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Build a Low-Cost Drone Using ESP32

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Re: Build a Low-Cost Drone Using ESP32

#121

Post by Fabricio20 »

the__alchemist wrote: post #96
Kadin wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is all true, but just to set expectations: the open source ecosystem seems to be lagging the proprietary world pretty significantly, unless there's some corner where development is really chugging along that's not making it out to the rest of the hobbyist market. Though there have been incremental improvements in flight control software, and video subsystems have moved (mostly) from analog to 2.4/5.8 GHz and dig…

That is consistent with my experience. My highlights: - Current betaflight devevelopers and leaders are incompetent (They inherited the code base from others), and are slow, and varying degrees of willing, to add higher-level flight-control mechanics (semi-autonomous modes etc). - The Ardupilot and PX4 configuration systems, and general experience, are user-hostile. Note that the converses of these hold: Betaflight h…

I think to be fair BetaFlight is not aimed at autonomous flight, when I got into this stuff a few years ago I was told "BetaFlight is for FPV (acro mode?)" and "iNAV is for Autonomous" and after giving both a try I can say that my experience on iNAV was much better for what I wanted (autonomous). BetaFlight worked wonders for flying around (very low input delay, etc..) but it was pretty clear it barely had anything related to auto control. Hells, it didn't even have a reasonable return-to-home!!! It would just drift diagonally in the "home" direction and try to land when it felt it was close enough.

iNAV on the other hand REQUIRES a full gps suite for starters (which for me was REALLY expensive) but you can do full waypoint navigation with just that and a barometer.

Of course it's been at least 4 years but hey at least it was pretty good back then already on the iNAV side!

Re: Build a Low-Cost Drone Using ESP32

#122

Post by the__alchemist »

elcapitan wrote: post #120
the__alchemist wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is consistent with my experience. My highlights: - Current betaflight devevelopers and leaders are incompetent (They inherited the code base from others), and are slow, and varying degrees of willing, to add higher-level flight-control mechanics (semi-autonomous modes etc). - The Ardupilot and PX4 configuration systems, and general experience, are user-hostile. Note that the converses of these hold: Betaflight h…

Interesting, I wanted to look into building a drone myself next year. Mostly to learn about tinkering with engineering and electronics. What are the issues with the codebases and their development?

This is a tough question to answer in detail: I encourage you to browse yourself. (They are all on Github) but: The BF code base in itself isn't too bad. The AP one is very complicated, and difficult to navigate. The names and organization are confusing. Compiling is finicky and slow due to the tool system they use, and it requires Linux (Note: The compile target is embedded!). I PRed an update to the build instructions, but it was rejected.

For all of these code bases, there is minimal or no documention: Neither guides, nor code comments. The functions, structs, fields, etc have no descriptions of their purpose or use. The modules, where you would expect a description of their purpose and use, instead includes the same license text at the top.

Re: Build a Low-Cost Drone Using ESP32

#123

Post by ActorNightly »

JKCalhoun wrote: post #76
ActorNightly wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The interesting/scary part is that its not that hard to weaponise these drones. You can make one drop a home made explosive pretty easily, fully autonomous. and then dump itself into a body of water. All for way less cost than a gun.

It's not scary when it is just a hypothetical. If this were happening with some frequency it would be concerning. Until then I suspect there is something you are overlooking, oversimplifying. (EDIT: I'm assuming you are talking about non-military use.)

Its one of those things where once you can buy "kits" for it, you may see its use. Ukraine war videos popularized the idea of using drones to drop explosives.

I could see Cartels using this to take out targets.

