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Subject: 
RE: Gyroscopes That Don't Spin Make It Easy to Hover
Newsgroups: 
lugnet.robotics
Date: 
Wed, 21 Aug 2002 15:44:12 GMT
Original-From: 
Marco Correia <marco@soporcel=StopSpam=.pt>
Reply-To: 
<marco@soporcel!StopSpam!.pt>
Viewed: 
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-----Original Message-----> Steve Baker
Sent: Wednesday, August 21, 2002 11:54 AM

[This is *WAY* off-topic - but it can't go un-answered]
[...]

Steve, to put this on-topic: Flybots / HoverBots ;)
here's more taken from the same article:

"[...] Rogelio Lozano, a roboticist at the National Center for Scientific
Research in France, said he reprogrammed his Draganflyer to take off, hover
about 15 inches off the ground and land without any human interaction.

He uses the built-in gyroscopes, but to compensate for any drift, he added
an extra sensor that measures orientation relative to an antenna. [...]"

-----Original Message-----> Ed Manlove
Sent: Wednesday, August 21, 2002 1:04 PM • [...]
With control theory though you can decouple the maneuvers
and greatly improve the pilot of such craft. So instead
of worrying about the unwanted effects of a forward
maneuver you just move forward.

On that subject, and also taken from the same article:

"[...] The pilot is still responsible for guiding the machine away from
furniture, plants, trees and other people. The programmers who wrote the
control software for the Draganflyer needed to balance the stability of the
machine with the responsiveness. Too much help from the computer produces a
very placid device that tends to stay in one place. Too little help and it
requires a master to manipulate it. [...]"

I have not looked at these products but I believe this is the
ultimate goal of using gyros (and control theory) is to
better help fly these difficult (and, yes, expensive) craft.

Again, from the same article:
"[...] Unlike spinning gyroscopes (like the kind often sold as a toy), piezo
gyroscopes do not rotate. Instead, they vibrate, detecting motion along the
axis perpendicular to the axis of rotation. Wayne Hillenbrand, the event
director of the Maryland Helicopter Association, says piezo gyros are so
inexpensive now that they are used with all modern model helicopters to keep
the machine pointed in the right direction. [...]"

UC Berkeley has a famous model helicopter that they used to
use control theory to decouple the maneuvering.  Also the
University of Rhode Island has a model helicopter (same
model) using digital control theory.

More:
"[...] A new, more ambitious four-rotor copter, called the Draganflyer III,
uses three gyroscopes, one for each axis. A computer polls the gyroscopes
and uses the responses to detect any listing or tilting before adjusting the
power to one or more rotors to fix the problem. If a Draganflyer starts
moving to the right, the computer cuts the power to the left rotor. If it
starts twisting, the processor revs two rotors to keep it twisting in the
other direction. [...]"

All these excerpts taken from:
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/08/08/technology/circuits/08HOWW.html
By PETER WAYNER

mc.



Message is in Reply To:
  Re: Gyroscopes That Don't Spin Make It Easy to Hover
 
(...) [SNIP] (...) tweaking (...) don't (...) well. [SNIP] (...) I don't doubt the cost of these hobbies are expensive and even expert controllers have their (expensive) crashes. And I think of the gyros as only a sensor. But what you do with that (...) (22 years ago, 21-Aug-02, to lugnet.robotics)

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