Shrediquette - the award-winning multirotors by William Thielicke

Paul Escalier from TomsGuide.com just finished his article on my tricopter. It has become a nice story I think :-) Make Your Own Gadget: From Idea To Reality Table of contents A Time to Make Something Awesome A Little Bit of Background The Birth of an Idea Taking the Plunge: Buying Some Parts Building the First Prototype Overhaul: Taking the Prototype to a New Level A Few Polishing Touches and a Mini Conversion Future Developments and More Information Have a look at the article here: http://www.tomsguide.com/us/tricopter-diy-gadget,review-1552.html

Some of you might already suspect that I am trying to make my tricopter fly autonomously not only indoors, but also outdoors. I got some parts as a present from watterott.com (GPS & pressure sensor) and I bought an aditional compass sensor. First of all, I had a look at the GPS. It is a 10Hz, 65 channel SUP500F receiver ( SUP500F ). Results were a bit disappointing:  I am standing still during logging (~1 minute), with a free view to the sky and no clouds. Next, I tested the pressure sensor (Bosch BMP-085 ). I was just using some very simple low-pass filters, and results were pretty ok already: The sensor was moved several times from 0 to 2.5 meters. The compass ( HMC6352 ) also works pretty ok. It delivers very precise heading information, even when the motors are running. But, when the sensor is tilted, there is an error in heading (due to the principle of measuring). There are much more expensive sensors available that can correct for tilt, but that is not really a probl...