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autonomous helicopter project

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rashidme

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I am planning on doing an autonomous helicopter project for my final year. I have decided to use pic18f4520 since this is what i have been playing with. My design will have ultrasonic range sensors that will feed into the pic and based on that the pic will send signals to the helicopter receiver unit.

What i am having difficulty with is how would i find what signals are used to move the heli left/right and up/down?

thank you for your help.
 
I am planning on doing an autonomous helicopter project for my final year. I have decided to use pic18f4520 since this is what i have been playing with. My design will have ultrasonic range sensors that will feed into the pic and based on that the pic will send signals to the helicopter receiver unit.

What i am having difficulty with is how would i find what signals are used to move the heli left/right and up/down?

thank you for your help.

You may already know this, but RC servos are used to control the yaw, pitch and roll. This is done by adjusting the power-plant output and collective angle of the swash-plate, inconjuction with the tail rotor blade speed.

The servos are operated by signals received from the experienced control of someone manipulating a transmitter, which translates stick movements into clockwise/anticlockwise movements at the servo, which in turn adjust the power-plant output, swash-plate angle and tail rotor attitude. All of this is done by sight.

The actual signals used to simply move the servos are in the form of varying pulse-widths. IIRC, a neutral position requires a 1.5ms pulse...rotation in one direction requires a 1.0ms pulse to reach full range and 2.0ms achieves full range in the opposite direction. Varying durations between 1.5ms and either 1.0 or 2.0 can achieve servo positions between idle and full range in either direction.

For autonomous flight, you are most likely in need of a 3-axis accelerometer to even achieve a basic hover. Once that is nailed, then you can start to sense the environment and make adjustments to the flight path.
 
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I've got a Blade CP, and have been trying to fly for years. It's not that easy, not even sure a PIC would be up to the task, but then again I'm entirely self taught pilot, and of course never touched a PIC (AVR RULE!) :) You need pretty good reflexes to stay in the air, and the break pretty easy if you aren't quick enough. Very fast action. Don't expect to weigh it down much with extra hardware either. There are a few projects on the web, you might check them out. There was one one The Cornell projects site. Might also consider a quadrocopter, lift more weight, and easier to keep stable, steer by rotor speed.
 
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