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PX4 Autopilot
PX4 autopilot is an open-source autopilot system oriented toward inexpensive autonomous aircraft. Low cost and availability enable hobbyist use in small remotely piloted aircraft. The project started in 2009 and is being further developed and used at Computer Vision and Geometry Lab of ETH Zurich (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology) and supported by the Autonomous Systems Lab and the Automatic Control Laboratory. Several vendors are currently producing PX4 autopilots and accessories. Overview An autopilot allows a remotely-piloted aircraft to be flown out of sight. All hardware and software is open-source and freely available to anyone under a BSD license. Users can modify the autopilot based on their own special requirements. The open-source software suite contains everything to let airborne system fly including: * QGroundControl and MAVLink Micro Air Vehicle Communication Protocol * 2D/3D aerial maps (with Google Earth support) * Drag-and-drop waypoints Other open-source ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
NuttX
NuttX is a free and open-source Real-Time Operating System (RTOS) with an emphasis on technical standards compliance and on having a small footprint. Scalable from 8-bit to 64-bit microcontroller environments, the main governing standards in NuttX are from the Portable Operating System Interface (POSIX) and the American National Standards Institute (ANSI). Further standard application programming interfaces (APIs) from Unix and other common RTOSes (such as VxWorks) are adopted for functions unavailable under these standards, or inappropriate for deeply embedded environments, such as the fork() system call. NuttX was first released in 2007 under the permissive BSD license. Since December 2019, it has been undergoing incubation at the Apache Software Foundation The Apache Software Foundation (ASF) is an American nonprofit corporation (classified as a 501(c)(3) organization in the United States) to support a number of open source software projects. The ASF was formed from a g ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Paparazzi Project
Paparazzi is an open-source autopilot system oriented toward inexpensive autonomous aircraft. Low cost and availability enable hobbyist use in small remotely piloted aircraft. The project began in 2003, and is being further developed and used at École nationale de l'aviation civile (ENAC), a French civil aeronautics academy. Several vendors are currently producing Paparazzi autopilots and accessories. Overview An autopilot allows a remotely piloted aircraft to be flown out of sight. All hardware and software is open-source and freely available to anyone under the GNU licensing agreement. Open Source autopilots provide flexible hardware and software. Users can easily modify the autopilot based on their own special requirements, such as forest fire evaluation. Paparazzi collaborators share ideas and information using the same MediaWiki software that is used by Wikipedia. Paparazzi accepts commands and sensor data, and adjusts flight controls accordingly. For example, a command mig ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Free Software
Free software or libre software is computer software distributed under terms that allow users to run the software for any purpose as well as to study, change, and distribute it and any adapted versions. Free software is a matter of liberty, not price; all users are legally free to do what they want with their copies of a free software (including profiting from them) regardless of how much is paid to obtain the program.Selling Free Software (gnu.org) Computer programs are deemed "free" if they give end-users (not just the developer) ultimate control over the software and, subsequently, over their devices. The right to study and modify a computer program entails that source code< ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Unmanned Aerial Vehicles
An unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), commonly known as a drone, is an aircraft without any human pilot, crew, or passengers on board. UAVs are a component of an unmanned aircraft system (UAS), which includes adding a ground-based controller and a system of communications with the UAV. The flight of UAVs may operate under remote control by a human operator, as remotely-piloted aircraft (RPA), or with various degrees of autonomy, such as autopilot assistance, up to fully autonomous aircraft that have no provision for human intervention. UAVs were originally developed through the twentieth century for military missions too "dull, dirty or dangerous" for humans, and by the twenty-first, they had become essential assets to most militaries. As control technologies improved and costs fell, their use expanded to many non-military applications.Hu, J.; Bhowmick, P.; Jang, I.; Arvin, F.; Lanzon, A.,A Decentralized Cluster Formation Containment Framework for Multirobot Systems IEEE T ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Aircraft Instruments
Flight instruments are the instruments in the cockpit of an aircraft that provide the pilot with data about the flight situation of that aircraft, such as altitude, airspeed, vertical speed, heading and much more other crucial information in flight. They improve safety by allowing the pilot to fly the aircraft in level flight, and make turns, without a reference outside the aircraft such as the horizon. Visual flight rules (VFR) require an airspeed indicator, an altimeter, and a compass or other suitable magnetic direction indicator. Instrument flight rules (IFR) additionally require a gyroscopic pitch-bank (artificial horizon), direction (directional gyro) and rate of turn indicator, plus a slip-skid indicator, adjustable altimeter, and a clock. Flight into instrument meteorological conditions (IMC) require radio navigation instruments for precise takeoffs and landings. The term is sometimes used loosely as a synonym for cockpit instruments as a whole, in which context it ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Avionics
