Paul René Jørgensen

Crazy me have been thinking about this for some time now. Those who know me know that I’m trying to make a part time business taking photographs from the air using RC model aircrafts. I have a dedicated page for some of the videos I’ve been making at http://paulrene.no/index.php/aerial-photography/. I even set up a page for my business at http://settfraluften.no (Norwegian only).

Anyway; During spring this year I got hold of a Sun Spot development kit and I’ve been playing around with it for a while. When writing a program to control servos using the built in accelerometer the idea struck me that this would be a nice platform for an autopilot. I’ve never worked in this field before so this is all new to me and a bit of a challenge. But if I can pull this of it would be a nice project and maybe something that would inspire others to do the same and improve it.

One of the first things I did was to assemble a list of parts:

• Sun Spot - http://www.sunspotworld.com
• Pressure sensor - MPX5100AP pressure sensor 15-115kPa
• GPS module - GPS-module EM-406a
• Headers - Stiftlist 2×10poler rak Au
• Gyro - MKS 380 Aeroplane Gyro

Along with this I need servos, RC receiver, wires and connectors.

The feature list as I see it just now will include:

• Way point navigation using rudder control
• Altitude hold
• Autopilot enable/disable using separate RC channel (landing gear channel)

I’ll continue to write about this as the project evolves. Stay tuned, this will be fun!

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 24th, 2008 at 02:10 and is filed under Airplane, Java, Photography.You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.