Guten Tag.

Hi.

My eniviroment to avoid requests.

Hardware:Gigabyte i7, 16GB Ram, a lot of HD's

OS Windows7_x64, Kubuntu 10.04

Relevante Software:

                Arduino 1.03, 1.5

                Visual Studio's

                Atmel Studio 6.2

                IDE PX4

                Missionplanner latest

                STM DFU

                IDE VRBRAIN

Controllers: ArduMega 2560, APM2.5, PX4FMU/IO, china clone apm2.5,

                    last but not least VRuBrain 5.1

Tools: AVR-Dragon, AVR-MkII, usb-scope

ToFly: lot of planes, copter,

Upload to VRuBrain the official Firmware with Missionplanner  OK

Connect GPS, Compass, Receiver OK

Problem: Firmware is not build For RC-Channel-Map of my transmitter.

Changed mapping with Missionplanners Patameterlist.(with write params like amp/px4).

Restart, No effect. mapping not changed

Downloaded from web variante xxxx_pwm.vrx.

The same.

Downloade Sources and compiled.

Got xxx.hex, xxx.bin .......

Tried upload with Missionplanner xxx.hex(like apm); Miisionplanner not accepts my hex.

Converted .hex to .dfu, Upload with STM-Tool OK.

But the bootloader is destroyed, Missionplanner can't connect.

I could cross the wires in pwm, but I think the is not a smart solutiom.

Help.

HOWTO build myFirmware.xxx accepted and uploading by Missionplanner.

Missionplaner accepts Firmeware.vrx downloaded from web.

How can I build myFirmware.vrx or myFirmware.???.

I´m going to start testing Roberto´s New VrDroidRC Android app.

To have a platform where I can use my Nexus 7 tablet as a combined Ground Station and radio (using AndroPilot or VrDroidRC), I have made a combined Nexus 7 dock and enclosure to mount the electronics.
 Maybe later VrDroidRC have telemetry and FPV support, so I don´t have to use AndroPilot ?

Here I have mounted a G10 plate and some 30mm standoffs on the back of a Nexus 7 protective back-cover

The other side

The other part, where I have made hole to support an Futaba style TX module and a 3DR 433Mhz telemetry module

From the other side (I´m using an ASSAN TX module in my test setup)
In the other hole I plan to Mount a display showing my TX LiPo status

From the side

Front

Running Roberto´s great app :-)

As it is now, it can be used as a mobile AndroPilot ground station (only need an USB OTG cable between the 3DR telemetry radio and the Nexus 7 tablet).

I´m waiting for some Components that I need to make Roberto´s OpAmp adapter that is needed to Connect the TX module to the mini-jack on the tablet.

I also need a battery (plan to use a 9,6V LiFe Tx battery) to Power the TX module + an 5V UBEC to get 5V for the OpAmp module.

I have used a small USB hub between the Nexus and the 3DR radio, so now I have 3 free USB if I want to test other modules..

I´ll continue when my OpAmp adapter is ready - showing how I made it..

When it is ready, I plan to test The App controlling a quad in a SIM, and if it Works my next test is controlling a Q-BOT micro quad.

Use this forum thread to discuss The app

Sorry about my bad speling..

Multi-Pilot Base Board

• 3 Gyro ADXL 610
• ACC LYS 344
  
• 2 Serial
  
• Port 1
  
• SPI 1
  
• I2c
  
• 7 ESC OUT
  
• 1 Serial PPM in
  

Multi - Sensor / Navi

You need this board configuration for automatic navigation.

4 Ir-Sensor

1 Ultrasound range finder

1 Magnetometer

1 GPS 54 CHN 10 HZ

Hello everyone,

• Aeroquad
• Arduimu.
• Arducopter.

The LN MultiBoard 1.0 board details :

• AVR 644P (Sanguino compatible micro)
• 1 Power Switching da 8-30 Volt 3 Amp.
• 3 mems gyroscope 220 °/s
• 1 Accelerometer a 3 Axis X Y Z 2 G.
• 2 Pressure sensor 20 cm of resolution.
• 4 PPM Output Servo PPM 5 Volt using 4017 TTL LOGIC.
• 2 PPM Ouptup using standard ServoTime2 / ServoTimer PWM Library.
• 1 I2C Bus for motor control( LN BL Controller 20 Amp.)
• 1 Serial BUS TTL
• 1 SPI BUS TTL
• 1 Speaker Output.
• 2 Digital Output genarl pourpose.
• 1 PPM Input for R/C Controller.

