AvrMiniCopter - Linux based controller project

[gregd72002]

Hello Everyone,

I want to share a project I have been working on for the last year. It is a quadcopter controller with full Linux support (maintained using buildroot)

This means:

• full networking support (Wifi, Bluetooth)
• use scripting or any programming language you want
• SSH, Busybox, and hundreds of other tools
• compile your own additional tools
• video4linux/camera (when using capable board - i.e. Odroid-W or RPi)
• anything else Linux supports

The controller';s features currently are:

• Support for quadcopters in X configuration of any size
• 2 fly modes - Auto-level & Acro
• Altitude hold
• HD FPV / video flying
• learner mode (attach 2 controller simultaneously - one for the teacher and one for the learner)
• fast (boot time of around 2-3sec)
• WWW configurable (i.e. you can adjust anything using your phone in the field)
• Camera support for taking pictures and videos
• Live and Offline log charting (vibrations, quaternions, altitude, etc)
• Wifi (Android) and Bluetooth (PS3 gamepad) controller support (iOS version in development)
• Out of box bluetooth (PAN) and WIFI connectivity for receiving flight logs, accessing the file system (NFS and SSH), browsing videos and pictures
• Easily extensible

The setup is relatively simple and includes 2 boards - AVR board (like Arduino Pro Mini) and SPI capable SBC (like Odroid W or RPi) wired together using SPI.

With the software provided the setup is of plug-and-play and you can control your quadcopter using PS3 controller or via network.

See the wiki for more information.

Sources: https://github.com/rpicopter/AvrMiniCopter
Wiki: https://github.com/rpicopter/AvrMiniCopter/wiki
Precompiled images: https://github.com/rpicopter/AvrMiniCopter-images

If you passionate about linux and quadcopters than this is something you should try! 

Let me know if you have any questions.

Thanks,
Gregory

Video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lyR4wM2C4sA

[flybywire]

Oh boy, they';re going to love you on here!

Listen, i';m all for technology, (in God & gps we trust) but isn';t this taking it a bit far?  I mean you';re virtually strapping a pc to a frame?

Agh! Really!   

[gregd72002]

Thanks! :) Well, it is in a way PC strapped to the frame but the weight of 8gram (in case of Odroid-W) it shouldn';t be a problem.
Now, having linux onboard you could do really fancy stuff like object identification, 3g communication, whatever you really imagine. And you do not need to be a hacker or embedded developer as you can write a bash script to control it :)

[atomiclama]

Nice one, must take a look at some time. 

[guest325]

Now you';re talking my language, I';ve been a Linux user for the past 20 years and have often wondered since I started flying why someone had not come up with something like this!
Looks very interesting but what range can you expect to realise with the current system?
Could this project be interfaced using your normal radio gear?
Be interested in your replies, very interested!

[atomiclama]

Oh dear not a good start

Not recommended for new designs.
When the first trial batch is sold out, you can't buy the ODROID-W anymore.
Sorry for the inconvenience..

http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/2362800/hardkernel-cancels-raspberry-pi-like-odroid-w-after-broadcom-stops-supplying-soc

Shame it looked a nice little board.
Back to the Pi me thinks.

[quadfather]

Very interesting.  I like the look of that.

Are you planning on supporting what every RC pilot uses, i.e. of-the-shelf receivers with PPM or PWM output?

http://blog.oscarliang.net/pwm-ppm-difference-conversion/

[Dougelove]

I';ve got 2 BPi';s both are now redundant now I have smartTV. To get a plugNplay Pi in the sky would be awesome. Interesting indeed. 

[gregd72002]

Now you';re talking my language, I';ve been a Linux user for the past 20 years and have often wondered since I started flying why someone had not come up with something like this!
Looks very interesting but what range can you expect to realise with the current system?
Could this project be interfaced using your normal radio gear?
Be interested in your replies, very interested!

It could be interfaced with radio gear. In fact I intend to add this functionality at some point. What is the standard transmission protocol (I guess PWM? ), but are there any other options (UART, I2C, etc?)

