It was time to decide. Playing small robots and chiefs with the likes of Arduino and the soldering iron was a nice learning curve but it had to come to an end. The bigger objective of this research was to integrate intelligent algorithm on a platform that was accepted by most engineers and hobbyists. The learning pain will be great, but the support community will be there to help. The need to do things properly and start from a good foundation given the experimental nature of this research is key. It's clear there will be limitations, but what's obvious is that whatever software I build will be implemented on an architecture that's continously changing and being upgraded due to the fast changing nature of current drone industry. So the sooner I get into this game properly, the better it will be for future algorithms. Given the function of software in the loop, implementing a whole range of algorithm will now become a breeze. The prospect of using cheaper materials to...

Don't get me wrong. I like Mathworks products, specifically MATLAB and the suite of control toolboxes. But for curse of being a super monopoly software is that, in order to make profit to drive software updates (which is now expected to be at least twice a year on most toolboxes), the focus is on the popular user requirements. This is often based on academia and research houses which often doesn't deal with hardware or firmware. In so doing, a large percentage of professional engineers productivity is directly coupled to the level of expertise of the analysis tool rather than the process upon which the product is based. Consequently, the poorer or bloated the tool, the slower can an engineer develop a product at lower cost. Unfortunately, the reliance on more powerful machines is the way to circumvent to problem. Just run the bloated simulation fast enough that's it's on longer noticeable to the designer. But is that engineering design? Is not the whole point to i...

Posted by Chris Anderson on April 25, 2017 at 7:00am  View Blog . The PX4/Dronecode team and Drotek have been working on the next generation of Pixhawk autopilots, and you can now see a preview of that with the Pixhawk 3 Pro . It's based on the new PX4 FMU4 Pro standard, which includes a full suite of next-generation sensors and and the more powerful STM32F469 processor. It's designed for the Dronecode/PX4 flight software, which is the current official Pixhawk standard. The board is currently in developer release, but will be taken out of beta after testing is complete in the next month or two. All details are  here  (and below): ------------------ Introduction FMUv4-PRO takes input from all of the Pixhawk stakeholders; end users, developers, researchers and manufacturing partners. Goals for this iteration of the platform are: – An integrated, single-board flight controller for space constrained applications – A modular multi-board flight controller for ...

So part of my PhD deliverable is to develop a hardware-in-the-loop simulation model such that the entire suite of software can be tested with a high-fidelity simulation model that mimics the sensors such as the IMU and GPS units. Eventhough I've finalized the simulation model of a 2m glider, the prize is to have miniature helicopter model implemented. The following makes use of the PC only for visual aid and the rest of the simulation. Potentially, although low priority, the matlab visual could be connected to Flight Gear and visualize a 3D model as one. The use of the transmitter and receiver will only to act as control inputs which are then converted to airframe deflections.

So I published a post a few days ago on attempting to write a complete conference paper in 20 hours. I must say, I didn't entirely start from scratch. I had jotted down some ideas, the content and the strategy on what to write was pretty clear in my mind. But yet, we all know that even at this point, conceiving a solid journal paper (6-page mind you) is still a considerable effort. So it came down to tools. I must say I've grown more fonder of the ShareLatex over the past few months. If it wasn't for this online Latex compiling and viewing tool and the use of Mendeley , I wouldn't be writing this post to say that pretty much completed my first journal paper since my M.sc in 2010. It's such a liberating feeling to know that I've got an opportunity to present my thoughts and ideas again. The past two days, I decided to work from home and even though I have other distractions (a two year old monkey a.k.a my son Sam), sitting in that garden and jotting do...

They say that you need to have a vision for yourself. You need to have intrinsic motivation that transcends your current reality and even beyond what makes sense to others around you. I've decided to put together a control system journal paper by using just 20 hours. Wait... what!?! Yep. That's right. Why not? If you try you'll never know! A famous author once said. "It's not what the vision is, it's what the vision does." Even if I don't pull if off, or the submission is rejected and thrown into the trash, the experience will stay and boy will it motivate me to try again! Aluta Continua!

Here at  Make:  we see new, ingenious projects from our community every day. Many of these are made possible by the use of development boards. However, if you’re new to the subject, it can be confusing to parse out the differences between boards and the advantages of using one over another. We’ve created this super simple guide to help you get started. Then, when you’re ready check out  Arduino Uno  and  Raspberry Pi  Starter Kits, which come with all the goodies you need for your inaugural projects. Not sure you want all those peripherals yet? Start with the essentials: Grab the board of your choice and bring yourself up to speed with our  Getting Started With  series for  Arduino  and for  Raspberry Pi . Courtesy of  Tech Uni What is the difference between the two? An Arduino is a microcontroller motherboard. A microcontroller is a simple computer that can run one program at a time, over and ov...

This post is definitely not a DIY answer the question itself full stop but rather food for thought for one who has started the journey on discovering their research tentacles and discover the topic on which day will spend at least 5000 hours all their lives. No one would tell you that academically you should think of a topic that will be based on some form of literature review. But it's very difficult to even fathom what that even means, does it mean that based on the literature you now somehow have an expert helicopter view on everybody's research and can completely and utterly decimate their rationale for doing that particular research hence justifying your existence on why you should pursue your particular research, or does it mean that you now have complete and utter disregard for other people's work hence justifying yours once again. So one can now ask the following questions. Can I prove that my research add to the core values that I'm trying to live by or even...

So as some of you may know I've decided to bite the bullet and study for my doctor of philosophy degree. Now one may think that as a married man, and a father of a 2 year old crazy son, married to a compulsive and completely unreasonable spouse common man not even attempt to do any further studies. Yet here we are, I've managed to go over the hurdle of producing the draft of 100+ citation literature review and come with a five year plan on how I'm going to execute this monster. In the last few months, it's been evident that this is not gonna be an easy Road. The pressures of work havent subsided, Life As a Christian has taken on a few responsibilities, my sister has emigrated to Portugal leaving me to take care of my lovely mother, and my dad is obviously still requiring my help when it comes to his to his business. So given all that's it's clear that a five-year plan is very optimistic. What doesn't hurt you makes you stronger or you just Die Trying... H...

Re: fast communication between two arduinos #9 Sep 07, 2015, 05:06 pm Thanks guys, At the end I re-Checked the I2C protocol and understood it can only pass Chars ether by array or singles and managed to work with the code from here: http://ift.tt/1DAeWM4 and created my version to pass a 4 digit code and it work quite fast (less than 1ms). // Wire Master Reader int x,y; #include <Wire.h> void setup() {   Wire.begin();        // join i2c bus (address optional for master)   Serial.begin(115200);  // start serial for output } void loop() {   Wire.requestFrom(2, 6);    // request 6 bytes from slave device #2      int a = Wire.read(); // receive a byte as character      int b = Wire.read(); // receive a byte as character      int c = Wire.read(); // receive a byte as character      int d = Wire.read(); // receive a byte as character ...