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Open-Source Firmware For Your Toy Drone

Posted by timothy on from the plenty-of-it-to-go-around dept.

An anonymous reader writes: Since now you're going to either register your drone or have to be flying your [small drone] indoors anyway in the USA, you might as well celebrate the one freedom you still have: the freedom to re-flash the firmware with open source! The Eachine H8 is a typical-looking mini-quadcopter of the kind that sell for under $20. Inside, the whole show is powered by an ARM Cortex-M3 processor, with the programming pins easily visible. Who could resist? Garagedrone takes you through a step-by-step guide to re-flashing the device with a custom firmware to enable acrobatic mode, or simply to tweak the throttle-to-gyro mapping for the quad. The firmware author silverxxx from RCGroups.com even got the code up on GitHub if you're interested in taking a peek. Next step, Skynet!

32 comments

  1. The government owns the air. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You may not use it without permission. Basically, they've learned from the mistake they've made by granting individual citizens private property rights and are not going to make the same mistake again.

    1. Re:The government owns the air. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      too bad no one on the planet has authority over mr.

    2. Re:The government owns the air. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      me

    3. Re:The government owns the air. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Too bad no one on the planet has authority over me

  2. Err - no. by queazocotal · · Score: 4, Informative

    The above class of toy drone weighs 20 grams or so.
    In order to be required to register under the proposed new regulations, the limit is 250g.

    Mostly these are >>$100, not $20.

    1. Re:Err - no. by Jane+Q.+Public · · Score: 1

      Not to mention that it is already getting set to be tested in court, since Congress wrote a law years ago stating explicitly that "model aircraft" are exempt from licensing or regulation by the FAA.

  3. #1 ITAR/USML #2 !=Skynet by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    #1: This mindset of "fuck the regulators! I'll just open source it and say "nanny-nanny boo boo" didn't work out so hot for Cody Wilson/Defcad. If the goal was to show how easily the wire inside a Radioshack Police Scanner can be cut with a pair of dykes: congratulations on the woosh. Please do continue pointing out the obvious/making bypassing compliance measures that much more difficult.

    #2: Vehicle autonomy can be thought of in layers of abstraction with vehicle inverse kinematics at a very very low level. The autonomy requirement has sensors and actuators, and built on top of these two foundation layers is the very challenging issue of "grey matter" which decides what to do with the sensor information to the actuators.

    #3: Cool guide. Anytime someone takes a cheap Amazon/eBay toy made in china and reflashes the firmware through JTAG etc. that's alright with me!

    What confuses me is how this got on Slashdot before Hackaday?

    1. Re:#1 ITAR/USML #2 !=Skynet by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      very challenging issue of "grey matter" which decides what to do with the sensor information to the actuators.

      This is trivial from an engineering POV. Tweaking a few parameters in a flight simulator game, http://sourceforge.net/p/fligh..., is sufficient and yes I have done it. OSS from DIYdrones has had source code for almost a decade to do this.

  4. Next Step: Skynet?? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Obviously it shows my age to say this, but Skynet is more than just a slashdot meme. And it doesn't make sense at all here except that it has the word "sky" in it. Why do we keep coming to this website again?

    1. Re:Next Step: Skynet?? by camperdave · · Score: 1

      I don't know about you, but I keep coming back in the forlorn hope that Slashdot might have recaptured its former glory.

      --
      When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
  5. Or... by thegarbz · · Score: 1

    Or you could start with one of the many open source drone firmwares that run on a variety of platforms and can power anything from a car or boat all the way to a octacopter, or a variety of strange propeller configurations.

    1. Re:Or... by JoeMerchant · · Score: 1

      Or, if you want to move up the processor power food chain a little bit to ST Micros with PC/Tablet ground stations, you could choose http://www.librepilot.org/ / https://www.openpilot.org/

    2. Re:Or... by thinkwaitfast · · Score: 1

      It takes very little processing power to control a plane. Possibly counterintuitively, a lot less than driving a car. A 12hz first order control loop should stabilize anything larger than .25m span (due to dynamic response) (smaller models would require a faster control loop, but nothing excessive). 8 bits for either would be sufficient.

