Robotic Helicopter Advice
John Board
Posts: 371
As a whole I've been trying to cover a lot of things in robotics - and it just so happens that my attention has now been turned to telepresense robots.... and robotic helicopters. I'll be asking about the latter.
So, I've picked up a $120 RC helicopter from my local modeling store, after many hours of enjoyment, I had to void the warrenty... So, I've taken it apart and I'm in the process of putting it back together, and once it is functioning fine again, I'm looking at putting a gyro/accelerometer on with a micro, and have either autonomous or semi-autonomous flight.
As some of you probably well know, I'm a 14 year old, with very little experience in just about everything, so I'm looking for some advice on anything really - Any advice is good enough for me!
So, the kind of heli I'm using is your standard "Contra-rotating-blade" design, it's 'sale name' is: Twister Medivac R/C 2.4
So, firstly I'm going to look into 'motion capture'. So, mounting some sort of tilt sensor / acceleration sensor on with some kind of datalogging function, and I'm going to flying it around and see what info I can get from that.
After that I'm going to try a semi-autonomous approach. So the micro intercepts the signals comming from the reciever and then looks at what the sensors are saying, and if everything should be fine with the signals, i.e. it won't crash into anything, it then forwards the signals on to the corresponding devices (servos, motor controller, etc). If however the signals is not safe for the robot to execute, it then performs an alternate manuver.
So, for example, if the robot is tilting at an odd angle, and I then tell the robot to tilt even more, the microcontroller will recognise that and then hopefully re-correct the helicopter then into a safe-flying situation.
One good thing is that there is one unused 'switch' channel on both the transmitter and reciever, so I am thinking of using it to switch between "manual" and "semi-auto" modes.
I'm terrible at explaning my ideas - please tell me if this doesn't quite make sense.
Again, any advice is welcomed!
-John
So, I've picked up a $120 RC helicopter from my local modeling store, after many hours of enjoyment, I had to void the warrenty... So, I've taken it apart and I'm in the process of putting it back together, and once it is functioning fine again, I'm looking at putting a gyro/accelerometer on with a micro, and have either autonomous or semi-autonomous flight.
As some of you probably well know, I'm a 14 year old, with very little experience in just about everything, so I'm looking for some advice on anything really - Any advice is good enough for me!
So, the kind of heli I'm using is your standard "Contra-rotating-blade" design, it's 'sale name' is: Twister Medivac R/C 2.4
So, firstly I'm going to look into 'motion capture'. So, mounting some sort of tilt sensor / acceleration sensor on with some kind of datalogging function, and I'm going to flying it around and see what info I can get from that.
After that I'm going to try a semi-autonomous approach. So the micro intercepts the signals comming from the reciever and then looks at what the sensors are saying, and if everything should be fine with the signals, i.e. it won't crash into anything, it then forwards the signals on to the corresponding devices (servos, motor controller, etc). If however the signals is not safe for the robot to execute, it then performs an alternate manuver.
So, for example, if the robot is tilting at an odd angle, and I then tell the robot to tilt even more, the microcontroller will recognise that and then hopefully re-correct the helicopter then into a safe-flying situation.
One good thing is that there is one unused 'switch' channel on both the transmitter and reciever, so I am thinking of using it to switch between "manual" and "semi-auto" modes.
I'm terrible at explaning my ideas - please tell me if this doesn't quite make sense.
Again, any advice is welcomed!
-John
Comments
yes it does make sense. The main Problem is usually the weight of the payload - for how long the helicoper can lift it. There is PropelleCode out here to go inbetween receiver and R/C-model so you can intercept and play with it.
I have not done this, but other people here have - look thru those QuadCopter-Threads I read somthing like that there.
A doable project and for sure fun.
Enjoy!
Mike
One more thing, Anything that flies has a 99.9% of being fun!
-John