Head of Avionics and Aircraft Software, Manna Drone Delivery
I really like the idea of two or more of these cars chasing each other around a track, so that s now the first objective. And I think this also suggests a name for these vehicles Serial Pursuit Vehicles, or SPV1 and SPV2. I ll need to decide on the colour at some stage, too ;-). Continue reading "SPV1 Preparing the Stock Chassis"
This is something I have wanted to do for some while for fun. Note that it has nothing to do with my work at Manna, so don t make any assumptions about the technologies being used! I also don t get much spare time, so updates are likely to be irregular. ObjectivesThis is experimenting for fun, so Continue reading "Line Following Model Car"
I think it s important for anyone to be clear about what drives them, both for themselves and for others. I ll sometimes ask about these if I am interviewing prospective employees. However, we spend too little time in education or beyond in helping individuals articulate their own values. In my opinion, Core Values are crucial, especially Continue reading "Personal Values"
What s this about? This post shows how to wire up and configure RFDesign RFD868x or RFD900x telemetry units to a Pixhawk 2. Prerequisites You will need: Two RFD868x or RFD900x units FTDI/USB cable (comes with the units) Pixhawk2 telemetry cable with 6 pin servo style plug. Spare 2 pin or 3 pin male servo style Continue reading "Configuring RFD868x/RFD900x Telemetry for Pixhawk 2"
What s this About I m rebuilding The Groundhog to a more professional level, with the level of accuracy required for the AI and computer vision work planned. It s also getting an upgrade to the avionics to make it more resilient. This post details the rebuild and also has links to the 3D printed parts used. Airframe Continue reading "Pixhawk 2 with Jetson TX2 Build"
What s this about? In this post we will build a ROS node on a companion computer to subscribe to data being published by the flight control unit (FCU). This will allow us to use the many data streams available from the flight controller as inputs to our system and then be able to make decisions Continue reading "2. Coding UAVs with ROS. Subscribing to FCU data."
What s this about? This series of posts is for those who want to take more control of their UAV (or other robotic vehicle) using a companion computer connected to the flight control unit. Typically to get started, this might be a Raspberry Pi connected to a Pixhawk FCU. The series will follow the development of Continue reading "1. Coding UAVs with ROS. SetUp"
UWE Bristol has been hosting 40 students from the prestigious Ecole des Mines d Ales for the last four weeks for a Summer School in coding. About half of the cohort elected to do two-week mechatronics course in autonomous UAV coding, supplied by Aisymmetrix and led by Miles Isted s Jacob and myself, ably supported by Masters Continue reading "Autonomous UAV Coding Summer School UWE Bristol Follow…
22 students from France will be spending the next two weeks building and coding autonomous drones as part of the UWE Bristol Summer School. Along with Miles Isted s Jacob, I am delighted to be leading on this activity and have produced a short sneak peek video of the challenge to share. So six team drones Continue reading "Autonomous UAV Coding Summer School sneak peak"
If you have heard of Robot Operating System and want to use it to monitor and control UAV flight, this post will get you started More specifically, this post details how to set up a Pixhawk flight controller running PX4 firmware, with a Raspberry Pi3 companion computer running Robot Operating System. This combination will give Continue reading "Robot Operating System for Flight Monitoring and…