Dr Saud Abdul Ghani, head of the Mechanical and Industrial Engineering at Qatar University, unveiled a design and construction of an artificial cloud to shade and cool the open playgrounds to be used in the 2022 World Cup in Doha. He told a local Arabic daily that the project will be executed in collaboration with Qatar Science and Technology Park.

He said the artificial cloud will move by remote control, made of 100 percent light carbonic materials, fuelled by four solar-powered engines and it will fly high to protect direct and indirect sun rays to control temperatures at the open playgrounds.

He said the initial model of the cloud cost $500,000 but the cost will decrease upon launching the commercial models which could also be used at beaches, car parking by using the mobile phone.

The Peninsula

Dear Friends,

Ardupilot32 is Alive , I start to make some prototipe , the first to board assembled work fine , this week i don't prepare a video with a Weekly update because i'm working on a lot of thinks.

I'm working on IDE , On Bootloader , I'm working on Wrapper for Arduino compatibility, I'm working on testing hardware , the OilPan interface ... a lot lot of thinks ...

So I open a official repo with a raw code of my project ,some source code , ide that i'm using , some startup info ... I hope that for the next week i have some time to update doc and info on the board.

In the last two day I start t o upgrade the last revision of xduino for support Ardupilot32 , It'snt mature project .. don't support i2c , spi , pwm . But is a good point of start for my work.

If some one would help me That's is good , on the official thread you can found link to last code :

http://www.virtualrobotix.com/forum/topics/multipilot-20-ap32-building

I need some help to write optimezed low level drive. Need Help for developing Ide plugin , Need Help for chosing better and cheaper platform for 16 Feb Podcast.

Regards

Roberto Navoni (FOX TEAM)

Ciao a tutti!

Si tratta di una recensione delle nostre autonomie di volo in funzione delle nostre configurazioni.

Potrebbe essere utile per un principiante che non sa ancora quale materiale acquistare.

Il documento è in formato .xls Excel ed è modificabile.

Autonomie.xls

My wife was nice enough to let me bring my quad and FPV gear on vacation :)

This is the result.

http://youtu.be/pYzNKglo5os?hd=1

Had dozens flights using Multipilot32 with MPU6000 and latest ported Arducopter32 2.6 firmware.

Unfortunately the quad had some vibration problems and wind was always quite strong.

I think is time to change motors and frame....

Had a lot of fun. This is my first edited video so please be nice with comments :)

Cheers,

Emile

Thanks to Roberto for his MP32 + NAVI2012

and thanks to the Arducopter dev team for their great work!

http://youtu.be/pYzNKglo5os?hd=1

Unfortunately the quad had some vibration problems and wind was always quite strong.

I think is time to change motors and frame....

Had a lot of fun. This is my first edited video so please be nice with comments :)

Cheers,

Emile

Thanks to Roberto for his MP32 + NAVI2012

and thanks to the Arducopter dev team for their great work!

Hello,

I had more flights with my Quad. I'm still impressed with RTL performance but as I explore the settings I have some questions.

I had a try with Fence. I have to do a retry but I'm quite sure there is a problem: I cannot arm motors (after battery exchange) with fence enabled. There is no Red led blinking and save of the new home. I had to uncheck Fence in the config in order to save the new Home and fly.

I had also a try with Saving waypoints (Chan7 and redo the flight Chan8). Fine.

Also a Memory problem with the logs. If I do not flush the old logs, when reaching out of space, the last log is corrupted and download hang.

I keep you in touch and had to have another try at Fence.

Thanks,

Marc

Dear Friends,
in last month we're some great news from FoxTeam and Virtualrobotix community.
We are doing our first Gps hold , Altitude hold test.

http://www.virtualrobotix.com/profiles/blogs/armfox-v4-gps-and-altitude

Some user start to fly with his quad based on Multipilot32 with Ready to Fly firmware and hardware setup
With standard Oilpan IMU :

http://www.virtualrobotix.com/video/armfox-v4-rtf-altitude-and-gps?xg_source=activity
or with Custom analog sensor and neet so solve some iusse :( ...

http://www.virtualrobotix.com/video/outdoor-test-with-mp32?xg_source=activity
or with retrofit gaui ...

http://www.virtualrobotix.com/video/multigaui-1
Now we're working on the sonar , altitude hold and start to work on ACM 2.0 library and firmware ...

I'm very happy of this first result ... some news for other people on our team ?

In the next week we will present the new Imu and MP32 RTF.

Thanks for your support

Best

Roberto

Straight from Marco Robustini's UAV piloting school here is the first video of his new pupil: Valentina Russo.

Must say she earned Marco's bravery in flying such a big Quad...

She is Flying VRBRAIN of course on Marco's custom quad.

