Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Danilo Marques Figueiredo on July 26, 2009 at 6:47am

Thanks William!!!

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Permalink Reply by Danilo Marques Figueiredo on July 27, 2009 at 4:53pm

Hi William!!!

The board comes from sparkfun with some porgram intalled or comes clean?!

Regards.

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Permalink Reply by William Premerlani on July 27, 2009 at 6:45pm

Hi Danilo,

The board comes from SparkFun with a very simple self-testing program that SparkFun uses to test the gyros, accelerometers, PWM channels, switches, and GPS connection before the board leaves the factory.

When the board arrives, I recommend that first-time users run the roll-pitch-yaw demo firmware, to see what the board will do on the ground.

After that, if your interest is simply to stabilize your plane, and have a return-to-launch function, you load either MatrixNav or AileronAssist from the UAV DevBoard page. MatrixNav operates rudder and elevator, AileronAssist operates ailerons and elevator.

If your interest is in do-it-yourself, or in autopilots, then you modify the source code to suit your needs. Also, as time goes by, I expect that other users will publish their revisions, such as UFO-PILOT's recent extensions to provide telemetry.

Best regards,
Bill Premerlani

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Permalink Reply by mmormota on July 30, 2009 at 7:09pm

William,

I looked into the math and code, really professional work.
Are you still working on the project - ie. developing it to a full autopilot system, or it's finished as a great tool for helping others IMU development?

Regards,

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Permalink Reply by Danilo Marques Figueiredo on July 28, 2009 at 8:41am

Thanks William !!!

I'm thinking inthis code too!!! When ready I'll send the code!!!

Regards.

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Permalink Reply by David on August 2, 2009 at 10:43pm

Bill & All:

I just brought UAV board, ICD2, GPS and some other parts from Sparkfun. I want to try this UAV board with my EZStar RC plane. My 1st question is how to the UAV board to the Receiver, the servos and the power. I read the manual (GPSSUAVManual_v29.pdf) and asked some questions to Sparkfun tech support, but still not sure if I’m really understanding the connection. I draw a picture attached, could anyone help me to validate the connection in the picture? Thanks for the help in advance.

David

Attachments:

• UAV.ppt, 57 KB

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Permalink Reply by sid on August 3, 2009 at 12:20am

HI,
David.. Please find a corrected connection diagram attached herewith. Let me know if you need more help.

REgards
SID

Attachments:

• UAV.jpg, 54 KB

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Permalink Reply by William Premerlani on August 3, 2009 at 6:47pm

David,

Sid's diagram is one correct way to connect everything up for GentleNav firmware.

The instructions for connections for my firmware are in the documentation of the firmware. They are not in the hardware manual, which is intended for anyone wanting to right their own firmware.

As Sid has shown, connect channels 1 and 2 of your radio to channels 1 and 2 of the radio input channels of the board. Connect channel 1 of the PWM output channel of the board to your rudder servo. Connect channel 2 of the PWM output of the board to your elevator servo.

Connect your electronic speed control directly up to your receiver, channel 3.

Channel 4 input of the board is for mode control. Use any spare channel on your transmitter/receiver. Sid shows channel 5 of the receiver, that is fine, if channel 5 on your transmitter will provide three positions. I use channel 4 of my receiver.

Connections for AileronAssist are similar, except channel 2 input/output of the board is for ailerons instead of rudder.

So far, channel 3 input/output of the board is a spare. I am working on some firmware that will do altitude control, when it is finished, it will use channel 3.

Best regards,
Bill Premerlani

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Permalink Reply by David on August 3, 2009 at 6:56pm

Hi, Sid & Bill:

Thanks a lot for the correction. Really appreciate for the additional info. I'll try these connections.

Bill - you mentioned the instructions for the connection are in fw. Could you point out which file(s) I need to look at?

David

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Permalink Reply by William Premerlani on August 3, 2009 at 7:08pm

Hi David,

Instructions for connections, setup, and operation, are in the documentation, separate from the firmware.

There are separate documents for MatrixNav and for AileronAssist. There are no connection diagrams, but the connections are described in detail.

Also, I recently revised the gains in rmat.c, I have not yet re-released the firmware with the new gains, so you should edit the rmat.c file for any firmware that you use, to use the gains recommended in a recent post.

Best regards,

Bill

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Permalink Reply by David on August 4, 2009 at 7:02pm

Hi, Bill:

If I want to modify the firmware in UAV board WITHOUT connecting RC receiver to the board, can I use ESC to power UAV board directly? I mean to connect +5V and GND of ESC to the VCC and GND on the board. I have a 3s Lipo battery (11.1V) with a Castle Creation Thunderbird 18 ESC.

Thanks

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Permalink Reply by William Premerlani on August 4, 2009 at 7:22pm

Hi David,

The simplest approach to powering the UAV board with an ESC is to connect the three wire PWM channel of the ESC directly into any of the PWM input or output channels of the UAV board. That way, you do not need to make any special connectors or do any wiring. Its the approach that I use when I simply want to modify the firmware.

Just take the cable from the ESC that would normally connect into the RC receiver, and connect it to the UAV board. Just remember that the ground pins are the ones nearest the edge of the board.

Best regards,
Bill

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