First aerial video shoot

After allot of work, tests and a few crashes, finally our first aerial shoot in the open field.

Enjoy :-)

The video was shot on this location:

Finished version v1.0

This is the final version 1.0 with a 2 axis gimbal build with Meccano (which didn't last for more than 2 flights).

First test flight

This was it... We took the quad to an open space and finally did a real flight test. No strings, no holding it down, nothing... And it worked!!!!

Here's the complete configuration of this working version (v1.0):

Arduino MEGA board

Y83 IMU 9-DOF (or similar)

4x Turnigy 2830-800Kv  motors

4x ESC Hobbyking SS series HK-40A

4x Props 10x4.5

Turnigy 3600 mAh LiPO battery

Futaba T14SG 2.4GHz radio

Firmware: MultiWii v2.0

The vibration problem

If you want a steady quadcopter (or multi-copter), you need an accurate reading of angles (pitch and roll).

The reading is made through a combination of calculous (which I find really hard to understand) that mixes the information of a 3-axis accelerometer, 3-axis gyroscope and a 3-axis magnetometer.
When you have 4 motors spinning at 10,000 RPM each anywhere near your inertial sensor, you will probably sense all the vibration. I can bet you will.

When the vibration is very hard, no software correction or filter is possible. So a mechanical solution is needed.

This is how we solved the problem:

IMU anti-vibration mount

The IMU (9 DOF) is attached on an independent board, which is "floating" on rubber mounts. This absorbs most of the vibration generated by the motors, and the rest of the vibration is filtered out by software.

First 4-motor test

The four motors will lowly increase RPM until a lift is detected with the sonar located on the bottom. Then, everything will stop running.