IMAV 2012 and new xMega Board

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As some might have noticed, I didn't post news in this blog for some months. But now I  can announce my new xMega based control board and some news from the IMAV 2012 competition.

IMAV2012 in Braunschweig, Germany

We (team Akaflieg Bremen = Tumba & me) were participating in the IMAV2012 competition. In principle, the contests were similar to last year(s), see IMAV2011 post.
It was great fun again, all our copters worked very good and reliable. Also the video link was very stable, even at longer distances (we always use 5.8GHz 25 mW AV transmitters and a diversity receiver with directional antennas). The indoor autonomy competition was pretty challenging (see video below). These are the results for our team:
  • Outdoor Autonomy: 3rd place
  • Outdoor Flight Dynamics: 2nd place
  • Indoor Autonomy: 1st place
  • Indoor Flight dynamics: 1st place

I am not 100% sure about the results of the other teams, if you have information on this, please tell me, I'll add it to this post.

The conference and the competitions were so much fun, thanks to everybody that was there!!! See you next year in Toulouse hopefully....!

Here is a video from a local TV station that did a short documentary about our IMAV2012 preparations:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SM-ugRY_AR8


And here is a quick video from our competition flights:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E2fwMWeuqGw

And finally another short TV spot by RadioBremen TV:
http://www.radiobremen.de/fernsehen/buten_un_binnen/video38606-popup.html

I participated with two copters, the BOLT and my new BOLT S|2. Both copters use the ATMEL xMega32A4, which runs at 3.3V and with 32MHz. It is a very nice and powerful controller. One of my copters uses the ADXRS / ADXL IMUcube, the other uses a MPU-6000 IMU.

 New xMega board

The new control boards were developed in cooperation with other Shrediquette users from the german website Roboternetz.de . The goal was to make them as small and simple as possible with as few components as necessary. The final xMega board for the MPU6000 IMU only measures 16 x 18 mm, and it is capable of driving six motors with hardware PWM. The xMega board for the ADXRS/ADXL IMUcube measures 19 x 22 mm. Well, the time for my hobbies is still decreasing, but I want to keep my project open source of course. So I decided to upload the PCB Layout + schematics + the source code that I am currently using for both boards. But they are not really documented, they are not optimized at all, and they do not work with my GUI. But maybe some of you can make use of some parts of it:
xMega_ADXRS layout, schematics, source code
xMega MPU60X0 layout, schematics, source code


Pictures from the IMAV 2012 competition 

(Taken by Tumba and Matey)
William Thielicke BILD Zeitung
Location: Braunschweig, Deutschland

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