Creating a hover mode
Posted: Wed Feb 06, 2013 9:32 pm
Hello,
Great to see you created a forum as I think this will be a great resource for the development community.
I just pre-ordered the 10 DOF model. I haven't done any embedded programing since college, but inertial stability and navigation has always been an interest of mine.
Something I would be interested in implementing would be a hover mode. This would be a mode that, when enabled, would altitude hold. An extension of this mode would be that any altitude changes made would hold the copter at the altitude achieved when control input returns to zero. I did some looking at the barometer (MS5611) and it appears that the resolution of that unit would be sufficient for hover at approximately 500 Hz. I have similar concerns to the team that buffeting from the rotors will create some issues with resolution/accuracy.
I'm most interested in indoor relatively low height flight. I'm thinking about integrating an ultrasonic range finder unit such as http://www.robotshop.com/productinfo.as ... lang=en-US. This unit has an amazing resolution of 4cm (claimed) up to 6m which would be plenty for indoor flight.
I guess my general question would be on a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being trivial and 10 being as difficult as developing the stability algorithm, what is your gut feel amount implementing a hover mode with a sensor that provides effective real time altitude? I did a significant amount of embedded C coding in college, but I left the EE track once I hit the real world. I'm sure it's like riding a bike though. . .
Great to see you created a forum as I think this will be a great resource for the development community.
I just pre-ordered the 10 DOF model. I haven't done any embedded programing since college, but inertial stability and navigation has always been an interest of mine.
Something I would be interested in implementing would be a hover mode. This would be a mode that, when enabled, would altitude hold. An extension of this mode would be that any altitude changes made would hold the copter at the altitude achieved when control input returns to zero. I did some looking at the barometer (MS5611) and it appears that the resolution of that unit would be sufficient for hover at approximately 500 Hz. I have similar concerns to the team that buffeting from the rotors will create some issues with resolution/accuracy.
I'm most interested in indoor relatively low height flight. I'm thinking about integrating an ultrasonic range finder unit such as http://www.robotshop.com/productinfo.as ... lang=en-US. This unit has an amazing resolution of 4cm (claimed) up to 6m which would be plenty for indoor flight.
I guess my general question would be on a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being trivial and 10 being as difficult as developing the stability algorithm, what is your gut feel amount implementing a hover mode with a sensor that provides effective real time altitude? I did a significant amount of embedded C coding in college, but I left the EE track once I hit the real world. I'm sure it's like riding a bike though. . .