Lego autopilot

[Connexxion]

Just found this vid on Youtube.

Does anyone know if this is really working or will it need major mod's?

link: http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=lego+autopilot

[Unterhausen]

didn't listen to the sound so the reasoning behind moving the entire servo is baffling me.

[chrisgornall01]

The sound doesnt explain it, but it looks like a simple way of controlling rudder without having to supply pwm to servo

[clolson]

I came away a bit disappointed, because I was expecting the entire airplane to be made of legos (and airworthy.) :-)

Still not bad for a simple setup ...

Somewhere I heard (maybe here?) that the mindstorm cpu was the same one used by the gumstix and the stargate (400Mhz PAX255). If that's the case, this guy has a *lot* of cpu left over for when he's ready to do a full kalman filtered IMU solution. :-)

Curt.

[Earl Jr.]

Here's the full specs on the NXT shown in the video (as ripped from Wikipedia):
Technical Specifications:

* 32-bit ARM7 microcontroller
* 256 Kbytes FLASH, 64 Kbytes RAM
* 8-bit AVR microcontroller
* 4 Kbytes FLASH, 512 Byte RAM
* Bluetooth wireless communication (Bluetooth Class II V2.0 compliant)
* USB full speed port (12 Mbit/s)
* 4 input ports, 6-wire cable digital platform (One port includes a IEC 61158 Type 4/EN 50 17 compliant expansion port for future use)
* 3 output ports, 6-wire cable digital platform
* 100 x 64 pixel LCD graphical display
* Loudspeaker - 8 kHz sound quality. Sound channel with 8-bit resolution and 2-16 KHz sample rate.
* Power source: 6 AA batteries or rechargeable Li-Ion battery
Maybe if you built several of these you could use the bluetooth for swarm logic!

[clolson]

Maybe if you built several of these you could use the bluetooth for swarm logic!

Or maybe you could bluetooth to a cell phone and use it to dial into the internet and track yourself over a wide ranging area ...

I've got something like that working with my linux laptop, I wonder what OS the lego nxt controller runs?

Curt.

[Unterhausen]

the nxt controller is open source. People are working on it. Very smart on Lego's part, they keep their customers loyal.

[Dragons_Fire]

by moving the entire servo, he can still use the radio to "control" it while the autopilot is running.

And if the autopilot completely fails, he can still have control over the plane..

[rob10000]

lego pan and tilt, too!

http://blog.wired.com/geekdad/rc_planes/index.html

video of it in action.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8YFsiZUyaok

[Unterhausen]

lego pan and tilt, too!


legos for some of the mechanicals, mostly there are two servos hooked up to his receiver.
Interesting point about the potential for control of the airplane after autopilot failure. Looks like an added failure point though.