Help choosing my first DIY quadrocopter for up to 600usd : diydrones. The DIY Kid-tracking Drone. On school-day mornings, I walk my grade-school-age son 400 meters down the hill to the bus stop. Last winter, I fantasized about sitting at my computer while a camera-equipped drone followed him overhead. So this year, I set out to build one. For the basic airframe, I selected a quadcopter design for its maneuverability and ability to hover. Construction was straightforward: You can buy a quadcopter kit with all the pieces or, as I did, get parts separately and spend more time on system integration. On the mechanical side, there’s a central frame to hold the electronics, spars of aluminum to support the motors and propellers, and legs to cushion the quadcopter’s landing (I made a few extra sets of legs out of foam board for easy replacement).
For the main control board, I chose an ArduPilot Mega, mostly because it integrates everything I needed—the CPU, input/output ports, a three-axis gyroscope and accelerometer, and a barometric altitude sensor. So, did it work? DIY Arduino Helicopter with Obstacle Avoidance. ArduIMU quadcopter part III. Hi all, I have a new drone in the family... This tiny drone is able to do completely automatic flights, it can perform altitude hold (based on sonar sensor) and obstacle avoiding based on IR distance sensors (you could see the "black stange eyes" on the photo).
It´s your personal droid... Look at the video (the "tennis game" part it´s funny. Thanks to Ramon for the idea!!) There are some new features in this thrid part... This is the list: For outdoor configuration: - GPS library support (actually UBLOX or NMEA) - Position hold based on GPS For indoor configuration: - 4x IR distance sensors to detect obstacles (1.5m range) - Obstacle avoiding (using distance sensors) Common: - Altitude hold based on Sonar (LV-EZ0) - Automatic flight pattern (experimental). --- Automatic takeoff --- Position hold [outdoor] or obstacle avoiding [indoor] during a predefined time --- Automatic descend --- Automatic landing - Added XBee for telemetry (and debug) And some improvements in the code: - Revised control routines.
ArduCopter 3DR Quad - Ready to Fly - w/ APM2.5 and *FREE Replacement Kit.