Re: Build a Low-Cost Drone Using ESP32

#124

Post by holoduke »

the__alchemist wrote: post #96
Kadin wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is all true, but just to set expectations: the open source ecosystem seems to be lagging the proprietary world pretty significantly, unless there's some corner where development is really chugging along that's not making it out to the rest of the hobbyist market. Though there have been incremental improvements in flight control software, and video subsystems have moved (mostly) from analog to 2.4/5.8 GHz and dig…

That is consistent with my experience. My highlights: - Current betaflight devevelopers and leaders are incompetent (They inherited the code base from others), and are slow, and varying degrees of willing, to add higher-level flight-control mechanics (semi-autonomous modes etc). - The Ardupilot and PX4 configuration systems, and general experience, are user-hostile. Note that the converses of these hold: Betaflight h…

Sorry but the main dev of Inav is a very experienced dev with a lot of knowledge. He has many youtube videos about developing of drone software/hardware.

Re: Build a Low-Cost Drone Using ESP32

#125

Post by mciancia »

fitsumbelay wrote: post #31

love everything here but I'm skeptical of real time control via wifi. for me there's always been a noticeable delay in video streaming and receiving control signal so I'm curious how this works?

Well, given how well game streaming can work (local, not cloud), I think low latency for drones should be possible :)

Re: Build a Low-Cost Drone Using ESP32

#126

Post by ActorNightly »

idunnoman1222 wrote: post #82
ActorNightly wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The interesting/scary part is that its not that hard to weaponise these drones. You can make one drop a home made explosive pretty easily, fully autonomous. and then dump itself into a body of water. All for way less cost than a gun.

I don’t know what drone you’re talking about but you absolutely cannot make a tiny Wi-Fi drone autonomous or drop things for less than a cost of a gun, every part of your statement is wrong. Currently anyone smart enough to build drone with 7 inch propellers and programmable GPS waypoints, improvised explosives … 3d printed release mechanism .. probably has a pretty good paying job and doesn’t see the value propositi…

>Currently anyone smart enough to build drone with 7 inch propellers and programmable GPS waypoints, improvised explosives … 3d printed release mechanism .. probably has a pretty good paying job and doesn’t see the value proposition of blowing things up

This is true, but the thing is, at least in United States, its not a matter of lack of talent to build these things, its mostly a lack of need to destroy stuff. Given how things are going in the world, where an assasin is currently being celebrated, I dunno if this is gonna hold.

I will point you to this: https://www.reddit.com/r/ForgottenWeapons/comments/15gd3nj/m....

In the same way, it can very well be possible to make these things under $300 with mass produced kits. Hook up a gps chip to it, and its easy to make it waypoint navigatable without manual control

The advantage of a drone is that the level of separation between the assailant and the crime goes up so much that it becomes next to impossible for Law Enforcement to assertain a suspect.

Re: Build a Low-Cost Drone Using ESP32

#127

Post by Panzer04 »

Kadin wrote: post #92
the__alchemist wrote: post #79

Note to anyone unafamiliar: There is a thriving "FPV" ecosystem of drones that can be DIYed. Example common setup, you can mix+match: - Small square PCB with the main flight control MCU (STM32), and some sensors - Smalls square PCB with motor drivers - Carbon fiber frame - Small PCB with a LoRa radio - Camera and video transmission system. (90s-security-cam style analog, or digital. - Brushless DC motors, props etc U…

This is all true, but just to set expectations: the open source ecosystem seems to be lagging the proprietary world pretty significantly, unless there's some corner where development is really chugging along that's not making it out to the rest of the hobbyist market. Though there have been incremental improvements in flight control software, and video subsystems have moved (mostly) from analog to 2.4/5.8 GHz and dig…

Depends on what you want. A lot of the interest in FPV is acro flight, not autonomous, so there isn't a lot of interest in improving that (at least for beta flight)

You act as if separate backhauls is a bad thong - I'm not sure that's self evident. Short range just seems wrong to me - RC transmitters outrage all of the current video tx systems, and in open air video tx is long enough that you run into problems with battery before anything else. The best video tx systems currently is proprietary (DJI).

Open source is good enough for what most people care about. An open source high quality video tx would be awesome, but obviously a significant engineering effort relative to everything else.

