Single Rotor Drone Spins For 360 Lidar Scanning

Multiple motors or servos are the norm for drones to achieve controllable flight, but a team from MARS LAB HKU was able to a 360° lidar scanning drone with full control on just a single motor and no additional actuators. Video after the break.

The key to controllable flight is the swashplateless propeller design that we’ve seen a few times, but it always required a second propeller to counteract self-rotation. In this case, the team was able to make that self-rotation work so that they could achieve 360° scanning with a single fixed LIDAR sensor. Self-rotation still needs to be slowed, so this was done with four stationary vanes. The single rotor also means better efficiency compared to a multi-rotor with similar propeller disk area.

The LIDAR comprises a full 50% of the drone’s weight and provides a conical FOV out to a range of 450m. All processing happens onboard the drone, with point cloud data being processed by a LIDAR-inertial odometry framework. This allows the drone to track and plan its flight path while also building a 3D map of an unknown environment. This means it would be extremely useful for indoor or underground environments where GPS or other positioning systems are not available.

All the design files and code for the drone are up on GitHub, and most of the electronic components are off-the-shelf. This means you can build your own, and the expensive lidar sensor is not required to get it flying. This seems like a great platform for further experimentation, and getting usable video from a normal camera would be an interesting challenge. Continue reading “Single Rotor Drone Spins For 360 Lidar Scanning”

Dog Poop Drone Cleans Up The Yard So You Don’t Have To

Sometimes you instantly know who’s behind a project from the subject matter alone. So when we saw this “aerial dog poop removal system” show up in the tips line, we knew it had to be the work of [Caleb Olson].

If you’re unfamiliar with [Caleb]’s oeuvre, let us refresh your memory. [Caleb] has been on a bit of a dog poop journey, starting with a machine-learning system that analyzed security camera footage to detect when the adorable [Twinkie] dropped a deuce in the yard. Not content with just knowing when a poop event has occurred, he automated the task of locating the packages with a poop-pointing robot laser. Removal of the poop remained a manual task, one which [Caleb] was keen to outsource, hence the current work.

The video below, from a lightning talk at a conference, is pretty much all we have to go on, and the quality is a bit potato-esque. And while [Caleb]’s PoopCopter is clearly still a prototype, it’s easy to get the gist. Combining data from the previous poop-adjacent efforts, [Caleb] has built a quadcopter that can (or will, someday) be guided to the approximate location of the offending package, home in on it using a downward-looking camera, and autonomously whisk it away.

The retrieval mechanism is the high point for us; rather than a complicated, servo-laden “sky scoop” or something similar, the drone has a bell-shaped container on its belly with a series of geared leaves on the open end. The leaves are open when the drone descends onto the payload, and then close as the drone does a quick rotation around the yaw axis. And, as [Caleb] gleefully notes, the leaves can also open in midair with a high-torque yaw move in the opposite direction; the potential for neighborly hijinx is staggering.

All jokes and puns aside, this looks fantastic, and we can’t wait for more information and a better video. And lest you think [Caleb] only works on “Number Two” problems, never fear — he’s also put considerable work into automating his offspring and taking the awkwardness out of social interactions.

Continue reading “Dog Poop Drone Cleans Up The Yard So You Don’t Have To”

Autonomous Boat Plots Lake Beds

Although the types of drones currently dominating headlines tend to be airborne, whether it’s hobbyist quadcopters, autonomous delivery vehicles, or military craft, autonomous vehicles can take nearly any transportation method we can think of. [Clay Builds] has been hard at work on his drone which is actually an autonomous boat, which he uses to map the underwater topography of various lakes. In this video he takes us through the design and build process of this particular vehicle and then demonstrates it in action.

The boat itself takes inspiration from sailing catamarans, which have two hulls of equal size connected above the waterline, allowing for more stability and less drag than a standard single-hulled boat. This is [Clay]’s second autonomous boat, essentially a larger, more powerful version of one we featured before. Like the previous version, the hulls are connected with a solar panel and its support structure, which also provides the boat with electrical power and charges lithium-iron phosphate batteries in the hull. Steering is handled by two rudders with one on each hull, but it also employs differential steering for situations where more precise turning is required. The boat carries a sonar-type device for measuring the water depth, which is housed in a more hydrodynamic 3d-printed enclosure to reduce its drag in the water, and it can follow a waypoint mission using a combination of GPS and compass readings.

Like any project of this sort, there was a lot of testing and design iteration that had to go into this build before it was truly seaworthy. The original steering mechanism was the weak point, with the initial design based on a belt connecting the two rudders that would occasionally skip. But after a bit of testing and ironing out these kinks, the solar boat is on its way to measure the water’s depths. The project’s code as well as some of the data can be found on the project’s GitHub page, and if you’re looking for something more human-sized take a look at this solar-powered kayak instead.

