Raspberry Pi Party Autonomous drone demo + fire<\/a><\/h4>\nAt the Raspberry Pi IV party and there is a great demo of an Autonomous drone which is very impressive with only using a Pi. However it caught on fire. But i believe it does actually work.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
\nWe\u2019ve been very careful since then to make sure that speakers are always accompanied by a fire extinguisher.<\/p>\n
I love stories like Andy\u2019s. He started working with the Raspberry Pi shortly after our first release in 2012, and had absolutely no experience with drones or programming them; there\u2019s nothing more interesting than watching someone go from a standing start to something really impressive. It\u2019s been a couple of years since we were last in touch, but Andy mailed me last week to let me know he\u2019s just completed his piDrone project, after years of development. I thought you\u2019d like to hear about it too.\u00a0Over to Andy!<\/p>\n
Building an autonomous drone from scratch<\/h3>\n
I suffer from \u201cterminal boredom syndrome\u201d; I always need a challenging hobby to keep me sane. In 2012, the Raspberry Pi was launched just as my previous hobby had come to an end. After six months of playing (including a Raspberry Pi version of a BBC Micro Turtle robot I did at school 30+ years ago), I was looking for something really challenging. DIY drones were emerging, so I set out making one with a Raspberry Pi and Python, from absolute ignorance but loads of motivation.\u00a0 Six years later, with only one fire (at the Raspberry Pi 4th<\/sup>\u00a0Birthday Party, no less!), the job is done.<\/p>\nHere\u2019s smaller Zo\u00eb, larger Hermione and their remote-controller, Ivy:<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/IMG_2118-500x339.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
Zo\u00eb (as in \u201cBall\u201d), the smallest drone, is based on a Pi ZeroW, supporting preset- and manual-flight controls. Hermione (as in \u201cGranger\u201d) is a Pi3 drone, supporting the above along with GPS and obstacle-avoidance.<\/p>\n
Penelope (as in \u201cPitstop\u201d), not shown above, is a B3+ with mix of the two above.<\/p>\n
Development history<\/h3>\n
It probably took four years(!) to get the drone to simply hover stably for more than a few seconds. For example, the accelerometer (IMU) tells gravity and acceleration in 3D; and from sum math(s), angles, speed and distance. But IMU output is very noisy. It drifts with temperature, and because gravity is huge compared to the propeller changes, it doesn\u2019t take long before the calculated speed and distance values drift significantly. It took a lot of time, experimentation and guesswork to get accelerometer, gyrometer, ground-facing LiDAR and a Raspberry Pi camera to work together to get a stable hover for minutes rather than seconds. And during that experimentation, there were plenty of crashes: replacement parts were needed many many times! However, with a sixty-second stable hover finally working, adding cool features like GPS tracking, object avoidance and human control were trivial in comparison.<\/p>\n
\nGNSS waypoint tracked successfully!<\/a><\/h4>\nSee http:\/\/blog.pistuffing.co.uk\/whoohoo\/<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
\n\nObstruction avoidance test 2 \u2013 PASSED!!!!!<\/a><\/h4>\nDetails at http:\/\/pidrone.io\/posts\/obstruction-avoidance-test-2-passed\/<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
\n\nHuman control (iPhone)<\/a><\/h4>\nSee http:\/\/pidrone.io\/posts\/human-i-am-human\/<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
\nIn passing, I\u2019m a co-founder and assistant at the Cotswold Raspberry Jam (cotswoldjam.org<\/a>). I\u2019m hoping to take Zo\u00eb to the next event on September 15th<\/sup>\u00a0\u2013 tickets are free \u2013 and there\u2019s so much more learn, interact and play with beyond the piDrone.<\/p>\nFinally, a few years ago, my goal became getting the piDrone exploring a maze: all but minor tweaks are now in places. Sadly, piDrone battery power for exploring a large maze currently doesn\u2019t exist. Perhaps my next project will be designing a nuclear-fusion battery pack?\u00a0 Deuterium oxide (heavy water) is surprisingly cheap, it seems\u2026<\/p>\n
