New Platform for UAV controller?

[HoverMonkey]

Sun has now a new device that could work as a pre-built controller with sensors: http://www.sunspotworld.com/

550.00 + tax + shipping according to their website but that includes 2 units plus a base station.

Add a GPS module with antenna, some servos, some Java Code and ?

I'm tempted to get one to try out.

[Jack Crossfire]

What's included:

180Mhz ARM
512k RAM
4M flash
115200 2.4Ghz modem, not XBee compatible, probably 1mW
3 axis accelerometer
thermistor
photodiode
6 A/D inputs
8 LED's
GPIO's
750mAh battery

It's amazing what strange projects a gigantic corporation like Sun has in its woodwork.

[Unterhausen]

funny thing is that microsoft has injected themselves into this market too. the crossbow iMote 2 now comes with MS visual studio. The imote 2 looks better to me, but it's a little more money and the packaging of the computer itself isn't as nice.

[UAVGeek]

I'm looking at the netburner 5270 series. Comes with dev kit + a real time kernel uCSos2 for $99 ( 512k of Flash, 2MBytes SDRAM, 64k Internal SRAM)

The dev board also has a SD slot for extra memory storage.


The down side is that all interfacing is 3.3v OTOH, lots of PWM A/D Serial, Ethernet, I2C and SPI..


http://www.netburner.com/products/development_kits/network_development.html

I have a working Way Point system already running with a way point/tasking language. If I can ever get the SparkFun altimeter/barometer to talk to the board, I should be good to go.

Chuck

[HoverMonkey]

Hey Chuck, sounds cool, I just looked up the info on that board...sounds promising.

I saw these on SparkFun: http://www.sparkfun.com/commerce/product_info.php?products_id=8320

Looks to be an LPC2148 with firmware that's pretty cool. Allows it to appear as a USB media device when plugged in. Software can simply be copied to / from it. Also has Java JRE onboard.

Paparazzi Project has dual CPU. Would be cool if one CPU could be running this LPC with these features, maybe even Java doing video processing or ?

Seems the options these days are expanding considerably. Should be a lot of exciting robotics stuff ground and arial in the future.

[small_rcer]

And the SUNspots added a GPS somewhere in the project

http://www.flickr.com/photos/davidgs/257479456/in/set-72157594359387335/