Hi so I started a project a while ago to build myself a micro brushless quadcopter which should have computer vision and range sensors on board.
So I wanted to ask:
What Board should I use for this and how do i make the processing on my computer/smartphone and send commands back to the uav to react to the cv (The board should not be bigger than 50mmx50mm).
What Software to use
My parts for now(I dont know if the board is possible for this):
Micro APM
minimOSD
4x mini brushless motors
4x 3A ESCs
Telemetry module to control the quadcopter
I dont have much experience with this topic so I hope somebody can help and explain me some stuff.
What you envision is one of the most advanced types of drones available, so it’s quite a lot to tackle without much previous experience. (From what I’m aware) there are no guides or instructions to follow for such a drone, unless you look at research papers and a small number of textbooks. You’ll likely need to learn about computer vision on its own, and also about drones (on their own) and then combine the two. The processing power needed for computer vision tends to be more than is done by a normal microcontroller (Arduino for example) so you’d likely need to consider a single board computer (small like the Raspberry Pi A), and a separate flight controller which you can more easily modify (like Arduino and the MultiWii project). Some basic feedback regarding your list:
Q) What Board should I use for this and how do i make the processing on my computer/smartphone and send commands back to the uav to react to the cv (The board should not be bigger than 50mmx50mm).
Note that the drone will need to be within a relatively short range (WiFi) in order to send and receive commands. If you’ve never done programming for an app which can use your phone’s WiFi, you’ll need to learn.
Q) What Software to use
You’ll have to use several - the most important one being the vision software and how it interfaces with the flight controller. You’ll need software to create an App for your phone (unless you want to try using a simple serial interface software), and software for the flight controller itself.
Micro APM
Sure.
minimOSD
How will you use this? This is for adding to a video feed, but you did not specify a setup yet.
4x mini brushless motors
Sure.
4x 3A ESCs
Cannot choose the current without knowing which motors will work.
Telemetry module to control the quadcopter
A telemetry module tends to just receive telemetry from the quadcopter and does not send commands to it.
Suggest starting with the following guide to quickly get you up to date with terminology and basic concepts:
Trying to do all this on your first try won’t be easy and if possible, the approach of first successfully making a custom quadcopter, integrating sensors and (separately) learning how to use a computer vision software and create an app will help prevent disaster.