More resources<\/h3>\n
If you want to learn more, there\u2019s years of development on Andy\u2019s blog at\u00a0<\/span>http:\/\/pidrone.io<\/a>, and he\u2019s made considerable\u00a0documentation<\/a> available at GitHub if you want to explore things further after this blog post. Thanks Andy!<\/p>\nThe post Autonomous drones (only slightly flammable)<\/a> appeared first on Raspberry Pi<\/a>.<\/p>\n
\n
\nSource: Raspberry Pi – Autonomous drones (only slightly flammable)<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"I had an email a little while ago, which opened: \u201cI don\u2019t know if you remember me, but\u2026\u201d As it happens, I remembered Andy Baker very well, in large part because an indoor autonomous drone demo he ran at a … Continue reading
Here\u2019s smaller Zo\u00eb, larger Hermione and their remote-controller, Ivy:<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Zo\u00eb (as in \u201cBall\u201d), the smallest drone, is based on a Pi ZeroW, supporting preset- and manual-flight controls. Hermione (as in \u201cGranger\u201d) is a Pi3 drone, supporting the above along with GPS and obstacle-avoidance.<\/p>\n
Penelope (as in \u201cPitstop\u201d), not shown above, is a B3+ with mix of the two above.<\/p>\n
Development history<\/h3>\n
It probably took four years(!) to get the drone to simply hover stably for more than a few seconds. For example, the accelerometer (IMU) tells gravity and acceleration in 3D; and from sum math(s), angles, speed and distance. But IMU output is very noisy. It drifts with temperature, and because gravity is huge compared to the propeller changes, it doesn\u2019t take long before the calculated speed and distance values drift significantly. It took a lot of time, experimentation and guesswork to get accelerometer, gyrometer, ground-facing LiDAR and a Raspberry Pi camera to work together to get a stable hover for minutes rather than seconds. And during that experimentation, there were plenty of crashes: replacement parts were needed many many times! However, with a sixty-second stable hover finally working, adding cool features like GPS tracking, object avoidance and human control were trivial in comparison.<\/p>\n
\nGNSS waypoint tracked successfully!<\/a><\/h4>\n
See http:\/\/blog.pistuffing.co.uk\/whoohoo\/<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
\n\nObstruction avoidance test 2 \u2013 PASSED!!!!!<\/a><\/h4>\n
Details at http:\/\/pidrone.io\/posts\/obstruction-avoidance-test-2-passed\/<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
\n\nHuman control (iPhone)<\/a><\/h4>\n
See http:\/\/pidrone.io\/posts\/human-i-am-human\/<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
\nIn passing, I\u2019m a co-founder and assistant at the Cotswold Raspberry Jam (cotswoldjam.org<\/a>). I\u2019m hoping to take Zo\u00eb to the next event on September 15th<\/sup>\u00a0\u2013 tickets are free \u2013 and there\u2019s so much more learn, interact and play with beyond the piDrone.<\/p>\n
Finally, a few years ago, my goal became getting the piDrone exploring a maze: all but minor tweaks are now in places. Sadly, piDrone battery power for exploring a large maze currently doesn\u2019t exist. Perhaps my next project will be designing a nuclear-fusion battery pack?\u00a0 Deuterium oxide (heavy water) is surprisingly cheap, it seems\u2026<\/p>\n
More resources<\/h3>\n
If you want to learn more, there\u2019s years of development on Andy\u2019s blog at\u00a0<\/span>http:\/\/pidrone.io<\/a>, and he\u2019s made considerable\u00a0documentation<\/a> available at GitHub if you want to explore things further after this blog post. Thanks Andy!<\/p>\n
The post Autonomous drones (only slightly flammable)<\/a> appeared first on Raspberry Pi<\/a>.<\/p>\n
\n
\nSource: Raspberry Pi – Autonomous drones (only slightly flammable)<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"I had an email a little while ago, which opened: \u201cI don\u2019t know if you remember me, but\u2026\u201d As it happens, I remembered Andy Baker very well, in large part because an indoor autonomous drone demo he ran at a … Continue reading