Avionics (a blend of ''aviation'' and ''electronics'') are the electronic systems used on aircraft. Avionic systems include communications, navigation, the display and management of multiple systems, and the hundreds of systems that are fitted to aircraft to perform individual functions. These can be as simple as a searchlight for a police helicopter or as complicated as the tactical system for an airborne early warning platform. History The term "avionics" was coined in 1949 by Philip J. Klass, senior editor at ''Aviation Week & Space Technology'' magazine as a portmanteau of "aviation electronics". Radio communication was first used in aircraft just prior to World War I. The first airborne radios were in zeppelins, but the military sparked development of light radio sets that could be carried by heavier-than-air craft, so that aerial reconnaissance biplanes could report their observations immediately in case they were shot down. The first experimental radio transmission ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Micro Air Vehicle
A micro air vehicle (MAV), or micro aerial vehicle, is a class of miniature UAVs that has a size restriction and may be autonomous. Modern craft can be as small as 5 centimeters. Development is driven by commercial, research, government, and military purposes; with insect-sized aircraft reportedly expected in the future. The small craft allows remote observation of hazardous environments inaccessible to ground vehicles. MAVs have been built for hobby purposes, such as aerial robotics contests and aerial photography. Practical implementations In 2008, the TU Delft University in the Netherlands developed the smallest ornithopter fitted with a camera, the DelFly Micro, the third version of the DelFly project that started in 2005. This version measures 10 centimeters and weighs 3 grams, slightly larger (and noisier) than the dragonfly on which it was modeled. The importance of the camera lies in remote control when the DelFly is out of sight. However, this version has not yet ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Crowdsourcing
Crowdsourcing involves a large group of dispersed participants contributing or producing goods or services—including ideas, votes, micro-tasks, and finances—for payment or as volunteers. Contemporary crowdsourcing often involves digital platforms to attract and divide work between participants to achieve a cumulative result. Crowdsourcing is not limited to online activity, however, and there are various historical examples of crowdsourcing. The word crowdsourcing is a portmanteau of " crowd" and "outsourcing". In contrast to outsourcing, crowdsourcing usually involves less specific and more public groups of participants. Advantages of using crowdsourcing include lowered costs, improved speed, improved quality, increased flexibility, and/or increased scalability of the work, as well as promoting diversity. Crowdsourcing methods include competitions, virtual labor markets, open online collaboration and data donation. Some forms of crowdsourcing, such as in "idea compe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Slugs (autopilot System)
Slugs is an open-source autopilot system oriented toward inexpensive autonomous aircraft. Low cost and wide availability enable hobbyist use in small remotely piloted aircraft. The project started in 2009 and is being further developed and used at Autonomous Systems Lab of University of California Santa Cruz. Several vendors produce Slugs autopilots and accessories. Overview An autopilot allows a remotely piloted aircraft to be flown out of sight. All hardware and software is open-source and freely available to anyone under the MIT licensing agreement. free software autopilots provide more flexible hardware and software. Users can modify the autopilot based on their own special requirements, such as forest fire evaluation. The free software approach from Slugs is similar to that from the paparazzi Project, PX4 autopilot, ArduPilot and OpenPilot where low cost and availability enables its hobbyist use in small remotely piloted aircraft such as micro air vehicles and miniature UAVs. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
ArduPilot
ArduPilot is an open source, unmanned vehicle Autopilot Software Suite, capable of controlling autonomous: *Multirotor drones *Fixed-wing and VTOL aircraft *Helicopters *Ground rovers *Boats *Submarines A submarine (or sub) is a watercraft capable of independent operation underwater. It differs from a submersible, which has more limited underwater capability. The term is also sometimes used historically or colloquially to refer to remotely ... *Antenna trackers ArduPilot was originally developed by hobbyists to control model aircraft and rovers and has evolved into a full-featured and reliable autopilot used by industry, research organisations and amateurs. Software and Hardware Software suite The ArduPilot software suite consists of navigation software (typically referred to as firmware when it is compiled to binary form for microcontroller hardware targets) running on the vehicle (either Copter, Airplane, Plane, Rover, AntennaTracker, or Submarine, Sub), along w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Open-source Robotics
Open-source robotics (OSR) is where the physical artifacts of the subject are offered by the open design movement. This branch of robotics makes use of open-source hardware and free and open-source software providing blueprints, schematics, and source code. The term usually means that information about the hardware is easily discerned so that others can make it from standard commodity components and tools—coupling it closely to the maker movement and open science. Advantages * Long-term availability. Many non-open robots and components, especially at the hobbyist level, are designed and sold by tiny startups which can disappear overnight, leaving customers without support. Open-source systems are guaranteed to have their designs available forever so communities of users can, and do, continue support after the manufacturer has disappeared. * Avoiding lock-in. A company relying on any particular non-open component exposes itself to business risk that the supplier could ratch ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
