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A Quadcopter Development Platform (Video)

Posted by Roblimo on from the up-up-and-away-in-my-beautiful-quadcopter dept.

Not everybody at a Maker Fair (or even Faire) is there to get kickstarted or to make a billion of whatever it is they're displaying. Ned Danyliw is one of the non-kickstarter people: an electrical engineering student displaying a quadcopter development platform he hopes can bring the cost of a quadcopter prototype down to $50 or so, or about the same price as a toy quadcopter. You can follow Ned's work step by step and see all the code at his blog, Burnt Transistors. (Alternate Video Link)

30 comments

  1. Hey idiot by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It's called Hobby King.

    1. Re: Hey idiot by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I read your comment and all I was left with was "what an insolate prick!".

      Please go be an asshat on your own time.

    2. Re:Hey idiot by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Herp. Derp.

    3. Re: Hey idiot by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "insolate"? Like, a sunburn?

      I'm trying to help people here. Save time and money and get to the final product.

      Look, I remember spending *tons* of money 20 years ago on a 4 channel Futaba FM transmitter and an alcohol-powered RC plane. It was expensive, it was a hassle, it was noisy, big, dirty, expensive and dangerous.

      Now you can just buy a quadcopter from Hong Kong with lots of goodies for 50$.

      Why waste time on carving and whittling?

      You can use that spare time I saved you to learn to spell.

  2. Wait. Drone diy kits will be banned by Trachman · · Score: 4, Funny

    Just wait a little bit. I can smell that very soon there will be initiatives to regulate drones in the same way they want to regulate 3D printers For those who have not seen here is the link with impressive drone model, all DIY, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...

    1. Re:Wait. Drone diy kits will be banned by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 1

      Of course they will, once someone builds a killer anti-personnel quadcopter. Every modelmaker will be labeled a terrorist by then.

      --
      Ezekiel 23:20
    2. Re:Wait. Drone diy kits will be banned by ArcadeMan · · Score: 1

      Toys.

      --
      Get free satoshi (Bitcoin) and Dogecoins
    3. Re:Wait. Drone diy kits will be banned by BitZtream · · Score: 3, Informative

      ...

      They've been regulated since before they existed. The FAA already handles them, just like RC airplanes they've handled for the last 50-60 years.

      And for reference:

      http://ardupilot.com/

      They aren't going to bring the price down to $50 until the sensors are $1 each. Considering a quality GPS still costs > $50, as do a set of gyros or a set of accelerometers that are high enough quality to be useful, this is a year or two off still.

      --
      Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
    4. Re:Wait. Drone diy kits will be banned by NewtonsLaw · · Score: 1

      Actually, they are *not* regulated -- and that's the big problem right now.

      From the FAA's perspective, there are no regulations pertaining to RC model aircraft -- only guidlines.

      This is why the courts overturned a $10,000 fine levied against Raphael Pirker by the FAA -- because there are no regulations to back up that penalty.

      The FAA are scrambling to come up with some regulations but, until then, they are hoist by their own petard (or lack of work in this area).

    5. Re:Wait. Drone diy kits will be banned by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No, Not at all true. There are operational regulations on hobby RC aircraft. There are not hardware restrictions. The "loophole" the judge created to get Pinker out of the fine was corrected long before the judge overturned it, and that is sbeing appealed by the FAA. You may not fly RC aircraft commercialy, above 500' AGL, in controlled airspace, or beyond line of sight without a COA from the FAA.

    6. Re:Wait. Drone diy kits will be banned by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The problem is that the curretn designs fit in the "killer" category, throguh deliberate negligence. Every other digital fly by wire airplane has triple-string redundant flight control computers and dual-redundant actuators on redundant flight control surfaces. These RC toys are nowhere close to being able to meet any rational safety standards, and should not be flown near people.

    7. Re:Wait. Drone diy kits will be banned by NewtonsLaw · · Score: 1

      Please cite the FAA regulations that state this.

      I think you'll only find an *advisory* which has no legal standing.

    8. Re:Wait. Drone diy kits will be banned by bluescrn · · Score: 1

      RC planes and helis have been around for decades. Small microcontroller kits and GPS modules have been around for years.

      Yet we've not seen this tech used as a weapon. Why? - because an amateur drone is a rather fiddly, unreliable, and failure-prone method or carrying out any sort of attack, compared to the simplicity and much higher payload capacity of a suicide bomber or car/truck bomb.

    9. Re:Wait. Drone diy kits will be banned by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 1

      I was thinking more about assassinations than about mass killings. You don't need a huge payload for that. A gram or two of a skin-absorbed poison (perhaps nicotine sulfate?) is all you'd need. A few incidents like that and watch the governments cracking down on airborne systems of any kind.