Continue reading “Autonomous Boat Plots Lake Beds”

RC submarine surfaced in a pool

RC Submarine Build Starts With Plenty Of Research

[Ben]’s a 15-year-old who loves engineering and loves taking on new challenges. He’s made some cool stuff over the years, but the high water mark (no pun intended) has to be this impressively documented remote controlled submarine.

His new build starts off with more research than the actual building. [Ben] spent a ton of time investigating the design of the submarine from its shape, to the propeller system, to the best way to waterproof everything, keeping his sub in tip-top shape. He decides to go with the Russian-style Akula submarine, which is probably the generic look that most of us would think of when we hear the word submarine. He had some interesting thoughts on the propeller system (like the syringe ballast we’ve seen before), and which type of motor to use. In the end, he decided with four pumps that would act essentially as thrusters. fill a chamber with water, allowing the submarine to submerge, or fill with air, making the submarine buoyant, allowing it to resurface.

However, what we found most interesting about his build is how he explains the rationale for all his design decisions and clearly documents his thought process on his project page. We really can’t do [Ben]’s project justice in a short post, so head over to his project page to see it for yourself.

While you’re at it, check out some of these other cool submarine builds that we’ve featured here on Hackaday

Reverse-Engineering A Shahed-136 Drone Air Data Computer

Top of the air data computer module, with pressure sensors, RS232 driver and DC-DC converter visible. (Credit: Le Labo de Michel, YouTube)

An air data computer (ADC) is a crucial part of an avionics package that can calculate the altitude, vertical speed, air speed and more from pressure (via pitot tubes) and temperature inputs. When your airplane is a one-way attack drone like Iran’s Shahed-136, you obviously need an ADC as well, but have to focus on making it both cheap and circumvent a myriad of sanctions. As [Michel] recently found out while reverse-engineering one of these ADCs. Courtesy of the Russo-Ukrainian war, hundreds of these Shahed drones are being destroyed every month, with some making it back down again intact enough for some parts to end up on EBay.

The overall design as captured in the schematic is rather straightforward, with the component choice probably being the most notable, as it uses an STM32G071 MCU and Analog Devices ADM3232 RS-232 driver, in addition to the two pressure sensors (by Silicon Microstructures Inc., now owned by TE). The DC-DC converter is a Mornsun URB24055-6WR3.

With the board in working condition, [Michel] hooks it up to a test setup to see the output on the serial interface when applying different pressures to the pressure sensor inputs. This results in a lot of ASCII data being output, all containing different values that were calculated by the firmware on the STM32 MCU. In the drone this data would then be used by the flight computer to make adjustments. Overall it’s a rather basic design that doesn’t seem to have a dedicated temperature sensor either, though [Michel] is still analyzing some details. A firmware dump would of course be rather fascinating as well.

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Hackaday Links: July 14, 2024

We’ve been going on at length in this space about the death spiral that AM radio seems to be in, particularly in the automotive setting. Car makers have begun the process of phasing AM out of their infotainment systems, ostensibly due to its essential incompatibility with the electronics in newer vehicles, especially EVs. That argument always seemed a little specious to us, since the US has an entire bureaucracy dedicated to making sure everyone works and plays well with each other on the electromagnetic spectrum. The effort to drop AM resulted in pushback from US lawmakers, who threatened legislation to ensure every vehicle has the ability to receive AM broadcasts, on the grounds of its utility in a crisis and that we’ve spent billions ensuring that 80% of the population is within range of an AM station.

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Supercon 2023: Why More Hackers Should Earn Their Wings

Hacking has taken on many different meanings over the years, but if you’re here reading these words, we’ll assume your definition is pretty close to ours. To hack is to explore and learn, to find new and (hopefully) better ways of doing things. Or at least, that’s part of it. The other part is to then take what you learned and share it with others. Do that enough, and soon you’ll find yourself part of a community of like-minded individuals — which is where things really start getting interesting.

Here at Hackaday the objects of our attention are, with the occasional exception, electronic devices of some sort or another. Perhaps an old piece of gear that needs a modern brain transplant, or a misbehaving consumer gadget that could benefit from the addition of an open source firmware. But just as there are different ways to interpret the act of hacking, there’s plenty of wiggle room when it comes to what you can hack on.

In his talk during the 2023 Hackaday Supercon, Tom Mloduchowski makes the case that more hackers should be getting involved with aviation. No, we’re not talking about flying drones, though he does cover that during the presentation. This is the real deal. Whether you want to take a quick joyride in a small plane, become a professional pilot, or even build and operate your own experimental aircraft, this talk covers it all.

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