Re: Build a Low-Cost Drone Using ESP32

#128

Post by nostrademons »

hylaride wrote: post #86
the__alchemist wrote: post #79

Note to anyone unafamiliar: There is a thriving "FPV" ecosystem of drones that can be DIYed. Example common setup, you can mix+match: - Small square PCB with the main flight control MCU (STM32), and some sensors - Smalls square PCB with motor drivers - Carbon fiber frame - Small PCB with a LoRa radio - Camera and video transmission system. (90s-security-cam style analog, or digital. - Brushless DC motors, props etc U…

And a lot of it is all open source! ESC software: - https://github.com/am32-firmware - https://github.com/mathiasvr/bluejay Flight controller (you mentioned these): - https://github.com/betaflight - https://github.com/ArduPilot - https://github.com/iNavFlight Control link: - https://github.com/ExpressLRS (also uses ESP32/ESP82 chips) Radio Controllers: - https://github.com/EdgeTX 5+ years ago the vast majority of thi…

You can start for ~$400 - I just bought parts for 2 drones for my kids. My shopping list:

- Flywoo Goku F405 HD 1-2S 12A ELRS AIO V2 flight controller, $64, flywoo.net

- Radiomaster Pocket radio controller, $65, radiomasterrc.com

- EAchine EV800D VR goggles, $109.81, banggood.com

- Meteor 75 frame, $5, tinywhoop.com

- 4x 40mm props, $2.25, tinywhoop.com

- BetaFPV canopy, $5, tinywhoop.com

- TinyWhoop Pinch Premium FPV camera, $20, tinywhoop.com

- 4x 702 26,000kV brushless motors, $40, tinywhoop.com

- 4x BetaFPV BT2.0 550mAH lipo battery, $31, amazon.com

- BetaFPV 1S lipo charger board, $28, amazon.com

Haven't fully soldered it together yet so I hope I'm not forgetting something important, but all the parts have arrived, and I've successfully rough-fitted everything together. The Flywoo Goku board supposedly runs both Betaflight or ArduPilot on a whoop form factor. Note also that the biggest expense are one-time items that can be reused across multiple drones: the radio controller, FPV goggles, and battery charger are $200 together. The BOM for a single drone is about $150 these days, so if you're say putting together multiple ones for multiple family members, it's pretty cheap.

Re: Build a Low-Cost Drone Using ESP32

#129

Post by boguscoder »

jauntywundrkind wrote: post #32

Feels like a poor fit, given the limited number of cores available. Would be awesome to see rp2350 or some such, where there are very low power io cores available that can do work whether the main core is on or not. Embedded really is one of the best places for many-core, but it's so so rare there are good offload architectures and puny Programmable IO systems. Should out to folks like Silego/Dialog/Renesas with thei…

Even rp2040 is fine running a basic drone. Ive learned a lot from this project https://github.com/holsatus/holsatus-flight

Re: Build a Low-Cost Drone Using ESP32

#130

Post by nuker »

Kadin wrote: post #92
the__alchemist wrote: post #79

Note to anyone unafamiliar: There is a thriving "FPV" ecosystem of drones that can be DIYed. Example common setup, you can mix+match: - Small square PCB with the main flight control MCU (STM32), and some sensors - Smalls square PCB with motor drivers - Carbon fiber frame - Small PCB with a LoRa radio - Camera and video transmission system. (90s-security-cam style analog, or digital. - Brushless DC motors, props etc U…

This is all true, but just to set expectations: the open source ecosystem seems to be lagging the proprietary world pretty significantly, unless there's some corner where development is really chugging along that's not making it out to the rest of the hobbyist market. Though there have been incremental improvements in flight control software, and video subsystems have moved (mostly) from analog to 2.4/5.8 GHz and dig…

> Telemetry is typically separate from control, which is separate from video. Everything is very short-range and non-IP.

Check out ExpressLRS, very long range, everyone is using it today.

https://www.expresslrs.org/

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