Category Archives: Hardware

New Paparazzi autopilot Chimera released

March 20, 2017 Gautier Hattenberger

The ENAC UAV lab is proud to release its latest autopilot board. Named Chimera, it is based on the latest STM32F7 micro-controller and offers a large connectivity.

The design have been made with the ease of use and integration for end-users, especially researchers. With the usual features like IMU and barometer, the Chimera also carries a differential pressure sensor, a SD card slot, a XBee modem slot and a 5V power supply dedicated to external companion processor.

Please check the general pinout diagram below or the Wiki page for more details.

The Chimera have been successfully used on the hybrid airframe currently developed by Enac with the help of TUDelft for the control.

Community, Hardware, Release, Research, Videos

First flights of the hybrid vehicle Cyfoam with Chimera board

March 12, 2017 Hector Garcia de Marina 1 Comment

The Cyfoam is a hybrid vehicle developed at ENAC Drone Lab. The aircraft is a foam, with a 3D printed fuselage, version of the composite-made Cyclone.

The vehicle is powered by the new autopilot board Chimera! which executes the control algorithms developed by Ewoud from Delft MAV Lab. We are currently aiming at a total autonomous mode, e.g., auto take off and auto landing.

Community, Hardware, Release, Research, Software, Videos

Flying Parrot’s Disco aircraft with Paparazzi

February 24, 2017 Gautier Hattenberger 1 Comment

The Disco from Parrot is a fixed-wing aircraft designed for FPV with all the feature already available on their Bebop2, plus some extra things, like airspeed sensor, SBUS input and PWM outputs.

The autopilot itself is all integrated in a box called C.H.U.C.K. and it allows nice and easy flights with the SkyController2 and the Cockpitglasses, connected via Wifi.

Just like the Bebop and ARDrones, it is now possible to fly this drone using Paparazzi. Just connect to the plane, upload your code and you’re ready to go! Here is the video of the maiden flight:

More information are available on the wiki: http://wiki.paparazziuav.org/wiki/Disco

Special thanks to ArduPilot and Andrew Tridgell who implemented the driver for PWM output on this plane and his tips for debugging the Paparazzi version.

Community, Hardware, Release

1Bitsy & Black Magic Probe Kickstarter

November 29, 2016 Danika Esden-Tempski

As many of you know a programmer and debugger is a tremendously useful tool for many Paparazzi UAV based autopilots like the Lisa/MX and Lisa/S.

Our friends at 1BitSquared are running a Kickstarter to make a new revision of their Black Magic Probe JTAG SWD debugger and programmer with the addition of the 1Bitsy. 1Bitsy is a development board using the same CPU as Elle0 and Lisa/MX Paparazzi autopilots. It can serve as a good prototyping platform for payload control or for your next autopilot project.

Every hobbyist and hardware enthusiast will find these boards to be an indispensable part of their tool kit. Check out their campaign and spread the word! 😀

Community, Competition, Hardware, Software, Videos

DELFTACOPTER – Hybrid Drone on a Mission

September 20, 2016 Rich Burton

DELFTACOPTER, an electric, long range, transitioning autonomous delta-wing helicopter, is on a mission. What mission? In this case, it’s the 2016 Outback Medical Express challenge and the MAVLab Team at TUDelft has high hopes for their hybrid aircraft.

This year’s Outback Medical Express mission requires a UAV to pick up and bring back a blood sample of an ill-fated person called “Outback Joe” located at an inaccessible roughly known location 30 kilometer away remote location with unknown terrain.

Powered by PaparazziUAV, the DELFTACOPTER is also equipped with state of the art on-board stereoscopic wide field of view computer vision.

Property description	Value
Flight
Cruise speed	45 knots at 300 watt
Most efficient speed	35 knots at 230 watt
Maximum speed	50 knots
Physical
Weight	4kg
MTOW	4,5kg
Wing area	0,496 m2
Wing loading	8kg/m2
Span	1,54m
Length	0,6 m
Height	0,4m
Energy
Power usage in hover	280 watt
Main battery energy	10000mAh ~ 225 Wh
FTS battery energy	250mAh ~ 2Wh
RPM in forward flight	450 rpm
RPM in hovering flight	1550 rpm
Datalink
Datalink 1 protocol	Iridium satellite communication
Datalink 1 range	Global
Datalink 2 protocol	900 MHZ long range communication
Datalink 2 range	40km
Weather properties
Maximum wind speed	30kts
Maximum precipitation	Light rain

All the best to the MAVLab Team and their DELFTACOPTER during their Outback Challenge adventures.

