Open source UAV

The market for low-cost drones has exploded in the past two years. During this period, some new brands and models emerged, mainly multi-rotor helicopters, and some organizations and websites focused on the development of these products. Here we focus on some popular and mature commercial brands, rather than some latest exotic platforms born from startups or a research project. Compared with more customized solutions, to work on a platform with a wide range of uses, it is usually necessary to ensure that the hardware is well tested and the platform has long-term technical support. Here, we list some representative UAV platforms up to July 2015.

We mainly focus on those RTF aircraft, which need only a short time to set up and calibrate. However, RTF aircraft usually have limitations in programming and expansion, so it is difficult to customize. Here we not only discuss the application of manual remote control, but also include automatic flight. For each platform, we mainly pay attention to the sensors and control methods used by the aircraft. In general, all the listed rotorcraft have flight control systems, as well as some type of camera (embedded or as a separate device) and wireless data transmission connection equipment, and most of them also include GPS modules. The details are as follows:

Parrot launched the popular AR.Drone2.0 on parrotciteweb in 2012. Version 2.0 costs $400 and weighs 420 grams. It has two onboard built-in cameras, one at the bottom, the transmission standard is QVGA(320×240 pixel resolution), 60 frames per second, which is used to measure the ground speed, and the other is a high-definition front camera (1280×720 pixel resolution), which records video at 30 frames per second. The flight stabilization system consists of a group of three-axis gyroscopes, accelerometers and magnetometers, in addition to which there is an air pressure sensor, which can withstand winds up to 24 km/h. A pair of ultrasonic sensors can help the aircraft fly close to the ground at a certain height (up to 6m). The onboard flight controller runs Linux operating system. The code is not open source, but with ParrotSDK or other APIs, people can use remote access functions, such as receiving camera image frames, navigation and other sensor data online, and issuing speed control commands in all directions, as well as take-off and landing commands.