Details

visit the site of company that develop LN Multipilot 1.0 http://www.lasernavigation.it visit https://www.youtube.com/rnavoni to see LN Multipilot 1.0 in action. visit http://code.google.com/p/aeroquad/
I'm starting to support the project the goal is to port Aeroquad
firmware on MultiPilot

Hi VirtualRobotix! We met you at Modena Makers, it was a very interesting experience, we had the opportunity to see your amazing technology!

We present you Axemblo, the new open source construction system for professional DIY Robotics. Axemblo system is based on Aluminum, a lightweight, ultra-resistant and recyclable material. With Axemblo you can create fantastic Robots, Rovers, mechanical arms and supports for Electronics Boards (VirtualRobotics board fits perfectly).

Axemblo is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License to enable students, researchers and the community to expand the system. Looking forward for a collaboration with you. We would also love to hear from the community it would be very useful for us to know what they think about our system.

Great work VirtualRobotix

Dear Friends, 

this is the first render of new Virtualrobotix enclosure design. Do you like it ? Suggestions about new design are welcome :)

The enclosure will be available on virtualrobotix shapeways shop until the molded version not be available . 

Here are available more info about the new products :

VR micro Brain 5 : http://www.virtualrobotix.it/index.php/en/shop/autopilot/vrbrainmic...

VR GPS 8 : http://www.virtualrobotix.it/index.php/en/shop/accessories/gps-ublo...

About VR Brain 5.2  http://www.virtualrobotix.it/index.php/en/shop/autopilot/vrbrain5-d...

Best

Roberto 

During my alpha testing with the "APM Copter V3.0" i immediately reported to the dev team that the Loiter mode was very accurate but is not allowed to fly normally, like with other system like DJI and Mikrokopter.
We preferred to make the Loiter mode that would serve to accurately reposition the multirotor, and to help beginners to move safely.
An italian friend and developer, Sandro Tognana, collected my challenge and started to develop a flight mode as I wanted, in line with the other famous flight control board.
Another awesome programmer, Julien Dubois, has joined our team and has worked actively to implement the complicated wind compensation.
After several months of development and testing are pleased to present the "Hybrid flight mode", a sort of "flyable Loiter" with wind compensation.
This new mode is currently being debugged (in alpha phase), it is therefore not available to the public, of course, will have to go into the hands of APM Copter Dev Team who will decide whether to adopt it in an upcoming release.
The results in my video are great, sorry but the audio is bad because it was very windy today, and anyway i speak Italian (soon the subtitles), however, is clearly seen as a "Hybrid" works, is almost perfect.
The tests were carried out on APM and VR Brain, but of course will work on any board that installs "APM Copter" suck PX4 and Pixhawk.
I will keep you updated on the "Hybrid" developments, i'll open a discussion about this with other APM Copter developers to assess any changes in the code.
I want to say thanks to Sandro and Julien for their great work!

Original blog post : http://www.diydrones.com/profiles/blogs/hybrid-flight-mode-what-was-missing-in-apm-copter-now-is-reality by Marco Robustini :)

Bests, Marco

Today we start our first Indiegogo campaign .After 1 hour we have our first bakers ... :)

That's very good :) Help us to share our campaign .

Our goals are:

• growing users of our network.
• improved version ready to fly VR Brain
• Improve our electronic design and firmware.
• Support the work of volounter developer. 

If you want help us to reach the target share this addres with your friends in your network :

http://www.indiegogo.com/vrbrain?a=206201

After 4 months of work we finish to port AP_HAL library to VR Brain.

so now we are ready for test Arduplane on VRBrain and see our VR Plane fligh in the sky :)

In this video you can see only first test that we doing last week.

Our configuration are :

• VR Brain 4.0 
• Mediatek GPS 
• Radio Hitech aurora 9 
• Battery 3S 1800 mah
• We decide to use a Sail Plane EasyGlider Pro for our first test , it fly very well :

We are using  3 servos configuration 1 for control the roll of plane connect to two servo ,  one for pitch control and other for YAW control.

We try to fly 3 mode :

• manual for have a full direct control of Plane .
• stabilize for control auto stabilization of plane when we putted the stick in the center.
•  return to landing , this is the fist automatic functionality that we test on our VR Plane :) It's work very well and when reach the point start to Circle .