    3. Re:Or... by JoeMerchant · · Score: 1

      The ST Micros aren't exactly processing power barn-burners, but they do have lots and lots of ports - nice if you're going to integrate 10 axis sensors (baro, mag, gyro, accel) with GPS and other stuff like proximity sensors, etc. They're not quite up to image processing, but I think they're adequate to run control loops in floating point and handle all the route following, com traffic, etc.

    4. Re:Or... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Actually ardupilot most commonly runs on Pixhawk, which uses an STM32F4.

    5. Re:Or... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You're forgetting about estimation. And doing decent control for planes is actually very involved.

    6. Re:Or... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Not really. A flight plan is a list of lat/lon (x,y)waypoints. You know the distance between waypoints. GPS gives you speed. d/v=t, so you estimate the time of each leg add them up and that is your prediction. Add a airspeed indicator and you can estimate windspeed to refine the estimate. Basic physics.

  6. Registration? Not Yet by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    The registration is illegal per Sec. 336 and currently facing multiple legal challenges. If you're registering, you're just consenting to their rules and giving them a vote of confidence to use against the rest of the hobby. Even the AMA is telling members to hold off unless it survives all of the challenges.

  7. Failed premise that you will register by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The premise of the whole post is wrong; that people will register their drones is at best optimistic.

    You sound European.

  8. Register lol by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    No way am I going to register. Just another database to get hacked. Just another bullshit tax.

    1. Re:Register lol by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No reason to hack, the database is public record.

  9. Anyone selling? Maybe good for RYF certification? by gnujoshua · · Score: 4, Interesting

    So cool -- I want to know more. Is anybody is selling these preflashed? Please send them our way! I would love to find out if they are good candidate for Free Software Foundation's Respect Your Freedom (RYF) computer hardware certification. Full disclosure I work with the FSF's licensing team. Josh

  10. Like to see this for my DJI by starman97 · · Score: 1

    I'd love to have Open Source firmware for my DJI P3, the hardware is really nice, but the restrictions and auto upload and forced updates by DJI are starting to annoy me.
    Sure, they're the biggest target and they'll do whatever the FAA asks to keep their market share.
    "Nice business there DJI, it'd be a shame if anything happened to it"

    --
    Starman97@Gmail.com (bring it on spammers)
  11. dykes, eh? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    how easily the wire inside a Radioshack Police Scanner can be cut with a pair of dykes

    is it really worth the bother of getting two cooperative dykes to participate in this dastardly scheme?

    I doubt the run-of-the-mill dyke totes around toenail clippers or a similar tool, so how exactly are they going to cut through the wire, with their teeth?

    I'd think a sharp set of sidecutters would work just as well, if not better.

  12. Re:Toy drones arent even on the registration list. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    $230 get you a full featured prof video level quadcopter like the https://dronegarageblog.wordpress.com/2016/01/07/cx-20-the-open-source-alternative-to-dji-phantom/

  13. Toy Drones? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You only need to register drones over .55 lbs. These are not the toy drones you buy for toys. These are rather large and expensive.

    Just more typical click bait. Good modding /.

  14. nice talking by MdAkhlakuzzamanMizan · · Score: 1

    please dont be cruel ........... www.ritsbd.com

  15. Windows-only instructions? by robvdl · · Score: 1

    Why are the flash instructions for Windows only? I have a few friends that get into drones, but they all use Linux, as do I. They tend to find it annoying that they have to keep an old Windows laptop around just to flash firmwares. I really hope it's also possible to flash under Linux.

  16. mapping by adamantine.me · · Score: 1

    This could be a really good way to map wireless networks: https://wigle.net/