
DIY Drones: Home for everything about amateur Unmanned Aerial Vehicles - WestCoastJustin
http://diydrones.com/
======
WestCoastJustin
Although not a drone, it is pretty cool to see this tech being open sourced,
getting miniaturized, and at a price point where many people can afford them.
Take the Crazyflie Nano Quadcopter [1] for example, open source and fairly
cheap, there is even a really cool demo video [2], I guess you could use the
DIY drone software on your laptop to control this thing. I generally think of
open source as software, but it's very cool to see hardware project too, there
are even wikis for the copter [3] and radio [4], which explain the projects
and the hacks. To help get a sense for how small this thing is check out this
assembly video [5].

[1] [http://www.seeedstudio.com/depot/crazyflie-nano-
quadcopter-k...](http://www.seeedstudio.com/depot/crazyflie-nano-quadcopter-
kit-10dof-with-crazyradio-bccfk02b-p-1365.html)

[2]
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3WBUVYZkODI](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3WBUVYZkODI)

[3]
[http://wiki.bitcraze.se/projects:crazyflie:index](http://wiki.bitcraze.se/projects:crazyflie:index)

[4]
[http://wiki.bitcraze.se/projects:crazyradio:index](http://wiki.bitcraze.se/projects:crazyradio:index)

[5]
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kS3qR1IjeGE](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kS3qR1IjeGE)

~~~
jjwiseman
You can't use the "DIY Drone" (really Ardupilot) software to control Crazyflie
until Crazyflie supports the MAVLink communication protocol.

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jonemo
To add some context, this page is run by Chris Anderson, formerly editor at
Wired, and now CEO of 3D Robotics. His book "Makers" [1] includes a few
stories about the DIY Drones community.

[1] [http://www.amazon.com/Makers-The-New-Industrial-
Revolution/d...](http://www.amazon.com/Makers-The-New-Industrial-
Revolution/dp/0307720950/)

~~~
AsymetricCom
Also, this is basically a forum + storefront for his internally developed
drone kits. I find his Optical flow sensor the most interesting of these.

I met him once when he gave a presentation at my employer. He is quite aware
of the defense and security repercussions of this technology, but he didn't
really want to discuss it. My impression is that he sees himself as a military
consultant, long-term.

~~~
Jackobyoshi
The Optical flow sensor is not his, it is:
[https://pixhawk.ethz.ch/px4/modules/px4flow](https://pixhawk.ethz.ch/px4/modules/px4flow)

I say this, because the 3Drobotics/DIYdrones guy doesn't go out of his way to
make these distinctions.

These swiss guys have 3Drobotics/DIYdrones place the parts & sell their board
because these guys have very aggressive marketing & a pick & place bot. This
allows them to focus on the actual engineering.

3Drobotics/DIYdrones have a fork of the Swiss guys code with a generic
interface plastered over the top. They are moving to this hardware, because
"their" own hardware is out of date & no longer competitive with the current
generation of STM32 hardware everyone now uses. They have a couple of
employees who are capable of making this eventually approximate the original
design.

~~~
AsymetricCom
He said his development team was working on a optical flow sensor and he
showed us slides of his workshop. Perhaps they're selling a 3rd party until
they can provide their own?

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fjcaetano
This is very interesting. A friend of mine is trying to make an Arduino
quadcopter so he can learn the framework. It's already functional, but there's
still some work to do like stabilization algorithms and GPS stuff.

~~~
neilxm
Check out these guys at ETH Zurich. They have an open source quadrotor control
package, though their main product is an optical flow sensor.

[https://pixhawk.ethz.ch/](https://pixhawk.ethz.ch/)

~~~
Jackobyoshi
I would characterize their main efforts as building a modular autopilot
software & hardware infrastructure, for which the optical flow sensor is one
part. They are both an academic research group & generous providers of an open
source platform competitive with the best out there.

Also check out Openpilot & Paparazzi--of which [http://transition-
robotics.com](http://transition-robotics.com) is a good current example.

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nrmn
Are all Drones so loud? Is there any possible way to make the quieter? Even
silent? Looking through the videos and reading a bit it sounds like an issue
is with the gears or motor producing the majority of the sound.

~~~
Scene_Cast2
I'm assuming you're referring to fixed-pitch hovering drones. There, most of
the noise is made by the propellers. For reference, running a quadcopter at
full blast with no props on is pretty quiet.

There are some optimizations you could theoretically do by moving to variable
pitch, and trading off pitch for RPM (or the other way around, I don't fly
helis myself)

~~~
nrmn
Yes, sorry I should have been more specific.

After researching the blades a little further is seems a company called
eurocopter did find a way to reduce the noise made by the propellers [1].
Heres a video of the difference between the two blade types [2]. Do you think
this would be applicable to the blades at the drone level?

[1] [http://www.wired.com/autopia/2010/02/eurocopter-moves-one-
st...](http://www.wired.com/autopia/2010/02/eurocopter-moves-one-step-closer-
to-whisper-mode/) [2]
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBS1NRsYuF8](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBS1NRsYuF8)

~~~
Scene_Cast2
Helicopter propellers are typically even louder, since the tips are going
supersonic (due to the diameter of the propellers). The trademark "chop chop
chop" sounds, as far as I know, are caused by sonic booms. The tech you're
linking to is about minimizing the source of sound for the sonic boom.

Airplane and drone props are entirely subsonic. They make a lot of noise when
the pitch is significantly different than the speed that the airplane "should"
going at. In other words: if you imagine a propeller cutting through butter,
there is a certain distance it would go in one rotation. Propellers are loud
when they're going significantly over or under that distance. Also - I'm just
a hobbyist, so my explanation may not be correct.

This effect is especially noticeable with fixed-pitch propellers used for
hovering.

For reference, check out these videos. Note that airplanes have 1D variable
pitch.

[1] [http://youtu.be/e8nYZ-fMSHg?t=1m5s](http://youtu.be/e8nYZ-fMSHg?t=1m5s)
\- note the sound at 1m12s

[2] [http://youtu.be/QB6vtE3rIrQ?t=9m15s](http://youtu.be/QB6vtE3rIrQ?t=9m15s)
\- note the sounds at 9:25 and 9:53.

For more examples, see
[https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=propeller+taxii...](https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=propeller+taxiing)

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Jackobyoshi
This "community" while having been around for awhile is controlled by an
autocratic self promoter who uses it to sell his stuff, & longs to sell out
the community to the fullest extent of his abilities. Note the content of the
main real estate of the front page versus the wider interest of the broader
community.

For the higher quality stuff & open source in good faith goods, google PX4 ETH
native (not the Ardupilot version ), Openpilot, & Paparazzi.

J

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cobrausn
I'm thinking they should add a 'legal' page, where they can notify potential
UAV pilots of laws they might break accidentally when flying these things. I'm
sure there are a few regional restrictions in addition to any federal ones.

~~~
angersock
Would be better to have a Google Maps embed tagged with "Areas of Interest".

That'd probably motivate the legal page even more, though.

