In my last blog entry I presented our new HW-0.20 boards. Today I would like to show you our finished HW-0.20 prototype boards.
As you all know we were busy porting the NGOS from HW-0.10 to HW-0.20. A lot of design changes and new peripherals need to be supported while still being downward compatible to HW-0.10.
Being downward compatible allows us to release one HEX file for all existing hardware platforms. This is important since the planed Mini-NG will have a similar design as the HW-0.10. You don't need air pressure and GPS for mini Quads and Funflyers, so we will downsize the new design later on to a one-board design for fun flying.
The port of the NGOS is working fine and starts to support the new devices and different hardware platforms.
Here you can see how the NGOS detects the hardware platform it's running on:
# show version Wolferl-NG, Version 0.42 pre-beta (non-public), Revision r2352 FC HW-ID: FC-0.20 SB HW-ID: SB-0.20
In the next section you can see how the NGOS probed for the available devices and then activated their associated drivers:
# show devices Detected devices: Addr Bus Description 0x02 ADC16 ADXRS MEMS Gyroscope 16bit (nick) 0x03 ADC16 ADXRS MEMS Gyroscope 16bit (roll) 0x00 ADC16 ADXRS MEMS Gyroscope 16bit (yaw) 0x01 ADC16 ADXRS MEMS Temperature 16bit 0x00 SPI0 LIS3LV02DQ 3-Axis Accelerometer 0x02 SPI0 ADS1255 24bit Analog Digital Converter
As you can see, most of the new hardware gets already detected and used. The 16bit ADC does not yet show up in the device table (difficult to probe) but it's already getting used to sample the gyros.
The peripheral CPUs do not yet show eighter. Some of our developers are working hard on their firmware and we hope to integrate the peripheral CPUs soon. But there is no need to hurry with that. We are fully downward compatible and so we are able to fly even without support for the RC-controller or GPS-controller.
The new hardware was fully assembled in the meantime and it's current state looks like this:
Since most of the NGOS now is ported to the new hardware and the new peripherals are supported now, we started to build a full Quadcopter with the new HW-0.20.
The first fully assembled NG-0.20 looks like this:
Update:
Tonight we did the maiden flight of the new NG-0.20! Everything went according to plans and except for a small sign error which we fixed within minutes, it all worked very well!
But see for yourself:
Wolferl-NG: HW-0.20 is airborne! from Amir on Vimeo.
We will continue our test flights in the next days!
Sir,
I am new in this fascinating field. I should be very indebted to you if you could help me to have the necessary informations (links, people, etc) in order to be able to build or bye my own NG-0.20.
Yours sincerely,
Georges
Welcome to Quadcopters George!
It's really a very fascinating field!
The new NG has not yet been released to the public. We are working hard to reach a stable state where we can do a first release.
We still hope to start beta testing at the CCC Congress in Berlin. This will take some weeks, while we take up the feedback and fix upcoming problems.
After that we will produce a new HW-0.21 containing all fixes, which then will be available to everybody! Expect a binary release with documentation at first. We will release the source code later on, when we had time to clean it up.
I would advise to regularly check http://ng.uavp.ch and it's forum at http://ng.uavp.ch/forum ... we will announce all NG related News there.
Regards
- Amir
Sir,
I am an english speaking. Unfortunately, some sites, you refered to, are exclusively in german language. It is very frustrating. Of coarse the contribution of the german school to this subject was all the time important. By restricting the access, because of the language, could create a frustration, maybe more important than the impossibility to look at the software diferent versions (eg axis decoupling in strongly nonlinear systems).
Yours sincerely,
Georges
Sir,
Could you tell which is the procedure to become a beta-tester? When do you think it will be possible to bye a card and the components?
Hi Georges,
Sorry for the long response time, but we were off for the 25C3 in Berlin.
I understand that the language barrier is a bitchy thing, but sadly many germans are simply not willing (and sometimes not able) to use the english language. We are trying to change this. The original of the new NG documentation is written in english and we added a english subsection in each forum section available. I'm also trying to make all announcements in english and german besides my blog, which is english from the beginning.
I don't think we can do much more... :(
Best regards
- Amir
Hi Georges,
There's no such procedure. There are so many who want to beta-test the new NG that we had to choose those with most experiences and know-how. But don't worry... we hope to release within Q1/09, so it shouldn't take very long until the NG becomes available to the broad public.
Be sure to check our forum for News!
Best regards
- Amir
Hi Amir,
A HAPPY NEW YEAR FOR YOU AND YOURS!
Many thanks for your answers.
Yours sincerely,
Georges