Wikilogs

I have been a fan of Björn's Lighthouse missions every since his very first one almost 5 years ago!

This year he replaced his stable plane with a fast funjet. And a gluonpilot in it! The fastest lighthouse mission so far, the best images so far, and the first with take-off and landing on autopilot.

A big applause for Björn!

Enjoy his beautiful video (enable 720p/HD):

A small note on the upcoming 0.8 release: The beta's keep coming, but there's one reason for this: BAD WEATHER! I managed to do 3 testflights in the last 4 weeks. It just keeps raining... But it is nearly finished, and there will be a LOT of new features in it!

I've made this video some weeks ago, but being buried deep into the documention almost nobody watched it. To get some more attention, here it is :-)

Any cool other stuff you'd like to see: just let me know!!!

The latest development code (due in release 0.8) contains a lot of new features!

In my opinion, the simulation (hardware-in-the-loop) is the most exciting one. It allows you to test out all kinds of navigation routines without having to test them out at the field. AND it allows me to develop new navigation stuff without having to do a lot of flight testing before getting it right. All this is very easy in the current autumn days with very little flying opportunities.

This picture explains how it all works:

Actually there aren't a lot more screen shots to show: from the Gluon Control Station it looks as if it is a real flight :-)

More documentation on the simulation page.

The auto-throttle feature makes it really easy to test the maximum flight time of you UAV. In the upcoming new release, a "Battery alarm" feature will be available too. This will allow you to configure "warning-levels" and "panic-levels". When, the panel level is reached, the autopilot automatically jumps to a configured navigation line (landing in my case). Very safe and easy!

My old funjet managed to fly 33minutes before deciding to land. A new wing that I'm building should fly at least 45minutes! Can't wait until the build is finished :-)

A video of the automatic spot landing of yesterday's endurance flight:

Somebody asked if I could shoot a video of the gluonpilot auto takeoff and landing. As you can see, I still have a lot to learn about video tutorials. I even failed at getting a nice video of the automatic landing :-) It's hard to aim on a small plane in the air!

The result is a video of the gluonpilot taking off automatically after an awful throw. After that some basic explanations on how I prepare for auto-landing:

A new release for gluonpilot!

Short overview:

1. New and prettier waypoint icons!

2. Minimum and maximum pitch angle can now be defined separately:

This has several advantages:

• We can climb faster (especially important during takeoff)
• We can descent more gentle

The recommanded settings are the one from the screenshot. This mean the new firmware has additional configuration settings. Please save your current configuration to file before upgrading to the latest firmware.

3. Improved auto landing! The auto-landing is now completely automated!

Right now you have 2 options for autolanding (see Helpers -> Add block)

• manual-land: This will give you a "Descent" and a "Flare" button. Descent will fly along the defined circle to loose altitude. When the plane is heading in the right direction, and the altitude is fine too, you can press "Flare" and the plane will fly in the direction of the Flare waypoint. Motor will be turned off
• auto-land: The autopilot will automatically glide towards the Flare waypoint when the altitude and heading is correct!

These 2 options are not recommended when you have a plane with a really good glide angle. In this case it will need a long distance to reach to ground. Experimentation is key here! There are 2 options:

• FLARE_TO: perfect for deltas and flying wings. The target altitude (e.g. 15 meter) will try to be reached without any motor running! This will result in a pancake-like landing.
• GLIDE_TO: The autopilot will try to follow the altitude line between the Descent-circle and the Flare-waypoint. Be carefull of steep descents & hard landings!

It should be noted that before or after take-off, you will need to move the Descent-circle and Flare-waypoint to make sure you will flare with head wind.

4. Wind vane

Thanks to the work of the folks at gentlenav/matrixpilot it has become possible to calculate wind without hard calculations! Now included in Gluon Control Station!

5. New settings:

• Default altitude for new waypoint
• Default circle radius for new circles
• Custom UAV name

New firmware and install file can be downloaded in the download section!

