STARMAC Quadrotor Helicopter UAV Project

[zephyr9673]

Could you use Bluetooth or other wi fi to determine distances between swarm members?

[gabehoffmann]

@zephyr9673 Yes, that's a possibility. It's a decent challenge to implement such a system right now though, but there have been several research papers that demonstrated this capability. Relative positioning is much easier with specialized radios or GPS.

[Lantho650]

Im building A PROJECT A MAKING A ufo hoax

[jjppmm29]

Ahhh yes hover drone Ballet 3:30

[skillguitar]

Make it bigger and u have a UFO...

[skillguitar]

@steam4o True.. But I meant a Hoax .. :)

[DrJez1]

Amazing. May I ask how you were involved in this project?

[gabehoffmann]

Thanks for the kind words. It was a part of the work for my PhD, working toward programming vehicles to understand how to use their sensing capabilities to achieve their goals. Personally, I did a bit of everything on this; design, fabrication, theory, programming, system id, experiments. Steve Waslander and I had several masters students helping us, and several PhD students came up to speed on it, contributed substantially, and carried it on now that we graduated.

[DrJez1]

@gabehoffmann I'm in my fourth year of mech. eng. about to start a 9 months project with 3 other people. Constructing a quadrotor is a one option (out of 80!). It would include all the control theory and programming. Would you say most time was spent typing code? How many people were involved? Thanks, Jez

[CaptainUkraine]

is this construction suitable for real big helicopter?

[NASAmike1]

I'd like to purchase two of these STARMAC Quadrotor UAVs

Who can I discuss our projects with, ASAP??

NASAMIKE 301 286 9828

[Sinisterene]

More likely used by the US ARMY to suppress brown peoples, kind of like how nasa projects are wet dreams for generals and bureaucrats of nuking brown people from orbit.

[U2WB]

Wow this is just mind blowing. I can only imagine the amount of work and research that went into this project. All those involved have my admiration.

[ZorrisPorris]

congratulations

[mvtdeassis]

This is one great project, I am impressed.

[timonix2]

wouldn't a panorama camera be better for this purpose rather than having to either rotate the STARMAC or the camera itself?

[gabehoffmann]

@timonix2 yes, of course using a panorama camera would be easier than rotating the vehicle. Those weigh more too, so that reduces your flight time. Sensor selection really depends on your application or research objective.

[timonix2]

@gabehoffmann but i think they do come in a small size as well through optics. not that much larger than a regular camera. But yea you are of course right about the sensors depends on the objective.

But i am the type who often will load something with waay more sensors than it actually will use just because i can heh.

[jimmybilbo]

@gabehoffmann if you pretend like you're 10 years old and look at the drawing out of context....

[planetrob555]

@gabehoffmann He has no answer for his comment. He's just a troll.

[planetrob555]

@jasanpahaf

[planetrob555]

Very Cool! 

[avida13]

police droid traffic observetion criminal chase personal data acces probaply

nice thing to put down terrorists and staff like that

[Cleroth]

CIA had this 15 years ago :(

[link090909]

lmao at 1:20

[arkizzle77]

@gabehoffmann

tee hee hee! I see why. it's pretty silly :)

Great work though! Seen the new UPenn quadcopter maneuvers? Scary times.

Youtube + MvRTALJp8DM

[jasanpahaf]

for how long can you keep it in air? and about the GPS... does it uses way more energy than with out it?

what's its range?

[gabehoffmann]

@jasanpahaf when it's configured as shown, about 15-20 minutes. The embedded GPS receiver barely consumes any power relative to the rest of the electronics, so it doesn't use way more energy with GPS. When you fill up the payload with batteries, the predicted flight time is on the order of 1 hour, though we haven't tried that. A safe flight speed is 25 mph, so that puts the max range at somewhere around 25 miles, with a decent amount of uncertainty.

[MultiSuchan]

a great moment to inspirer the students of engineering , and providing the idea about projects and carrier Anil Suchan  student of electronics engg.

[kyleMarino98]

kyle yes

[gabehoffmann]

The forces from blade flapping increase with flight speed. At hover it has essentially no effect. It becomes more and more noticeable as speed increases. Momentum theory equations were accurate for predicting steady state thrust and still approximately correct for some transient conditions, but not all transient conditions. Other effects can be quite important, such as where the vortices go when they are shed from the propellors.

[gordonputfile]

Great work, and thanks for the explanatory video of your works. Interested to see how the image processing pans out in the future.

Could you tell me how much flight time you were able to achieve using which batteries and about how much power usage?

[gabehoffmann]

Thanks for the kind words. These details are all written up in a conference paper. It's available online. Try a google scholar search for "Quadrotor Helicopter Flight Dynamics and Control: Theory and Experiment". I'd put the URL here if I could... anyhow, it's available on my website.

[thecracken9]

You guys are good...very good video

[808Nikuya]

This is amazing dude!

I never knew how a UAV worked

ive been around them alot but

well yea thanks for explaining how

it works and well you made a nice

UAV it dont look like a donut now that

is pretty neat :D

[hollywoodjetmovies]

Nice prototype but you are developing something seems just the same as the German Microdrones company. See in "Related videos" (?)