Community, Events, Hardware

Paparazzi UAV at DefCon 24

August 3, 2016 Piotr Esden-Tempski

We will be at DefCon 24. A yearly hacker conference in Las Vegas, Nevada. If you are there make sure to say hi. To get in touch just send a mention or private message to @paparazziuav on twitter or a contact us in our Gitter Discuss channel.

1BitSquared will be there selling their hardware. If you are interested send them a message to @1bitsquared on twitter. They will have Elle0, Lisa/S, Lisa/MX, Lisa/M autopilots for sale as well as Lisa/S starter kits and Quad Kits. The new Black Magic Probe v2 programming and debugging adapter will be available at the Hacker Warehouse in the Vendor area.

See you there!

Hardware, Software, Videos

Drones vs. Retro-gaming: fly with a Game Boy Classic

August 1, 2016 Gautier Hattenberger 38 Comments

Some time ago, I found my old Game Boy at my parents’ house. So the first thing that came to my mind was: can I fly a drone with this ? (and also where is my Mario Bros cartridge).

So I spend some time searching the web to see if I could find some idea to solve my problem. And if it seems that piloting unmanned aircraft with a Game Boy is not so common, you can find everything you need to program it!

But you can’t expect to go directly to an old custom serial com port to a wifi-based drone without some intermediate steps:

Finally, the Game Boy is just sending the bitmask corresponding to the buttons being pressed (with an Arduino and a FTDI to convert Game Link signals to USB), and a small program on the ground station converts this into actual commands for the drone (an ARDrone2 from Parrot with an extra GPS in my case).

The result is here:

See https://github.com/enacuavlab/PPRZonGB for more information and source code of this demo.

Community, Hardware, Tutorial, Videos

Introduction to the G0 GPS

March 21, 2016 Piotr Esden-Tempski

Dear Paparazzians,

I made a new video describing the details of the G0 Paparazzi UAV GPS receiver module. In the video I go through and describe the several design decisions we made to ensure high Signal to Noise Ratio, good multi path GPS signal rejection and overall reliability of the GPS for use in airborne robotics applications.

I hope this video is helpful. If you think so too please let me know in the YouTube comments. If you enjoyed the video make sure to like it on YouTube and subscribe to the channel.

Check out the G0 paparazzi wiki page for more information about the GPS.

G0 is now available for purchase in the 1BitSquared store together with the Elle0 autopilot. It is available in both of our stores; the US Store and the German Store. So if you live in the European union, you can now buy Elle for your next UAV project without having to worry about customs and shipping time. 🙂

Cheers, and successful flights,
Esden and the 1BitSquared team

Community, Hardware, Release, Tutorial, Videos

Introduction to the Elle0 Autopilot

March 3, 2016 Piotr Esden-Tempski

Dear Paparazzians,

I made a new video describing the details of the Elle0 Paparazzi UAV autopilot. Elle0 is now available for purchase in the 1BitSquared store together with the G0 companion GPS receiver. In the video I go through and describe every IO pin as well as some of the design differences to the Lisa/MX Autopilot. Additionally, I describe how you can add a battery voltage monitor to your Elle0 using a voltage divider circuit.

I hope this video is helpful. If you think so too please let me know in the YouTube comments. I am planning to make many more videos describing different aspects of Paparazzi UAV, not only hardware but also flight videos and Paparazzi software tutorials and tips. If you think it will be useful for you make sure to subscribe and tell me in the comments what you would like to see.

Also, check out the Elle0 paparazzi wiki page for more information about the autopilot itself and diagrams of the system. Additionally to the Elle0 and G0 boards we have also released a matching R0 radio board and UU0 UART to USB adapter boards. We will be making videos describing more parts of the modular system we are working on soon. Whereas the Elle0 and G0 are already in stock, the R0 & UU0 are available for Pre-Order in our US store.

Cheers, and successful flights,
Esden and the 1BitSquared team

Community, Hardware, Software

Paparazzi UAV on Pixhawk teaser

March 1, 2016 Bart Remes

Hi all Open-Source enthusiasts,

Today we are happy to announce we’ll be adding an extra autopilot board to there long list of supported autopilots.

The Pixhawk autopilot board will be integrated in our next software release! The video shows the first flight with Paparazzi UAV on a Pixhawk, more videos will follow.

Why choose Paparazzi UAV?

If you are looking for an advanced, modular open-source autopilot which has features others can only dream of, you choose Paparazzi UAV.

We make it possible for you to choose the best software for your needs, on the hardware platforms that are right for your project.

Wishing you successful flights,
The Paparazzi dev team

Paparazzi UAV Blog