      --
      Ezekiel 23:20
    10. Re:Wait. Drone diy kits will be banned by Slashdot+Parent · · Score: 2

      They aren't going to bring the price down to $50 until the sensors are $1 each. Considering a quality GPS still costs > $50, as do a set of gyros or a set of accelerometers that are high enough quality to be useful, this is a year or two off still.

      I watched the video yesterday and I'm not re-watching it, but did Danyliw's quad even have GPS? Because if not, you can already get a decent Micro Quad for about $50 that's built out of a PCB. Granted, it doesn't have GPS and can't fly autonomously, but it is a standards-compatible and hackable quad at the $50ish price point.

      --
      They don't grade fathers, but if your daughter's a stripper, you fucked up. --Chris Rock
  3. His by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    elbows are too pointy.

  4. So it's like this one by TheDayOfMe · · Score: 1
    Turnigy Micro-X.
    It's designed to be hacked, has 6050 MPU and 328P Atmel processor and built-in DSM2 receiver. It comes with the open source multiwii software, I'm sure the other arduino based ones work just as well.

    The nRF24 sounds neat.

    --

    One Man's Trash Is Another Man's Treasure.

    1. Re:So it's like this one by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      But but but then I don't get to spend weeks and hundreds of dollars and stink up the kitchen with the amazing new 3D PRINTERRRRRRR!!!!!!!!

    2. Re:So it's like this one by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Once upon a time slashdot was a place to find new things nerd. Now meh.

    3. Re:So it's like this one by Slashdot+Parent · · Score: 1

      This is true. There is nothing new about Danyliw's project other than the 3D printing aspect of it.

      That being said, I think it is a super cool project that he's doing, especially for an undergrad. He'll learn a ton from it, and will probably go on to do great things.

      --
      They don't grade fathers, but if your daughter's a stripper, you fucked up. --Chris Rock
  5. Platforms, frameworks, etcetera by StripedCow · · Score: 1

    If the term "platform" is even slightly comparable to "framework", it is time to run.

    --
    If Pandora's box is destined to be opened, *I* want to be the one to open it.
  6. Faire by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    I'm just whining, but personally I really dislike the "Faire" name a lot of people use. I think it turns people away from going to these events..

    When I see that spelling, I think of things like people who are in to "faeries" and "magick" and SCA members and other such niches. It doesn't sound at all like "People showing off cool stuff they've built", and I wish people would stop spelling it that way.

    1. Re: Faire by Trinn · · Score: 1

      Some of us are into both and find people like the parent poster to be a real part of the problem.

  7. makers love reinventing the wheel by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "quadcopter development platform he hopes can bring the cost of a quadcopter prototype down to $50 or so, or about the same price as a toy quadcopter."

    Cool, he hopes to repeat what 50 companies in China can do. Why not just buy a toy copter and hack it with GPS, acrobatics, etc...

    Really, instead of that and re-discovering what it takes to make a cheap quadcopter, he should be hacking it. We are heading towards a reality where hackers and makers don't intersect and when they do, it's going to get ugly.

  8. The most fun you can have with one of these by NewtonsLaw · · Score: 1

    Forget about aerial video and photography with these "drones" -- the most fun you can have with one of these multi-rotor craft is this:

    FPV racing

    These are tiny multirotor craft fitted with FPV (first person view) video gear and flown around a course (which can be as simple as a few trees in a field).

    Stunningly good fun and a real adrenaline buzz -- without all the privacy and safety issues that "droners" create with their DJI Phantoms and other consumer-grade multirotors.

    Just Google/Youtube for "mini H quad" and you'll find much more

  9. Why the quadcopter obsession? by walshy007 · · Score: 1

    Why not just build an RC helicopter sizable enough to do what you want?

    You want automation? It can be done on an rc helicopter too.

    I just don't see the point of having a bunch of weak motors as opposed to a single strong one with control of thrust via cyclic and collective pitch controls on the blades.

    1. Re:Why the quadcopter obsession? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Physics and agility. Quads, particularly those with V-tails and variable pitch arms, are much more agile than a helicopter, and can carry more weight in a stable fashion. They also have less vibration, and are mechanically far simpler than a heli. Octocopters make ideal stable flight platforms for larger cameras due to their position locking and overlapping planes of thrust.

      If you have any doubts, compare the Penn State quad demos where small objects are tossed and caught by groups of quads. You could never do that with helis.

      The technology to have quads, hexes and octos only recently became affordable and advanced enough - but now that it is here, it is helis that are likely to vanish, not quads.

    2. Re:Why the quadcopter obsession? by Alioth · · Score: 1

      If you don't think RC helis are agile, you've not seen what Alan Szabo does with them.

      --
      Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows
    3. Re:Why the quadcopter obsession? by hawk · · Score: 1

      I don't care *how* it flies so long as I can have it chase anything larger than a hummingbird, yet smaller than a cat, that moves.

      @*#(*^% air rats eating my seeds, berries, and other fruit. Go at them while emitting raptor cries . . .

      hawk