Bravi Valentina and Marco!

By John Baichtal

It’s remarkable how the MIT Hobby Shop presages aspects of the hackerspace movement…

In the 1937-38 academic year, Vannevar Bush, then Vice President of MIT, granted a group of 16 MIT students permission to use a room in the basement of building 2. With equipment they found around the Institute they set up a wood and metal shop in the 16-foot by 22-foot area. The club members chose the name “Hobby Shop” based on their belief in the philosophy that the well rounded individual pursued interests outside their profession – hobbies.

Now in its 75th year, we take a look back how the Hobby Shop began, and evolved to what it is today.

Cari Membri del FoxTeam ,
Cari Amici

Buon Anno per un 2011 pieno di tanti nuovi progetti e di tanti nuovi amici .... :)

Dear Members of FoxTeam,
Dear Friends

Happy New Year for a 2011 full of many new projects and new friends .... :)

Chers membres de FoxTeam,
Chers amis

Bonne année 2011 pour un plein de beaucoup de nouveaux projets et de nouveaux amis .... :)

Sehr geehrte Mitglieder des FoxTeam,
Liebe Freunde

Happy New Year für ein 2011 mit vielen neuen Projekten und neuen Freunden .... :)

亲爱的会员们的FoxTeam，
亲爱的朋友们

新年快乐了2011年许多新项目和新朋友充分.... ：）

The latest US purchase of Raven UAVs was announced:

"AeroVironment, Inc. (AV) (NASDAQ:AVAV) announced today that it received an order valued at $46,226,984 under an existing contract with the U.S. Army. The order comprises 123 new digital Raven small unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) and initial spares packages as well as 186 digital retrofit kits for the U.S. Marine Corps. The order also includes 339 digital retrofit kits for the U.S. Army."

Assuming that those "digital retrofits" are just switching out the video transmitters to encrypt the signal, which is not a big deal, this sounds like ~$300,000 per plane, which is about the same price as the similarly-sized Wasp.

I know that a Raven clone, APM and some decent video equipment is not quite milspec, but given that it costs about 1/1,000th as much and does more or less the same thing, why aren't the military considering cheaper alternatives?

(Yes, I'm aware the real Raven is much more robust, the onboard optics are much better, the Raven kits include ground stations and all that other stuff. But still: are they one thousand times better?)

Just saw this on Reddit, thought others would find the AP work interesting:

http://cryptome.org/eyeball/daiichi-npp/daiichi-photos.htm

Not sure if I have installed this correctly - I had errors when decompressing the archive although it seems to have installed ok.

When it is run it gives a series of Out of Range Exception errors for value 0 not being vaolid. Any suggestions?

Peter

Some software improvements

Hi Team,

in this days I'm working to patch the AQ 2.0 firmware to support MultiPilot Board.

So I add :

• I2C ESC.
• Mixertable with Hexa Coax configuration that support different Gas configuration on Up and down motors.
• Serial PPM in 1 wire until 12 channel

Some Patch on original firmware because in not yet ready :) So I'm in contact with mirko to solve some small bugs :)

The source code is available here : http://code.google.com/p/lnmultipilot10/source/browse/#svn/branches/Redfox74/AeroQuad20MP

Regards

Roberto

I can't help but notice that allot of time in the discussions on DIY Drones is spent arguing. Clearly this saps the energy of this community. It is best never to get involved. That being said I think everyone who is active in any open source community (not just owners) should watch this video.

Bike sheds

Original blog post : http://www.diydrones.com/profiles/blogs/dissent-in-an-open-source-community

Naval Surface Warfare Center Carderock Division's Norfolk Detachment is seeking maritime-related Unmanned Aerial System (UAS) technology demonstration candidates from industry, acedemia, and Government research and development organization in support of a Capability Demonstration to be hosted in April for the United Kingdom's Defense Science and Technology Laboratory. 

The April demonstration will explore emerging UAS technologies and technical applications to improve situational awareness during small boat operations.

Applications to participate are due Feb. 19, 2013.  Detailed information is available online at FedBizOps at www.fbo.gov, and searching solicitation number N0016713FRI01.

Those interested in participating should contact Stiletto@navy.mil.

• Aeroquad Shield (Arduino Board + Custom Shield): http://aeroquad.info/bin/view/Main/PartsList_v2
• Mikrokopter FC2.0: http://www.mikrokopter.de/ucwiki/FlightCtrl
• Multiboard: http://code.google.com/p/lnmultipilot10/wiki/multiboard
• MultiNaviExp: http://code.google.com/p/lnmultipilot10/wiki/MulboarNaviExp
• PhiFUN Project: http://code.google.com/p/lnmultipilot10/wiki/PhiFUN_HEXA_Project (New)