The range will widely depend on the device used - WIFI / Bluetooth. For bluetooth I';ve been flying out to about 50m / 150feet using standard ps3 controller. For WIFI this will depend on the device power.

[gregd72002]

Oh dear not a good start



http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/2362800/hardkernel-cancels-raspberry-pi-like-odroid-w-after-broadcom-stops-supplying-soc

Shame it looked a nice little board.
Back to the Pi me thinks.

Odroid-W is not recommended for new designs due to supply constraint. However, I would personally recommend anyone who is interested to get it as it is pretty much an improved Raspberry Pi with much smaller footprint. You can use it as a regular Raspberry Pi.

But for AvrMiniCopter you can use any RPi compliant board including RPi itself. In fact, you could swap it for any other SPI capable linux board but you will need to compile the image yourself.

[gregd72002]

Very interesting.  I like the look of that.

Are you planning on supporting what every RC pilot uses, i.e. of-the-shelf receivers with PPM or PWM output?

http://blog.oscarliang.net/pwm-ppm-difference-conversion/

This is the plan. My current thinking is to connect PWM to arduino which in turn can directly control the quadcopter (without the need of RPi) or can pass it over to RPi which will take care of it.

[guest325]

It could be interfaced with radio gear. In fact I intend to add this functionality at some point. What is the standard transmission protocol (I guess PWM? ), but are there any other options (UART, I2C, etc?)

The range will widely depend on the device used - WIFI / Bluetooth. For bluetooth I';ve been flying out to about 50m / 150feet using standard ps3 controller. For WIFI this will depend on the device power.

The receivers generally output  a voltage I think- you would get a signal off the receiver that normally either works a servo or tells the esc';s how much to power up.
The sort of range you are talking about as is will be nowhere near enough for what most fliers use so that';s why I asked about using conventional Radio gear.

[gregd72002]

The receivers generally output  a voltage I think- you would get a signal off the receiver that normally either works a servo or tells the esc';s how much to power up.
The sort of range you are talking about as is will be nowhere near enough for what most fliers use so that';s why I asked about using conventional Radio gear.

Understood :)

As said you can connect conventional radio gear or stick to Wifi. People achieve up to 1.4miles on right wifi setup:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H5P_LmEpxxQ

If you want further range, stick a 3g module to RPi and you get pretty much unlimited range.

[gregd72002]

Another update in here. Project now is moving smoothly with plenty of additions including Android controller and 2D/3D FPV flying.

Ready images are available to download and flash your Odroid or Raspberry Pi.

For details on the functionality and up-to-date conversation:
http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2302054

[guest325]

Liking what you are doing very much, techie details are beyond my know how but I understand what you are doing (Mechatronics degree -albeit 20 years ago! ).

[gregd72002]

Thanks a lot. The techie details are really linux stuff. No magic in here :) The only difficulty in here is to get the right architecture. The rest is pretty straight forward.
It is far easier nowadays to use the abstraction level an operation system provides (linux in particular). This way we can focus on actual requirements rather than implementation details. That's why adding new functionality to AvrMiniCopter is pi** easy for linux users :)

[guest325]

Like it! Getting even more interesting - when do you see this being available for general use? Or is it a non commercial project for anyone who is interested to contribute to?
One of my lifetime things is to carry on learning new things, at my age it takes a bit longef but I usually get there ::)

[gregd72002]

Well, it is available to general use just now. You can download an image from here https://github.com/rpicopter/AvrMiniCopter-images, boot, Wifi connect, configure over WWW and you should be ready to go. We have currently 3 people testing this - so far so good. And yes, anyone is welcome to contribute to it.

AvrMiniCopter is using a custom built, minimalistic and very transparent linux distribution. The approach I took was to create the most basic distribution so it is not cluttered with anything unnecessary. As such it should be straight forward to find your way through it.

This project is no different to other open source project, meaning it will be worked on and improved on all the time. At this stage it is fully functional. But there are things we are looking to improve:
- add GPS support
- add Android support with gestures
- support different setups (hexa and octocopters)
Possibly move the backend AVR controller to use a cut down version of MultiWii.