24C3 Build your own UAV

Posted Dec 27th 2007 3:52PM by Eliot Phillips
Filed under: robots hacks

The 24th annual Chaos Communications Congress in Berlin is already off to a great start. The first talk we attended was [Antoine Drouin] and [Martin Müller] presenting Paparazzi - The Free Autopilot. Paparazzi is an open source hardware and software project for building autonomous unmanned aerial vehicles. The main hardware board has an ARM processor and GPS. It uses inertial and infrared sensors to determine orientation and altitude. The four infrared thermopiles measure the air temperature. The ground is warmer than the sky and if you compare the temperature in the direction of each wing tip your can tell what angle the airplane is at. It's really that simple.

They did a pretty amazing live demo. Using the network connection they controlled a UAV flying in France and another in Germany. Both planes were streaming live video from belly mounted cameras. One relaying through a home DSL connection and the other through a UMTS cellphone. They were able to change way-points on the fly and issue flight pattern commands. There is a ground crew at each location with a security pilot that will switch the controls to manual if things get out of hand.

Reader Comments

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1. It is a shame Christmas is already over, I just added a new item to my wish list.

Posted at 6:04PM on Dec 27th 2007 by bloodwrath

2.
I wanted to build an Autonomous Model Airplane about 10 to 12 years ago, but someone talked me out of it saying the NSA/FBI would be all over me. It would have been cutting edge then.

Posted at 7:45PM on Dec 27th 2007 by Almost_There

3. @2: why would the nsa/fbi/any other 3 lettered government organization care about a personal uav?

I know the FAA doesn't particularly like uav's in controlled airspace, but that is a whole other can of worms.

Posted at 8:18PM on Dec 27th 2007 by Earl Jr.

4.
>why would the nsa/fbi/ care about a personal uav?

Because with the right sensors it "COULD" be programmed to crash head-on in to a full sized aircraft (carrying some small amount of explosive.) Not that any sane person would do that, but they don't know who you are and they don't trust anybody.

Posted at 9:21PM on Dec 27th 2007 by Almost_There

5. the faa doesn't give a hoot about what you build as long as it is under a certain size or if it is going to be carrying passengers. homeland security might get suspicious if you buy the model airplane stuff and explosive materials and bomb making stuff though...

Posted at 9:32PM on Dec 27th 2007 by Mike

6.
Almost_there, I believe you are talking about a "guided missile", not a UAV. And yes, those are illegal to make, and yes mike, the faa will give a hoot then.

~Sticky

Posted at 9:53PM on Dec 27th 2007 by StickyWidget

7. This kind of thing actually gets into a bit of a gray area. The FAA has an advisory circular giving guidelines for operating model aircraft that recommend not exceeding 400 feet of altitude or flying within 3 miles of an airport. (http://rgl.faa.gov/Regulatory_and_Guidance_Library/rgAdvisoryCircular.nsf/0/1ACFC3F689769A56862569E70077C9CC?OpenDocument&Highlight=91)
Generally if you stay within these rules they're not going to care. HOWEVER, the FAA has notified manufacturers of small UAVs that these rules don't apply if they're being used for commercial purposes. If you're building your own UAV as a hobby, you're probably OK following the model aircraft rules.

Posted at 10:59PM on Dec 27th 2007 by Orv

8. >homeland security might get suspicious

It was while building my weather balloon, I had the idea of making a Glider that would fly it's way back home. I was told that the balloon was fine because it had no control (it came down on a parachute,) but as soon as you have any some sort of directional control the Feds want to know about it. That's what I was told, don't know if it's true or not.

Posted at 11:09PM on Dec 27th 2007 by Almost_There

9. In the Paparazzi Wiki, they controlled 3 planes and not 2. 1 in France, 1 in Germany and 1 in Turkey.

The future European rules, for smalls UAVs are very simple, keep it under 400ft, have less than 150kg, max speed of 70kts, range 500m. Important, no flying in populated territory, unless with special authorization.
US rules shouldn't be very different.

Posted at 9:45AM on Dec 28th 2007 by muralha

10. > but as soon as you have any some sort of directional control the Feds want to know about it.

That can't be right, because people fly R/C model airplanes all the time.

Posted at 1:28PM on Dec 28th 2007 by Orv

11. http://www.members.shaw.ca/sonde/

This was done a while back in Canada. Apparently they had a scare when it flew directly over an airport by accident, but nothing came of it.

Posted at 3:44PM on Dec 28th 2007 by Nephus

12. RC airplanes are ok because they are controlled by a pilot from the ground. But the moment you build a flying vehicle capable of guiding itself to a fixed location (i.e. guidance system, autopilot etc), it becomes illegal (or if not outright illegal, something that the feds are going to want to look further into anyway). Doesn't matter if its got a rocket engine, jet engine, propeller, rotor blades, warp drive or whatever, its the fact that it can fly without someone on the ground controlling it that the feds care about.

There was a guy in New Zealand a few years ago who built an autonomous jet powered vehicle (the "DIY Cruise Missile") and got shut down (some of the evidence suggests that the NZ government was pushed by the USA to shut down the project)

Posted at 8:39AM on Dec 29th 2007 by Jonathan Wilson

13. There was a DIY UAV segment on Wired Science a few weeks ago that was pretty cool

http://www.pbs.org/kcet/wiredscience/story/53-diy_uavs.html

Posted at 6:49PM on Dec 29th 2007 by Nick

14. We've got a whole site on DIY Drones (at http://diydrones.com, of course), including on the FAA regs (many of the above comments are confused).

Basically, for non-commercial/recreational use you need to stay below 400ft, line of sight, pilot in control (meaning you can take over at any time), away from populated areas. For commercial use you need a COA. The FAA is working on some future rules that will establish a special category under 4lbs, but I doubt that the rules above will change much.

Posted at 3:24PM on Jan 14th 2008 by Chris Anderson

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