Alex from UnmannedTech has a lot more writing-skills than I do, and he has put this talent to a use to write a tutorial on the Gluonpilot kits he also sells.

The first episode is about soldering and wiring everything up, and his next eposide will cover the configuration part.

Thumbs up for Alex!

GCS in replay mode

The Gluon Control Station has the unique capability to replay a logged flight.

This allows Gluonpilot owners to analyse their flights, but also allows non-gluonpilot owners to get the feel of the Gluon Control Station!

Attached at the end of this post you will find my latest funjet flight. As you will see when flying circles, it was very windy (+- 7m/s), but no problem for the gluonpilot! For the demo, it was a short flight with only few waypoints, but with auto-takeoff and auto-landing.

The flight plan is as follows:

• Block Takeoff
  • This will fly in the take-off direction until the desired altitude has been reached (40m)
• Block Standby
  • In this block, the UAV is waiting for input, and flies in a circle while waiting
• Block Route
  • Here a very basic 3-waypoint route is flown using the FLY_TO command
• Block Descent
  • This circle is used to lose altitude. When the descent is done, the plane will fly 30m above ground in a circle
• Block Flare
  • This command will make the UAV cut throttle and glide on the line between the descent-circle and the flare waypoint.

Using the buttons on the GCS, you can switch between the different blocks. The current block-button is highlighted in yellow.

Some tips when using the GCS:

• Pressing "i" will zoom In
• Pressing "o" will zoom Out
• Pressing "c" will center the view on the plane
• Pressing the first letter of a block will make the UAV go to this block (not available in replay mode :) )
• Draw the map with your left mouse button
• Right click on the map or a waypoint to see the context menu
• Waypoints can be dragged, but they will remain gray because they won't be synchronized with the Gluonpilot

Download Gluon Control Station 0.7.1 (or newer) to replay this flight.

Download the Flightlog for replay.

Wanted for years, anticipated for months, under development and rigorous testing since May. Here it finally is: the first public release of the Gluon Control Station :-)

Despite it young age, it is already quite advanced. I tried to steal functionality from all systems I liked:

• Automatic navigation blocks + goto buttons (as in paparazzi)
• On the fly (airborne) change of waypoints/navigation commands (as in micropilot)
• Simple scripting
• On-screen documentation
• Live and in-flight configuration

Next to more common functionality

• Drag and drop of waypoints
• Status of all subsystems
• Navigation information
• Graphs
• ...

Thanks to a commercial partner (who already spent a lot of time on it), it has been tested in numerous flights and is thus safe to use.

This is released together with v0.7 of the firmware. The main new functionality is the addition of checksums during communication (to make sure we can drag and rop our waypoints safely during flight :-) ).

Stay tuned for video tutorials, log files for replay (yeay!) and many new features.

Download and play: firmware | Gluon Control Station installer

If you are interested in gluonpilot, please check out our ready to fly modules: they are the perfect and quick match for Gluon CS!

On request, I updated the webshop with more kits:

• Extension board kits + optional OSD
• Ground Control Station kits contain the extension board and everything else needed (including XBee's!).

Using these kits, people with a busy life will be able to stop at one shop and buy everything they need. For more information, please do not hesitate to contact me.

The new basic configuration screen

A new release is available!

Release 0.6 contains a lot of fixes and improvements. One of the new features is automatic throttle, depending on the target altitude of the next waypoint. Currently no "security mechanism" has been implemented, so watch your propellor when enabling auto-throttle!

Gluonconfig now also includes a "Basic configuration" window. It contains all the settings you need to change when buying a RTF kit. Also, changes you do are direct: no write or burn needed.

Attention: the new firmware uses 57600 baud. Firmware upgrade is still done using 115200 (automatically when upgrading the firmware using gluonconfig).

Let yourself go: gluonconfig and the firmware.

UPDATE

Due to some "imperfections", version 0.6.1 is available! Firmware and Gluonconfig

NOTES

Before the update, make sure to backup your configuration and reload it when using the new firmware.