Fly a Plane is a lot different that fly a Multicopter , I fly for 4 years only multicopter but my first impression is that the plane fly in more natural way than a multicopter ... less problem .... more simple to control  but could be only a first impression :) 

So the plane have a lot of limit respect of Multicopter but it could be a very long flight time respect to Multicopter especially in Sail Plane configuration.

The video is developed by VR Media division , the Chief of division is Daniele that's  our beta tester of  VR Plane.

Thanks to the DevTeam and beta tester  for this great result.

Best

Roberto Navoni 

To better test if the design is ok, I made a simple VRBRAIN cad model to mount in my frame.

I found that I had to do some changes to fit the controller.

In this image I have used 10mm spacers between the center plates - I may test other lengths -

If I use longer I may be able to mount the LiPo between the plates + the mobius camera ?

CNC next :-)

Hehe, just a teaser for my yesterday's tests on VRBRAIN with latest 2.9 firmware! VRBRAIN uses the powerful ARM STM32F4 CPU and runs with the actual 2.9 firmware codebase.

So while we are upgrading the code to the new AP_HAL_xxx standard I finally took some time to test our recent port of the Arducopter 2.9 code, still based on the old code standard.

This is a small video of the faetures:

This is the location of the code and DFUs: http://code.google.com/p/vrbrain/downloads/list

I have also set up a small and rather incomplete "how to" to upload the firmware into the STM32F4 ARM Microcontroller 

Man!, never had so much fun with the Auto mode! I am using a UBlox GPS on a Hexa frame with 10x4.5 APC props.

The main difference between our code and the original Arducopter one is that we drive our main stabilization loop at 400Hz (instead of 100Hz) and get samples from the Gyro and Accel at 1000Hz (instead of 100Hz) with only 10% CPU time used.

The filter of the MPU6000 is set to 98Hz, although the Alt_Hold with the accelerometers worked very well.

Here is the picture of the Waipoint path, as you can see I am not good in drawing, but the path was followed very well.

One thing that impressed me was the alitude, in all the auto mission only 1 meter between max and min.

The new altitude hold with use of accels is doing a great job also in autoland and auto-approach.

To all the AC team a big thanks for the huge work!

And thanks to Roberto and VirtualRobotix for his VRBRAIN!

Emile

Dear Friends,

this month we have a lot of news and update on MP32 board and project :

http://www.virtualrobotix.com/page/multipilot32-1

This is a fly of Ardupirates32 NG for Gaui 300XS : frame , esc motors and propellers.

1) VRIDE 0.0.4 is available : http://code.google.com/p/multipilot32/downloads/list

the new feature available are :

- i2c lib at 400 khz.

- new bootloader available with security feature when your in flight , jumper for activate bootloader.

- update firmware using usb .

2) Ardupirates 32 NG on mp32 work fine , main loop is limit to 800 hz i have tested :

- acro mode.

- stable mode.

- magnetometer , gps and barometer.

- GPS hold work fine .

- Altitude hold could be better.

3) VRIMU is available : http://www.virtualrobotix.com/page/vr-imu-10

- Sensor board with two option : inversense and analog device gyro , accelerometer and magnetometer.

- Navi Board with gps , barometer and differential pressure sensor (Option) , analog and digital input output available.

4) First Revision of Arducopter 2.0 available as starting point for checking functionality :

http://code.google.com/p/multipilot32/downloads/detail?name=ArmCopter32_vride0045_20110513.rar&can=2&q=#makechanges

- All Low level library ported to new MP32 in pre alpha revision.

- Firs revision of code compile .

- The ide is available on repo as VRIMU 0.0.4.5 ready for start to test it.

5) RTF firmware for Gaui 330XS available. contact me at : lasernav@gmail.com for more info.

6) A lot of people start to fly with mp32 ... some video ...

7) Price of new product :

The module available and price follow :

MP32                          84,00 euro  120,00 $
S.Board con Mag.        78,00 euro 110,00$
S.Board senza Mag.     70,00 euro 99,00$
NAVI no mag no GPS   43,00 euro  60,50 $
Navi con Mag e GPS   122,00 euro 175,00$
Pitot                             29,00 euro 41,00$

This price include tax (italy 20% VAT) :(

Entry level system with Gyro rate control and Stable mode is good for FPV:
MP32 + Sensor Board with or without MAG.


UAV system is GPS hold , altitude hold .. working progress for RTH and Waypoint navigation :
MP32 + Sensor Board with or withMAG + NAVI with GPS.

