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Re: [Paparazzi-devel] paparazzi user edition?


From: Andy Brown
Subject: Re: [Paparazzi-devel] paparazzi user edition?
Date: Wed, 23 May 2012 07:32:56 -0700

As someone still getting their head around the entire system and tool chain (for the last several months actually) my observations are as follows:

- it's quite hard to get things going on non-Linux systems and once you do it's difficult to get Linux and Mac based systems to talk (hard coded subnet issue)

- I don't care for ivy bus very much at all. It's quite brittle and only works on a single subnet.

- storing all the config files within the main repository makes keeping things updated pretty difficult - id love to see most of the XML get its own repo and the reference with a git submodule.

- The config files are quite opaque and there is not much documentation that is useful for someone not familiar with flying or telemetry or gps - (I'm just a lowly iOS programmer and network engineer type :)

- fixed number of waypoints are a bummer and it's all pretty brittle.

So what are you gunna do about it random guy from the internet you ask? Here is what I'm working on. Feedback welcome:

- tool chain is hard: I'm working on prebuilt amazon machine images running paparazzi and some better automated scripts to keep them up to date. I'll let the list know when I get the first version done so the list can try it out. My ultimate goal is to be able to configure and build from the remote system and just download the compiled result to be transferred to  the micro controller.

- ground station difficult to manage: Continue work iPad ground station based on the iGCS project from github. I have made progress and can dynamically bind to ivy bus telemetry from a ground station based as long as I have a copy of the xml config files on the iPad (writing my own parser for these was as fun as it sounds). I'm going to publish my work on Github as soon as I can get my fork out it's svn repo and up. It's by no means complete but I'm happy with the start. Eventually I want this on android tablets as well.

- brittle system: Finally I just want to try and understand the guts of the system better so I can start to help make it a bit more user friendly, less brittle and more robust. (I'm also going to need to learn Ocaml)

I hope I can help and would be interested in collaborating on making the entire system easier to use - we should not have to fight our tools and I would love to help build on the awesome work everyone has done!

- Andy Brown
address@hidden
IRC/twitter: magicbeef 
Team evaForge
San Francisco, California

Future work will be posted to github.com/evaforge

Feel free to contact me off list as well.






On May 23, 2012, at 2:43 AM, Tilman Baumann <address@hidden> wrote:

I think a lower hanging fruit and much more effective for beginners would be some ready to fly setups.

Clear straight forward hardware basis. Some cheap common airframe like from hobbyking that everyone can buy.
Straight forward wiring diagram and RC integration.
Parts that can be easily acquired everywhere (outside US).
And a pre-tuned airframe config that 'just works'™. Also with good annotations.
Perhaps a way to generate that from some 'meta' file which describes which functional blocks are used. (Telemetry type, IMU type)

Same for the GCS layout.

And perhaps some way of creating basic flight plans. Perhaps online with google maps...

I don't think the systems complexity is really a problem. Except for the 'get you going first' stage.
I'm not sure if it matters that it does not run on Windows. These days...


Ideally someone would start a kit business like diydrones. Where you can get functional units like pre-bound telemetry sets or pre-calibrated IMU.
All with the right wiring harness and so on...
There are quite a few drones or FPV shops. Has any of them ever voiced any interest?


On 23/05/12 04:04, wang yao wrote:
hi

i have been flied as a user for about 4 years,begin in 2008. At that time the project was the only one open source UAV in the world. i was so excited flying with it. and 4 years has passed,now there are more open source UAV project, they are easier to use,has better UI, config pages that you can quickly config your airframe. 

paparazzi project has a more powerful code,so i think if we can develop an user edition to make paparazzi easier to use for beginners? i think the user edition will have these features:

1. better GCS UI, that have everything needed on one screen. you can view board/airplane condition here. as well as  multifunction PFD
2. support for MAVLINK.
3. airframe/board config pages. you can config most popular Fixwing/Multimotor/Heli by graphical interface
4. different language support.

i have some picture of the openpilot gcs(attached files).

is paparazzi user edition possible in the near future? if so, what can i do to help?


Cheers
Wang


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