Media

Paparazzi in the News ‘Ghetto’ plane soars When a group of USU students arrived at a national robotic airplane contest, judges said their entry would never fly. Unmanned Aerial Vehicles Team Places 2nd at AUVSI Competition - July 1, 2008 The Open Source Autonomous Multiple Unmanned Aerial Vehicles Build Fly and Beyond (OSAM-UAV-BFB) team of Austin Jensen, Cal Coopmans, Christopher Hall, Di Long, Haiyang Chao, Mitchel Humpherys, and team captain Daniel Morgan, won $8,000 of the $45,000 total prize money for 2nd place overall at the Association for Unmanned Vehicles Systems International (AUVSI) competition in St. Inigoes, Maryland in June. Flight International: COTS UAV makes arctic debut - April 3, 2008 A Norwegian university has flown an autonomous unmanned air vehicle equipped with meteorological sensors over the Spitzbergen/Svalbard island in the arctic circle in temperatures of -20 degrees C (-4 degrees F), winds up to 15m/s (50ft/s) and at an altitude of 4,900ft (1,500m). The Multiplex Funjet UAV was modified with electronics for open-source Paparazzi autopilot software… DIY DRONES: Interview: Martin Müller and the Paparazzi Project (now less DIY!) - March 25, 2008 DIY DRONES has been following the Paparazzi autopilot project with interest for several years. It's a European open source technology initiative that has created both thermopile (infrared sensor) and gyro-based autopilot hardware, along with quite sophisticated software to run it… SPIEGEL Online: Projekt "Paparazzi": Bau dir deinen fliegenden Spion - December 28, 2007 Unbemannte Mini-Flugzeuge werden derzeit vor allem von Militärs genutzt. Doch eine Drohne, die selbständig vorgegebene Routen abfliegt, lässt sich auch selbst bauen. Für etwa 1000 Euro bekommt man ein Flugzeug, das sich bequem per Software dirigieren lässt. Der Flieger macht nicht, was er soll: Plötzlich dreht er um 180 Grad und kehrt zum Startpunkt zurück. "Alles ist unter Kontrolle", sagt Antoine Drouin und die Zuhörer auf dem Chaos Communication Congress in Berlin lachen… golem.de: 24C3: Paparazzi - Open-Source-Autopilot für Modellflugzeuge - December 28, 2007 Demo von Flugplanänderungen zweier autonomer Modellflieger über Netzwerke Auf dem derzeit in Berlin stattfindenden 24. Chaos Communication Congress (24C3) zeigten Martin Müller und Antoine Drouin von der Ecole Nationale de l'Aviation Civile (ENAC) vor versammeltem Hacker-Publikum wie ein wenig kostenintensiver GPS-basierter Autopilot aussieht. Mit der ebenfalls dafür entwickelten Software lassen sich mit einem Netzwerk sogar mehrere Flugzeuge an verschiedenen Standorten verwalten… HACK A DAY: 24C3 Build your own UAV - December 27, 2007 The 24th annual Chaos Communications Congress in Berlin is already off to a great start. The first talk we attended was [Antoine Drouin] and [Martin Müller] presenting Paparazzi - The Free Autopilot. Paparazzi is an open source hardware and software project for building autonomous unmanned aerial vehicles. The main hardware board has an ARM processor and GPS. It uses inertial and infrared sensors to determine orientation and altitude. The four infrared thermopiles measure the air temperature. The ground is warmer than the sky and if you compare the temperature in the direction of each wing tip your can tell what angle the airplane is at. It's really that simple… Elector Electronics: "Flying Robots" - Feb 2007 As processors become ever more powerful we are witnessing the rise of more ’intelligent’ systems. We now look to sophisticated robots to assist or even replace us in difficult or hazardous environments. This is particularly true of military hardware where we have seen on our TV screens the use of unmanned aircraft and vehicles in some recent conflicts. The basic idea however is not so new; we take a look into the world of ‘drones’… MAV Student Competition - Nov/Dec 2006 The Air Force Research Laboratory Munitions Directorate and AUVSI’s Emerald Coast Chapter hosted the 2nd US-European Competition & Workshop on Micro Air Vehicles, MAV06, Oct. 29-Nov. 2. See page 23. "Flight International: Dragon Slayer" - November 3, 2006 The US Army battle laboratory is to buy several prototypes of the Miraterre Flight Systems Dragon Slayer hand-launched micro unmanned air vehicle (UAV) to develop it into a low-cost, expendable surveillance tool for soldiers... Compétition internationale d'avions espions miniatures: Un succès qui suscite un intérêt international - (cached)- October 5, 2005 5 octobre 2005 – Une équipe de cinq étudiants en génie de l'Université de Sherbrooke est arrivée première dans 4 catégories et 7e au cumulatif lors d'une importante compétition internationale d'avions espions miniatures, à Garmish-Partenkirchen, en Allemagne. L'événement nommé US-European Micro-Aerial Vehicle Technology Demonstration and Assessment a accueilli du 19 au 22 septembre 17 équipes provenant de partout à travers le monde. Chacune devait présenter un petit véhicule conçu par les membres et capable d'effectuer de la surveillance aérienne durant 30 minutes afin de détecter un terroriste dans un rayon de 500 m... Flight International: "French School To Go It Alone" - (cached) October 4, 2005 French national civil aviation school ENAC plans to demonstrate autonomous formation flight with two micro air vehicles in November. Two 1.4m (4.6ft)-wingspan, electrically powered Twin Star model aircraft are being fitted with GPS receivers and radio transmitters for the tests, in which they will fly about 10m apart, one following the other... Flight International: "Teams chase MAV prize" - (cached) - September 27, 2005 Open-source software, the foam-like material Depron and tiny infrared attitude controllers were common design elements among the 16 teams competing at the first US-European Micro Aerial Vehicle (MAV) Technology Demonstration and Assessment event, held in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany last week... "Flight International: Down Sizing" - September 26, 2005 As the first generation of micro-scale UAVs, exemplified by the remote-control Wasp, reaches the hands of military users, the US Army’s MAV competition in Garmisch-Partenkirchen provided a glimpse of the future. The winning University of Arizona team’s fixed-wing MAV transmitted video while flying autonomously via GPS waypoints using an open-source flight-control software package, called Paparazzi, originally developed by France’s national aviation school Enac. "Flight International Blog: From Fallujah to Garmisch-Partenkirchen" - September, 2005 Robots are often used in the media to instil fear with Frankenstein like stories of the scientist and corporation having gone to far with a humanoid machine destroying all before it. But on today's battlefield, and for this US Army sponsored event, and for the war of tomorrow the robots will, apparently, look more like model planes. DER SPIEGEL: "Bierdeckel auf Spionageflug" - July, 19, 2004 Doch es gab auch Erfolge. Im Wettbewerb "autonomes MAV" etwa heimsten die Franzosen Antoine Drouin und Pascal Brisset von der Ecole Nationale de l'Aviation Civile souverän den ersten Preis ein. Vor allem der blaue Deltaflügler des Teams, Gewicht 425 Gramm, überzeugte die Jury. Nach erfolgreichem Start aus der Hand schaltete der mit einem Heckpropeller ausgestattete Flieger auf Autopilot und klapperte in geringer Höhe problemlos vier zuvor einprogrammierte Wegpunkte auf dem Flugfeld ab.

