RC India

hello friends,
                 i have build a quadcopter using hkboard,now for a project i want to upgrade my quad into autopilot with gps setup along with live onboard video transmission.Actually i dont have full idea about these things. i googled it but i couldnt find the appropriate information about all these things.please give a brief description about all these things,especially gps,autopilot.if i wanna use all these things from where can i get these all setup.please help me, i dont have much time ...............

i want to know about xbee setup also..............plzzzzzzz

Upgrading to autopilot can be difficult. (particularly for quads)
I realized that after making one for a hovercraft.
Have you worked with sensors and microcontrollers before?
xbees are wireless comm. modules that use the zigbee protocol.

Probably it's FC that can do all these things. Check DJI wookong FC. It has return to home feature too.

You can try ArduCopter. Find more information below. All the information is provided in the link right from where to buy and how to set it up.
http://code.google.com/p/arducopter/
http://www.diydrones.com/notes/ArduPilot

thank you Swapnil sir,Dharmik sir,spitfire sir for your valuable suggestions.....................your reply's helped me alot..............

Autopilot for Quad, Quad and cam Stabilizer along with return home (GPS) facility and down link. A complete solution for all your quad need. Visit www.spherehobbies.com/india

but the price is too high sir!!!!!!!!

See the APM2 I have just put on sale
http://www.rcindia.org/for-sale/brand-new-apm-2-wminimosd/msg97994/#new

Just has everything one can wish for  !

Jeevan

I understand your point about the prices. Our (All LHS) problem is that we get the material paying customs, shipping, clearance charges of CHA and VAT. Above all these. we also have to invest substantial amount to get the prices to a level which can be offered to the local hobby enthusiasts. All these, take the prices higher.

We wish to help you. Seems no way to do that. Sorry but could not pull the prices to your desired level. We would still put our efforts to offer best prices to make material available.

Kindest regards,

Sphere Hobbies
+91-99251-20630

its a DJI, costs around $1220 with ship + Customs. This amounts to around :Rs: 65,000 anyways. Add Customs 30% (worst case) it would become :Rs: 90,000. so at :Rs:80,00 is not a bad deal unless you have some one to carry form US.
Think yourself!!

But I would also like to see LHS like SpehereHobbies provide more affordable options (even not many EU/US folks use/afford DJI) like DIY Drones' ArduPilot and KK MultiKopter board. Even the frames offered are premium ones. There are lots of respectful CF frames at half the prices.

Guys, you might like to take advantage of introductory offer from Sphere Hobbies. It is 10% off. This discount is for all DJI products.

i may be naive about micro-controllers...
but all i know about this stuff is

the aero-quad using arduino... -atmega-2560 or 328, same that kk board have got.

which as a electronic component is very cheap few hundred bucks...

adding some sensor- acclerometer, magnetometer, barometer- that would cost around 1k-1.5k bucks (inr), gyros already in kk.. enables position hold, heading hold altitude hold like function.....

then why such stabilization system cost so high???

cant those be made by own? using these components?
 
any one expert in micro-controller explain me?

I dont think you can get accelerometer magnetometer, barometer in 1k-1.5k. They will cost you way more than this.(If you have any source at this price then please post)

There are various things which comes into play while designing in control board.
All sensors should be compatible and have to be calibrated with microcontroller. Cheap sensors are difficult to work with and better sensors increase the cost.
The most tricky and difficult part what I feel is the algorithm/code running in microcontroller. Microcontroller has to listen to sensors and then has to control multiple motors simultaneously. Also it has to encode ppm radio transmitter singles and again control motors accordingly. You have to run PID loops and reduce errors in sensors values and what not. Managing all these threads with limited processing power is a real challenge.
Apart from these technical things, Reliability of the product, number of features it provides, quality control etc contribute to the increase in price.
 
People are working to reduce this cost. Opensource Ardupilot APM2 comes with almost all these features and costs only $199 + shipping.

All i can say is 3axis acc, baro, gps are like ram, graphics card, sound card(cheap compare to whole system). Independently they can't do anything. To get work out of them you need cpu here atmega chip and nice coded program and best GUI.

@splitfire,
all i have to come to know about the sensor, from workshop on self balancing bot, is that acclerometer wont cost more than 350, not sure about magneto n barometer....

i have done a bit research...
these are same, ADXL345 3-axis Digital Sensor Acceleration- same that Ardupilot APM2 uses...
HMC5883L- triple axis magneto.... again same model is used by apm2
Barometric Pressure Sensor - BMP085 again same used by apm 2

total cost 359+780+699=1838....
this is on9 price... my friend dad has business of hall-sale supply of electronic parts, he says this all should not cost more than 1-1.2k

and @dharmik

i want to say, let kk board do its job of keeping multi in 1 "plane"... so half issue solved...

using a simple microcontroller, having good required no of pwm i/o pins...

taking input form acc., baro, magneto meter... the algorithm like this,
if the multi is goin straight up (detected by acc n magneto), bypass the rudder ele, aileron, output from rx to kk board...

if say its moving in certain direction- x,y then then add some value to pwm output of ele or ali. untill all readings become stationary...

and same algorithm for barometer.... if there is no change in throttle, then the multi must stay at the same barometer reading by increasing or decreasing output on throttle...

same with rotation, ie yaw...  which will enable heading hold...


so all i want to say, kk board (a cheap 15usd controller), keep multi in a fixed plane,
and the other external sensor take care that this plane moves straight up, without changing its very orientation....
then in air it should move like turtle in logo (comp. programming lang), ie it should move the fix distance with almost no error, that we want to...

karan3_k

Whatever you are saying is feasible. But the challenging part as I said in my last post is programming and developing code for specific hardware. I have closely seen couple of teams developing there own quad board. You need lot of patience and time. What I have seen most tough part is setting PID. Read about it here. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PID_controller
It basically decides how much of sensor input should be considered and how much should be reaction. It looks simple and straightforward from top but when you go deep then real work starts.

For electronics I generally follow sparkfun. But after your post I checked some indian sites and yes sensors are getting pretty cheap. Thanks for updating!

thanks friends for ur suggestions and @spitfire ,sir i want to know if we import apm 2,what would be the custom charges and also courier charges(approx.)................my sister is returning from u.s in the next month ,im planning to ask my sister to bring apm2 so dat we can escape from customs .what do u say members?????????

You can get courier charges by logging in at http://store.diydrones.com It should be around $30 by fedex or EMS. Custom should not be problem in any case. They might charge custom but I don't think they will hold it or detain it. Best way is to get it by someone coming from US. You can save shipping charges atleast.

@spherehobbies are you going to order ardupilot kit in india.

At this time we are not planning to introduce any other multi-rotors. We have DJI products in stock.

Thank you.