nCode's Blog

Hey!

You want to learn to fly an RC helicopter and do all these crazy 3d acrobatics?

Hold right there… you will need time and a lot of concentration before you can even keep your helicopter off the ground without crashing. A lot of people will buy a helicopter, crash it, get discouraged and next thing you know it is in a basement somewhere and chances that it will ever fly again are usually very low.

Over 50% of all single rotor hobby grade RC helicopters sold to and built by first time fliers end up crashing in the first few minutes of their maiden flight.

Here is a very good website that will show you what to buy, where and how to start: http://www.rchelicopterfun.com/how-to-fly-rc-helicopters.html remember to take your time through the exercices, it is possible to learn how to fly these without crashing once. Your main goal should be to bring your helicopter back home in one piece after each session.

Cheers,

Marc

Still practicing with my Blueray 450 PE RC Helicopter, working on the hover but things are looking good, will likely start nose in flight sometime soon.

Wanted to experiment with a FPV / POV Camera like http://www.xheli.com/sm18gmihew2g.html

You will notice a blurry image from the onboard camera, was most probably affected by the EMI from the helicopter Alpha 400 Brushless motor.

Also I’m still learning RC Helicopter control… need to start somewhere

Good afternoon!

The ARCHA project is still active and ongoing constant development, part of my GroundStation software, I had to build a class to interface my E-Sky EK2-0406A using DirectX (for DirectInput) and C#.

You will need to connect your E-Sky controller to the computer running this class using a standard usb training cable.

Example on how to use that class in a form load event of c#:

ARCHAGroundStation.ClESkyController esky = new ARCHAGroundStation.ClESkyController(this);

esky.Poll();

System.Diagnostics.Debug.WriteLine(“Throttle: ” + esky.GetThrottle() + ” – Yaw: ” + esky.GetYaw() + ” – Pitch: ” + esky.GetPitch() + ” – Roll: ” + esky.GetRoll());

You can download the c# source code here: ClESkyController.cs

Cheers,

Marc

Good afternoon!

Project ARCHA stands for Automated Remote Controlled Helicopter Assistant

The goal is to facilitate and improve control of an helicopter (E-Sky Honey Bee CP2) by adding a micro controller and various sensors to have it flyable by an inexperienced pilot.

*Please note that RC Helicopters can be dangerous, you could very well cut yourself, get hurt, injured, etc. You really should try to understand the source codes and schematics before trying to reproduce anything you will find in this project*

Project Outline

• Phase 1
  • Select a micro controller
    • Arduino Mini Microcontroller Module
      • Has 6 x ~490 Hz PWM pins
      • 14 digital IO
      • 6 analog Input (10 bit dac)
      • more details
  • Build powersupply for the micro controller, servos and additional electronics
    • 2x 7805 will provide 5volts 2x 2 servo motors
    • 1x 7805 will provide 5volts to the controller, sensors, wireless receiver, etc
    • a 3.3volt regulator will power the dual axis gyro + 3 axis accelerometer IMU
    • The DC motors will be powered directly by the LiPo battery
  • Hack a PPM signal from a 6 Channel RC Receiver
    • 6 Channel 72 mhz SunUP SU/R-6FM bought from ebay
  • Read and interpret the PPM signal using the controller
  • Build a battery voltage meter using a voltage divider
    • It is not safe to drain a Li-Po battery too much… according to various posts on rcgroups.com and heliguy.com usually around 10-10.1v is a good time to recharge it
  • Build a main rotor and tail rotor dc motor pwm controller
  • Select a servo controller
    • external servo controller will reduce stress on the microcontroller
    • will use Pololu Micro Servo Controller
  • Build algorithm to control the servo motors and dc motors from the ppm signal
  • Interface MLX90609 gyro with the arduino, will be used as the tail gyroscope
  • *The helicopter should be flyable at this point*
• Phase 2
  • Interface the Sparkfun 5DOF IMU with the Arduino via a MCP3208 12bit ADC
  • Modify algorithm to calibrate and take into account the gyro’s and accelerometer’s feedback to stabilize the helicopter in flight
  • Tune the Kalman Filtering in order to get a clear pan/tilt measure from the 3 gyro + 3 accelerometers cluster (6 degrees of freedom)
• Phase 3
  • Mount and connect a memory card that will be used for flight data storage
• Phase 4
  • Mount and connect a gps module
  • Modify algorithm to save the gps data in the memory card
• Phase 5
  • Modify algorithm so the helicopter can follow pre-programmed gps waypoints

Work Progress

• Remote Control – E-Sky EK2-0406A Mode 2 (Left Throttle)
• Voltage Divider / Battery Meter Circuit
• Receiver PPM hack – 6 Channel 72 mhz SunUP SU/R-6FM
• Pololu Micro Serial Servo Controller Problem/Bug with the Arduino
• UTC LP2950 Voltage Regulator Pinout
• Prototype: Completed
• Interactive View of the Prototype Board (updated september 4th)
• Firmware Version 1.0 Alpha
• PROBLEM! During testing I found out that my ground and +5v is getting really strong interference from the 72mhz ESky controller I’m using, I will test the following:
  • Adding extra ceramic capacitors
  • Wrapping the main circuit board with a Faraday cage
• After experiencing with capacitors and various noise filtering solution I am still having the noise problem that cause a huge fluctuation in my 5volt signals. I will post in a few days/weeks a solution involving 2x XBee Pro 60mW 2.4ghz 1miles range modules link to XBee Pro Manual.
  • One will be connected on an arduino connected to the remote control’s trainer port.
  • The second xbee will be mounted on the helicopter and connected to IO pins 0 and 1 of the arduino mini.
  • This will give us bi-directional communication between the remote control and the helicopter, an lcd display will be mounted on the remote to display feedback and status from the helicopter.
• Currently waiting for 5dof accelerometer + gyro imu from sparkfun so I can finish the helicopter part, when this is finished I will work on the controller part with the xbee pro modules, mounted LCD screen and keypad connected to the E-Sky RC Helicopter Controller.
• First video of the prototype with the recently added 5dof module here.

Picture of the prototype board mounted on the Honey Bee CP2 RC Helicopter: (click to enlarge)

Revised on October 16th at 08:20 AM by Marc Vieira Cardinal