The Amazing HexaKopter
Posted by Dave Mark on Apr 20, 2010 in Inventions |
As its name implies, the HexaKopter has six propellors. That alone is mildly more interesting than the QuadCopters that I’ve seen demos of, but the incredible control, speed, lift, and GPS make this one simply breathtaking to watch. Take a look at the video below. Well worth your time, especially if you are an RC or robotics enthusiast…
– Dave
This is pretty impressive. When he opens up the top at the start of the GPS test it looks like (though its impossible to see properly) it might be based on Ardunio (http://www.arduino.cc/) boards or perhaps more likely a variation there of such as this one http://diydrones.com/profiles/blogs/ardupilot-main-page that has a few of the components required already attached. The software used onboard the second option is open source and can be downloaded on that site somewhere, its quite interesting if your into this kind of thing. The concept of building some kind of UAV auto pilot and stabilisation system using these as a base doesn’t seem too far out looking at it (it is something I have thought about but don’t have time for at the moment) in terms of planes or gliders however getting it to stabilise such a complex set of aerodynamics is starting to seem pretty crazy stuff. I (he who does not have the time) would quite like to look into the idea of building on these ideas or on top of this software base to get a model plane that could handle take of and landing by itself, I think that would be really interesting challenges to work out (specifically the landing). Anyways if you don’t have an Ardunio prototype board and this kind of stuff interests you I would highly recommend one as a cheap and flexible micro-controller that is great fun to play with.
One thing I forgot before, that would be interesting in such a project: you get (IE you don’t have to build) prebuilt cell components for these that allow you to insert a SIM and initiate a call to the device, you can then send signals over the audio channel (of which i’m pretty sure there is prebuilt open source stuff for touch tone) or you can use SMS. This seems to provide an opportunity to ditch the RC handset completely, you could for example have a smartphone place the current position of the craft on a map for tracking and allow input of co-ordinates to guide direction – this wouldn’t exactly be high bandwidth. Streaming the video over a cell-phone call obviously isn’t an option. However it would be pretty cool and offer a much nicer interactive experience with the craft if it were somehow possible to get live streaming video on the control device, I do not have a solution for this though.
Great stuff. I am familiar with the Ardunio controller. Encountered it while browsing the make sites that sell little robotics kits. Wish I had the time to dig into this stuff. Really fun!