For order send a mail to virtualrobotix@gmail.com

In the video I tested Loiter mode

Tested normal manual flight, alt hold, loiter and land - all Works fine

Alt hold and Loiter was impressive

In this test I used PPMSUM from my RX module

The CTX4 quad used in the test


T-motor 10" prop used. The motor Mounts/tube clamps have rubber rings to help reduce vibrations form the motors.

The VR Brain Controller is separated/vibration isolated from the frame using rubber Mounts (like the ones used on many camera gimbals, but smaller and softer) + soft pads

The motors are iPower MultiMate 2012 1000kv.
When using 4000mAh 3cell LiPo I get 12-14 min before the VR Brain LiPo alarm starts.

I plan to make one more frame CTX4L (large) - that have larger motors and can use up to 12" props. Have ordered the New VR Brain 4.5 + IMU to use on this one.
On that frame I´m going to Mount my VR Gimbal Controller and GoPro gimbal.

Buongiorno a tutti, 

sono felice di presentarvi il primo drone elicottero completamente made in italy :)

• Frame dell'elicottero Protos 500
• Flight Control : VR uBrain 5 
• GPS: VR GPS 8
• System integration by Ferruccio Vicari :) 

nell'ultimo mese di lavoro ho avuto l'onore e il piacere di incontrare personalmente uno degli sviluppatori italiani di APM Helicopter . Sono rimasto incuriosito dal fatto che tra le tante schede VR ubrain vendute per far funzionare multicotteri ci fosse Ferruccio , questo è il nome del nostro Ing. Aeronautico che si sta' occupando di provare  e migliorare APM Helicopter su VR Brain / uBrain e anche su Pixhawk che ci chiedeva supporto sul firmware dell'hely e sul nostro hardware per poterci mettere le mani sopra e renderlo performante sui suoi mezzi.

Da quando l'ho incontrato e mi sono innamorato dei suoi elicotteri infatti i  lab di Virtualrobotix , nel limite del possibile , stà cercando di dare supporto  al suo lavoro cercando di capire meglio come aiutare Ferruccio a risolvere gli attuali limiti sia del firmware che dell'hardware. Mettendo poi a disposizione tutto questo lavoro della community di APM . 

In particolare le due caratteristiche innovative presenti nella versione del firmware di Ferruccio sono una curva di gestione del gas a 3 punti che consente di associare alla gestione del collettivo dell'elicottero la potenza necessaria per far volare in modo semplice l'elicottero.  E la compensazione del roll in base al passo dell'elica di coda , entrambe modifiche che consentono di fatto di rendere un elicottero estremamente docile. 

In questo video si può vedere il video di una delle tante missioni totalmente autonome che il VR Hely è in grado di fare senza alcun tipo di intervento del pilota ne in fase di decollo tantomeno in fase di atterraggio.

ecco il video :

Questa e' una foto dell'installazione della micro brain e del sistema anti vibrante:

Questo e' il grafico delle vibrazioni presenti sulla VR uBrain merito del frame del Protos 500 e anche delle soluzioni adottate per tagliare le vibrazioni sulla flight control 

Altra caratteristica non banale è il contenimento delle vibrazioni e anche qui Ferruccio ha fatto un lavoro egregio inventandosi un supporto in grado di tagliare il piu' possibile le vibrazioni e rendere di fatto al pari di un normale quadricottero.

Tanto semplice che ho chiesto a Ferruccio di poter provare anch'io con un vecchio T-rex 470 di capire quanto fosse diverso pilotare un elicottero rispetto a uno dei classici quadricotteri che ormai piloto da anni.

Il risultato è stato strepitoso in 2 voli ero già completamente a mio agio.

Sicuramente questi sono mezzi complessi e pericolosi ,  bisogna avere competenze per poter fare un setup idoneo e poi bisogna usarli con cautela ma in quanto a risultati di tempi di volo con motori a benzina e payload trasportabili non c'e' paragone con nessun altro tipo di velivolo , ne VTOL , ne Aereo tanto meno quadricottero.

Il video del mio primo decollo con la VR uBrain 4.5 sul mio Trex 450 

E questo e' il mio secondo volo , mai fatti volare prima elicotteri ... direi incredibile :) 

Qui potete trovare tanti interessanti video di Ferruccio sui suoi meravigliosi elicotteri .

https://www.youtube.com/user/FlybrosColico/videos