Eduquad

For the UAV platform, we have three quadrotors with basic hardware and functionalities developed by Unmanned Dynamics. Our lab has greatly upgraded the quadrotors both from hardware and software aspects. 

Basically, the hardware architecture of each quadrotor is consist of 3 interconnected sub layers.The first layer is the Autoquad autopilot board which is equipped with a 1MB STM32F4 microcontroller @ 168 Mhz and a EMI-hardened analog 9-degree IMU, pressure sensor and onboard GPS module. The autopilot board is highly versatile with 14 GPIO´s, 3 serial connections, SPI, I2C, uSD memory card slot and possibility to add custom expansion boards via expansion headers. The second layer is the middleware designed in ND with regulators and logic level converters providing convenient communication interface via UART and serial port.

The third layer is the Gumstix Overo FireSTORM, a computer on module (COM) with ARM Cortex-A8 processor @ up to 1 GHz, 512 MB memory and C64x Fixed Point DSP. With a DaVinci Digital Video Processor for graphics, 802.11b/g WiFi and Bluetooth, the COM provides powerful onboard extension and computation capability. It also provides USB, serial, UART and SPI connectivities for different peripheral devices. 

e-CAM 56_37x_GSTIX - 5 MP HD Camera Board for Gumstix® 's Overo® Series provides onboard vision capability

• VGA – 30 fp, HD (720p) – 30 fp, 5MP – 7 fps

• View Angle – 70 ° Diagonal

• Weight – 0.35 oz (10 gram) 

Hokuyo URG-04LX is the Scanning Laser Range Finder that is the best optimized sensor for environment recognition. With this lidar onboard, Eduquad will be able to perform simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) and fly autonomously in unknown areas.  

The Eduquad was upgraded with Pixhawk 2.1 flight controller, ArduPilot firmware and Rasperry Pi for onboard computing so that it can interface with Optitrack or POZYX for localization