For seeing the 3D plane (see thumbnail), please install the DirectX runtime environment: http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=35

This new release uses .NET 4.0, please upgrade if needed: http://www.microsoft.com/net/Download.aspx

Module 100!

After a long delay, the gluonpilot modules are back in stock!

I am more than happy to mark one of them with serialnumber 100!

Go to the webshop and don't forget the GPS module and FTDI cable to program & configure your UAV!

Stay tuned: in the coming days & weeks the upcoming v0.6 firmware and accompanying Gluon Control Station will be announced.

I have been very busy lately with, amongst others, the Gluonpilot system. Currently everything is out of stock! I'm doing a slight redesign of the module and the extension module, so they should be back in stock by the end of June (rough estimation). If you are interested and would like to reserve a module (before they are sold out again), please drop me a mail.

Finally the weather is clearing up! Time for a sunny instead of foggy demo: The "arrow" on the top-center of the screen (under the flight mode) still isn't working correctly, but I discovered why so it will soon be fixed!

This demo also features the "real" extension board instead of a hand-made prototype!

Stackable extension board showing the polarised battery connector, XBee socket and switched power supply

Finally it's ready: the first version of the OSD extension board:

Features are:

• Battery input (no longer 5V)
  • Supply 5V to the gluonpilot board using a switched voltage regulator
  • Used to measure the battery voltage
  • Supply 3V3 to the XBee module
  • Supply battery voltage (12V) to the camera)
• OSD chip
  • Camera in (a solder jumper allows you to use the 5V or battery to power the camera)
  • TX out (a solder jumper allows you to use the 5V or battery to power the video transmitter)
• XBee socket (not recommended using powerful XBee modules)

Both the bare PCB and the assembled module will soon be offered in the webshop!

The gluonpilot module was designed to mate with the HMC5843 breakout board from sparkfun. This is a low-cost 3D magentometer that is easy to use.

Until now the software was never really implemented to use this sensor (fixed wings can live without a magnetometer). Because I'm going to focus more on quadrocopters the coming weeks, t The first step has already been made: gluonpilot + HMC5843 works!

I bought the very cool KK micro multicopter. This small quadrocopter will allow me to flight-test my code indoors :-)

Stay tuned :-)

Philippe established a long distance record with his very cool gluonpilot-enabled Skywalker: A total of 26.9km was reached using half of the battery capacity! Congratulations!

After some problems with my video transmitter equipment, everything was finally working well for a new test-flight! Unfortunately the weather didn't cooperate, but here we go:

The only thing not functioning correctly is the "heading home" symbol in the top center. Other planned improvements:

• Waypoint overview/status
• Switch between meters/feet
• Turn OSD on and off
• Altitude plot?
• Overview of all waypoints on a map?

Let me know what you might find interesting!

The OSD extension module (stackable on top) will be available in a few weeks. Stay tuned!

A new batch of modules has arrived! FTDI cables and GPS modules can now be purchased separately. Also, a new "RTF kit" is available. This kit has all headers and wires already soldered into place and includes the GPS module and FTDI configuration cable as well!

GPS modules are almost out of stock (and as a consequence the "kits" as well), but for those who are quick there may still be one available! I'll do my best to have new GPS modules in stock ASAP. Bare modules don't have any stock-problems yet :-)

As announced some time ago, the new hardware prototypes arrived and have been tested succesfully! Right now the production batch is being assembled and will be available in early January (damn Christmas holidays ;-) )

As you can see in the picture, some changes have been added:

• 6 PWM inputs (for those who don't like PPM)!
• 8 PWM outputs
• 3 types of GPS connectors (EB-85, EM-406 and a normal 4-pin header)
• ISZ-600 gyroscope (cheaper!)

Soon a stack-on extension board will also be released!

It has been snowing a lot here lately, so flight tests had to be made in a freezing cold weather!