[gabehoffmann]

Yes, they are developing a similar vehicle. The design for our vehicle was actually inspired by the Draganfly III. We added cross beams, changed the motors and rotors, used different connections, etc., to improve vehicle control, payload capacity, flight time, crash survivability, etc.; our current aircraft is built from scratch. The Microdrones have a similar approach to control, though in my experience STARMAC is easier to fly. The goal of our project, though, is to fly research experiments.

[NSResponder]

Freaking brilliant.

So, how long until we can buy a commercial version of this robot to do small-package delivery over a 20 mile range?

-jcr

[gabehoffmann]

I've always wanted to get to that point. We're still working out the details of using lasers to detect obstacles. It's a fascinating challenge - how do you determine your path and speed to fly safely and acquire more information about your surroundings?

[NSResponder]

Wouldn't you simplify the problem quite a bit by just going for more altitude? Once you're even 300' above the ground, there aren't going to be many things in your way.

-jcr

[gabehoffmann]

Quite true. See and avoid capabilities are still required for air traffic though.

[xbos2]

Okay guys is the excellent starmac very good aerodynamics and what I love is that it uses GNU / LINUX the congratulations

[ardenalan]

Awesome project and a nice presentation of it. Good luck wrapping things up.

[UFOBountyHunter]

IF I ever see one of these things hovering around my home, I'll shoot it down with a shot gun! This kind of crap is not a toy. It is the next step towards spying on us in secret. I am not impressed by this...your only aiding the enemy! MORONS!

Mrs Coulters spy flies are a coming round the bend! Lock and load!

[whitebear26]

Very interesting

[phoebus1966]

Oh . . . so no militairy applications? You guys at Stanford should be more wary.

[plflorence]

great stuff, thanks a lot man!

[simpleau2]

Very interesting, we've just been studying control theory in class lately so it's very cool to see it at work :D

[mfisker]

I wonder how much noise these things must make

[fastfingersfunk]

looks like DC motors, so not very loud. certainly not as loud as gas powered.

[calladus]

Turn these suckers into hybrids. Use a fuel airplane engine to drive an electrical generator. I'll bet you could increase payload and flight time with only a modest increase in size.

And if you have a 5 minute battery backup and electric start for your fuel engine, you could go silent for short times when needed.

[NSResponder]

The advantage of a hybrid power train in cars is that the power demand in cars varies quite a bit, and the electrical system allows the use of an engine in its most efficient operating range, while the batteries are able to provide higher power on demand.

When it comes to an aircraft, especially a helicopter, there's not much variation in the power demand in flight. Carrying the weight of the batteries would be a lose.

-jcr

[calladus]

Perhaps. But the idea is to only carry enough battery to "run silent" for a couple of minutes, or to create a soft landing if needed.

The advantage of converting from gas to electricity is that you can continue to use H-bridge controlled electric motors for the fine motor control out of your microcontroller, while depending on a much longer range fuel source based on combustion instead of chemistry.

Honestly, you could get rid of the batteries entirely if you wished.

[calladus]

The energy density of fuel is what - a hundred times that of a battery? A thousand? Sure you'd have to offset that with a generator and motor, but I'll bet you could still get a 2 hour flight time with the same payload.

[animes25]

why is square and not circle?

[gabehoffmann]

We tried that too. This structure was more effective. The braces going out to the corner take compressive loads, and the cross pieces in the square take tensile loads. Bent structural members are already under stress, so they break easier, and they're harder to position, in our experience.

[gabehoffmann]

Yes, a triangular frame would be more rigid, but the square fits more closely around the rotors, and is better supported. If you look close, there are 4 thin diagonal tubes that stiffen the square frame to prevent twisting, besides the 4 vertical diagonal stiffeners.

[silentmax]

will you be able to attach guns to these and then connect them to skynet?

[AzoreanProud]

LOlz xD

The future is so near :O...

[lac0nix]

I accidently marked silentmax's comment as spam. :(

[AzoreanProud]

xD pour man...his only trying to say that this machine will kill us all...

[gabehoffmann]

silentmax's comment was: "will you be able to attach guns to these and then connect them to skynet?"

(a great T3 reference)

[petty1800]

Pretty cool. I take it that if one of the rotors goes out that the remaining three wouldn't be able to compensate though?

[gabehoffmann]

Sadly, no.  It crashes quickly! I'll post some bloopers, too, eventually.

[r55741]

*cocks shotgun*

them birds aint coming in my yard!

[gabehoffmann]

Without payload, it flies for about 15-20 minutes on a charge. With extra batteries for payload, that time goes up. Loaded up with sensors, it can be as little as 7-10 minutes. Unfortunately, solar panels wouldn't help while in flight; it draws 20 Amps or more at 12 Volts. They would be cool for a mission where the aircraft flies to a destination and can wait to recharge the 4.2 Ah batteries.

[kaanuki]

How efficient is the power system (ie, how much battery life does it achieve)? Can it be fitted with solar power panels for longer flight?

[JoshPsDVProductions]

Hi Gabe,

Excellent work! Thanks for sharing!

I enjoyed reading your GNC07 paper. You must be almost finishing your PhD by now; do you have any more publications planned that I can look forward to reading?

Cheers,

Joshua Portlock

[gabehoffmann]

Hi Joshua,

Thanks for the comments. I'm writing my thesis right now, as a matter of fact. We just submitted a paper with lots of details to AIAA J. GCD. There's also a couple papers at GNC this year, and a couple submitted to CDC.

Cheers,

Gabe