Design Reports SUMO: A small unmanned meteorological observer for atmospheric boundary layer research (751k, PDF) - May 2008 Paper describing the meteorological campaigns on Iceland and Spitsbergen. Also available from the IOP conference site YAP - Yet Another Paparazzi (4M, PDF) - March 2008 Technical paper of the ENAC entry at MAV08 "easyDrone - La nouvelle interface de pilotage de drone (french)" (8.1M, PDF) - March 2007 This report describres a proposal for a new kind of GCS, highly dynamic (no more static flight plan) and using modern interactions (gesture recognition, ...) "The Paparazzi Solution"-(slides) (4.6MB pdf) - September 2006 This paper describes the Paparazzi project approach: The complete and integrated design of hardware, software, and airframe into a robust and reliable system, proven by formal analytical methods and thousands of flight hours. Best Oral / Technical Presentation - MAV-06 Brisset, Drouin, Gorraz, Huard, Tyler "Présentation JPO" (French) (8MB pdf) - October 2005 A brief presentation of Paparazzi@Enac Drouin, Brisset "Systémes Interactifs du Drone Paparazzi" (French) (1MB pdf) - Feburary 2005 Study of the ground control station interface Doscot, Mansouri, Poupard "Drones et micro-drones" (French) (10.5MB pdf) - 2004 Introduction to UAVs; presentation of the Paparazzi project Drouin, Brisset "PaparaDzIY : do-it-yourself UAV" (800K pdf) - 2004 Guidelines and tools for amateur UAVs Drouin, Brisset "Traitement de la video" (French) (2.7MB pdf) - 2004 Video data processing Matthieu Tobie "PapaBench : A Free Real-Time Benchmark" (365K pdf) This paper presents PapaBench, a free real-time benchmark and compares it with the existing benchmark suites. It is designed to be valuable for experimental works in WCET computation and may be also useful for scheduling analysis. This benchmark is based on the Paparazzi project that represents a real-time application, developed to be embedded on different Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV). Fadia Nemer, Hugues Cassé, Pascal Sainrat, Jean-Paul Bahsoun and Marianne De Michiel "Calibration d’un récepteur Infra-Rouge pour Micro Drone" (French) (800K zip) - January 2004 Hybridization of GPS and infrared data En fonctionnement normal le filtre de Kalman propose un meilleur fonctionnement que la régression linéaire. Dans le cas de conditions changeantes, sans panne, le filtre de Kalman s’adapte mieux que la régression linéaire. Par contre dans le cas d’une panne, le filtre de Kalman ne l’a détecte pas et provoque une dérive du drone. Hybridization of GPS and infrared data Sébastien BINAS, Sylvain DEPLANCHE, Aurélien HADIDA, (IENAC01L) Manuals "User's Manual" (1.5M, pdf) - February 2008 This document is a quick guide to use the Paparazzi system. It is divided into two parts. In the first part an extensive procedure, which can also be used as a check-list, is given to prepare a flight, to operate the UAV and to analyze the results. The procedure is described for a given flight plan and a pre-programmed and tuned aircraft. The second part gives a description of the different components and tools of the system. ENAC

Other Sites of Interest

Complete autonomous glider weighs only 2 grams including LiPo battery, I2C optic flow sensor for optical obstacle avoidance, stereo microphones for locating the source of audio signals, 200V power supply, and piezoelectric actuators.

• "Design, Fabrication and Initial Results of a 2g Autonomous Glider"
  (900K, PDF) - July 2007

  Utilizing the core technologies of emerging microrobotic structures, the rapid design and prototyping of a passive micro air vehicle with the final goal of locating an audio source while avoiding hazardous obstacles is presented. The airfoil and control surfaces are optimized empirically to maximize lift and maneuverability while minimizing drag. Bimorph piezoelectric bending cantilevers actuate the control surfaces. Since such actuators require high voltages, an efficient boost circuit is presented along with appropriate high voltage electronics. To locate audio sources, a pair of acoustic sensors is designed and prototyped using a phase detection algorithm while a custom optic flow sensor is developed to avoid obstacles and give estimates of object distances and velocities. Finally, each subsystem is demonstrated and the complete glider is integrated to demonstrate initial open loop control performance.