[JdeRobot] Drone technology in JdeRobot

[JoseMaria Cañas Plaza]

Hi,

[support]
we are working on improving the drone support in JdeRobot. We have
worked with ArDrone-1 and ArDrone-2 from Parrot. Alberto
--almartinflorido at github-- created the driver for them (ardroneserver)
and Daniel Yague created the plugins for simulating a quadrotor in
Gazebo-5 [1].

Now we are:
- fixing small bugs (issues #196, #192)
- adding new camera resolutions according to the real drones (#194).
- finally integrating the ArDroneServer (#193) and the modified Parrot
SDK (#198) in our official repository.
- adding support for GPS, available at ArDrone-2-GPS edition.

Víctor Arribas --varhub at github-- [2] and Alberto are leading these improvements.

We are also exploring the addition of new lightweight computers on
board the drone, to extend its computing power. Some tests have been
made with Rikomagic MK-802 (ARM architecture) and I recently bought
two Intel Computer Sticks for new experiments.

[applications]
Moreover, we are working on new applications using drones (both real
and simulated). The visual landing of a drone on a car [3] (Andrés)
and the visual 3D self-localization from a drone (Eduardo) [6] are two
good examples. Iván [4] and Aitor [5] are programming drone
teleoperators from the web browser using latest web technologies like
WebRTC and ICE-JS.

The third edition of "Programming drones course" is on the road, now
with advanced contents. It will take place on November. In previous
editions we created and used the introrob.py component to run the
drone intelligence. Now it has been split into different components,
one per each practice exercise. Visual landing, rescue mission and
exiting from a labyrinth following visual arrows are the new
challenges.

Many exciting news and results are coming!.

JoseMaria
[1] http://jderobot.org/Daniyague-pfc
[2] http://jderobot.org/Varribas-tfm
[3] http://jderobot.org/Andresjhe-tfg
[4] http://jderobot.org/Irodmar-tfg
[5] http://jderobot.org/Aitormf-tfg (the introrob.py porting to web is on going)
[6] http://jderobot.org/Eperdices_PhD
-- 
Universidad Rey Juan Carlos
http://gsyc.urjc.es/jmplaza