but I think they cost in the 10's of thousands. I think you STILL need to know how to take over manually.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
The last time some of my friends tried doing an automatic control system, the plane turned straight toward the flight line and tried to kill us all!
Unless you have extensive experience designing them, I would recommend going with a kit plane for hardware rather than trying to build one from scratch out of foam boards. The reason for this is that you will start out with a design you know is flyable and has the stability properties you want. One of the classic errors in model-scale UAV design I've seen people make is trying to design the craft from scratch only to discover that their control surfaces are poorly sized, the thing is dynamically unstable, and it requires hand-made spare parts after every flight.
I think an ideal platform for a UAV like you describe would be a foam flying wing with maybe a 3-4 foot wingspan. The flying wing design would at least in theory allow you to decouple some equations which would be difficult to do in traditional fused aircraft and impossible to do in helicopters. Also, unibody construction makes it easier to land without landing gear. Landing without some pretty complex rangefinding hardware is tough, even for a computer system. Doing a skid landing on that huge wing surface with a rear-facing prop will add some margin of error to your landing sequence. If possible, get an ARF (Almost Ready to Fly) model. They come with airframe, power system, and sometimes all the servos. All you need to add is the radio equipment (I assume you are going to have a manual override backup. No, really. You're going to want a manual override.). Expanded polypropylene foam is actually more durable than a lot of people give it credit for, and replacement parts for these aircraft are easy to find.
10 Bits= $.25
100 Bits= $.50
110 Bits= $.75
1000 Bits= 1 byte
Best to make sure you won't get shot down/at.
The Feds? No. Even the Feds don't have the power to stop a populace from flying their UAVs. Shooting down a model plane is more dangerous than the plane itself, so I don't see it becoming practice. What you are going to see is laws prohibiting *ownership* of UAVs and parts to build them. Most likely, these will come under the blanket of anti-terrorism laws.
Just callin' it like I see it.
It's not a basement, it's a command centre
There were some people who built an autonomous glider which could perform many of the things you mention (with the notable exception of powered flight), including flying pre-programmed routes while taking photos (as well as navigating to specified coordinates autonomously). The process of building and testing it is documented in a fair amount of detail, including information on choices made for the on board electronics.
I have no particular interest in building aircraft, and still thought that page was a good read.
# cat
Damn, my RAM is full of llamas.
Not sure if you already have radio-controlled airplane experience. If you do not, I have a very solid recommendation for you:
A world-class starter platform for both learning to fly and lifting is the Slow Stick. It is one of the most popular planes with RC hackers, is cheap as dirt, has solid lifting potential (and upgrades can make it a real monster), and has lots of commercially available upgrade parts.
I'd go with a slow stick glider, and add a cheap brushless motor for starters (in fact, that's precisely what I have about six feet behind me for my first aerial photography platform). That will give you a good mix of cheap and solid lifting potential.
As for the forum, Slashdot is a good place to start for all things geeky, but the specialist forums you're looking for are at RCGroups:
http://www.rcgroups.com/
Here's the main starter thread for Slow Sticks:
http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=122951
Admit your noob-ness, ask for advice, be respectful, weather the occasional ornery response with good humor, and you can learn everything you want to know at RC Groups.
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
As you rightfully point out, though, once people appreciate that the difference between RC planes and a cruise missile is a smattering of electronics and a hand grenade, I think they'll tighten the screws. It might start with parts, but the stuff you need to make a UAV/missile is very similar to what goes into many many other things (eg. gyroscopes, accelerometers)
Scientists point out problems, engineers fix them
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It all depends. If the device is glider based, long ranged and does not transmit, they cannot really go after the hardware for RF violations. :)
Just make sure you did not call your gf/bf, mom or work on the cell before the flight ;)
The problem is if the plans become too useful. The idea with gps 'anyone' could make a cruise like device with 'okish' optical payload.
Get it up high with a motor, drop the motor and let it cool off. Could it almost be stealthy? Let if drift over an area of interest.
The camera would click away. You could build a cage around it to mess with radar. A hole for the 'off' cell phone to transmit from.
Most intrusion detection systems would be radar based, optical or looking for heat.
You have no heat, mostly wood. Would a big wooden eagle fool a optical over flight AI?
Fire it off over a suspected 'Area 51', ie a new/old US base that seems to have much more activity.
Become the Gary McKinnon (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_McKinnon) of the UAV world.
Have a cell phone inside to 'call' its gps location after x hours to come pick it up. Recover and publish via TOR
Then the feds would have to do something about the wetware.
Some subtle pranks to get you depressed.
Then you would be "DC Madam ed" or join Costas Tsalikidis, the Greek telco whistleblower who was found hanged.
Adamo Bove head of security at Telecom Italia who exposed the CIA renditions via cell phones 'fell' to his death.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
Someone has already tried a DIY payload carrying cruise missle powered by pulsejets and GPS + RC components, to try and prove exactly that point.
http://www.interestingprojects.com/cruisemissile/
It was remarkable not only that it was exceedingly cool, and perhaps the ultimate DIY hack ever, but that it flew right in a legal sh1tstorm before it even took off. This, in a country (NZ) with relatively deregulated airspace.
The result is the government really did not like this, and moved to stop him actually testing this, including some pretty underhand ways of shutting him down (threatening to call in all his Tax debt all at once). As a result he got some very high profile prime time publicity in this country at least. Basically his point was, anyone could do this, and he set out to prove just that. Rather successfully. But this fellow is not exactly your average terrorist but a rather a patent-holding backyard engineer. I still don't think even highly resourced terrorists would go down this route, so perhaps he wasn't right after all, and was just asking for trouble.
After logging in slashdot still does not take you back to the page you were on. It's been that way for 20 years.