ArduPilot and other Arduino-based DIY Drones projects. Chris Anderson, editor-in-chief of Wired Magazine, has a write-up of the ArduPilot autopilot system and other Arduino-related discussions on his DIY Drones blog. The ArduPilot is billed as “the world’s cheapest autopilot”: a $110 system including PCB, GPS, and related components for piloting a hobby plane. DIY Drones is an amazing group creating all kinds of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs). And, of course, publishing source code and Eagle files as they do. Posts that may be of interest to Arduino users include: the BlimpDuino autonomous blimp controller board (and demo video), Arduino vs. Basic Stamp (and Propeller). This entry was posted by David Mellis on Tuesday, May 13th, 2008 and is filed under Projects, Related Initiatives. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site. You must be logged in with your Arduino account to post a comment.

Here's how it works: Anybody can ask a question The best answers are voted up and rise to the top I'm really new to robotics, however I am a programmer familiar with several different languages. I don't have a ton of money to spend and I was wondering what is a really good starter kit. My criteria is for the kit to be inexpensive and powerful, in that its functionality is extensible -- something that would allow the builder to be creative and possibly invent new ways to use it, not just a glorified model kit. Being extendable to smartphones is a plus. I'm not looking for something easy or introductory, just something powerful, flexible, and cost effective. closed as not constructive by Shog9 As it currently stands, this question is not a good fit for our Q&A format. We expect answers to be supported by facts, references, or expertise, but this question will likely solicit debate, arguments, polling, or extended discussion. If you feel that this question can be improved and possibly reopened, visit the help center for guidance.

If this question can be reworded to fit the rules in the help center, please edit the question.parrot ar drone 2 battery upgrade I think your question is a bit too open-ended. parrot ar drone 2 rc kitTo get more specific recommendations, I think you'd have to provide some idea of what facet of robotics you want to get involved in. black ops 2 remote droneThe mechanical buildling aspect? parrot ar drone 3g hackUse of various sensors? cheap arduino uavAs an example, I can ask what do you mean by powerful in your question ... motor torque or onboard computing capabilities? buy ar drone singapore

Robotics is a broad field. If very new to robotics, I would suggest you start out by buying the latest issue of Servo and/or Robot magazines (and then possibly subscribing). buy ar drone singaporeJust glancing through these magazines will give you a lot of information regarding the current hobbiest/enthusiast robotics market, and in the magazines there are many advertisers for kits of all types. A popular, lower cost, easy-to-learn, yet flexible, microcontroller that can be used for robotics is the Arduino. There are prebuilt kits for integrating with smartphones. Check out the information here: Ways to integrate a smart phone with robotics. Personally I feel that Parallax has a good set of offerings in this area. For wheeled/ground prototyping, I would choose a Madeusa ($880) chassis. This is a very good starting chassis that can carry a decent payload and is very extensible. I've seen security guard robot prototypes and autonomous camera man robots made on top of this platform that were very impressive.

Madeusa is basically the same chassis as the Parallax Eddie but without the Propeller and PC/Kinect parts. By removing these parts, you can substitute back in your own control system such as an Arduino based solution. The ELEV-8 ($600) chassis is a good flying platform. I haven't tried this one myself but it has good reviews as hitting a sweet spot of cost, performance, complexity, and capability. In all cases I'd suggest learning Arduino as your microcontroller platform for sensor and actuator integration. Great community, low costs, high capabilities. Arduino is a great fit for your problem. It is not only used by hobbyists and beginners but it is frequently used by top Universities for both teaching and in research. Arduino also has a large active community which makes helps when you have a problem. There are a couple of caveats to the Arduino solution however. 1) They have very limited computational power and no floating point unit which can further slow down calcuation.

2) Working with Arduino does require one to have a rudimentary understanding of electronics. Of course there are myriad tutorials that can help you get up and running in a matter of minutes. However when I first delved into robotics I wanted to avoid the electronics aspect so as to focus on the programming. Phidgets is a good alternative. Many Phidgets components are abstracted to the point that you only need to connect them to a computer via USB and processing is done on a desktop, laptop, or single board computer (SBC) which have more processing power. Furthermore Phidgets works with multiple operating systems and they offer a lot of well documented code to simplify interfacing with their parts. It is worth noting that Phidgets solutions tend to cost a bit more than Arduino solutions but they're still reasonably priced. I would suggest against Parallax. They are interesting but they don't offer anything over Arduino, they are more expensive (than Arduino), and they are considerably less flexible from a programming perspective in my experience.

Also Phidgets do not work well in UAV applications. For that I would advise looking at the ArduPilot. It is an Arduino based solution to UAV and UGV robots and includes a number of built-in sensors for state estimation. Furthermore ArduPilo has its own a large active community. Get a LEGO NXT kit, it costs around $280, and will give you a lot of fun. You can control it from your computer using any programming language - just send Bluetooth commands to the LEGO NXT brick. It is very simple! Parrallax offers some products in the space you are looking, but I think what you really want to do is go to hobby king; make no mistake, they ARE cheap copies of other products, and if that bothers you go back to parallax and spend the full amount. I'd go with the 550 frame with motors, and add speed controlers, and props then / for open source modifiable hardware and software. hobby king also has a few controllers including an arduino, but I'd prefer the wii if it was me (just personal preference)