Thanks everybody for your warm welcome to the ArduBee initiative!
We’ve received many good feedback and interest from the community and we are working hard to push the ArduBee development limits even further. The form to submit ideas is still open and we are very happy to receive feedback from more people.
MAIDEN FLIGHT
Here’s a brief video of the ArduBee-0.2 maiden flight!
ArduBee is flying nicely in the air and only a slight, subtle humming can be heard.
I’ve just made a quick first gyro’s filtering with the basic throttle method for the Harmonic Notch filtering (thanks @anypiper), the PIDs are not yet tuned at all!
It has the main noise peak at 236Hz, this is the graph post filtering
MOTORS
We are designing the platform with different motors mounting holes patterns in order to offer a board-only version that will enable complete freedom to customize the motors and propellers selections for those who want to optimize for payload, speed or acceleration.
Furthermore depending on the application/scenario and if externally mounted devices are used, it’s possible to screw the motors above or below the board and can be connected either with solder pads or a connector suited for dedicated motors, which we are manufacturing with our specialized partner.
luminousbee4 motors connector
BATTERY
Another important aspect is that the battery is so easily swappable, you need only a common Li-Ion 18650 without ANY modification. You can use an existing Li-Ion recharger or a charger (with Li-Ion program) with an XT60 connector.
ArduBee Battery holders
PROPELLER GUARDS
We are designing the best compromise between lightness, efficiency and robustness for the Ardubee’s protection. We are still working on this and we will be happy to show you our design very soon.
The actual prototype is a 1,6 mm thick PCB. Surface finiture is golden ENIG.
It’s also worth mentioning that we used the same PCB thickness in our 220g 5” version everyday for 2 years and in all the crashes we’ve experienced (a lot during intense swarm tests :D) just little harm was received by the board. Keep in mind that this is a much smaller and lighter drone so proportionally it will be more robust and moreover it will have an additional protection addon.
LOCALIZATION ADDONS
We are developing the GPS module as the UWB module for the autonomous capabilities as plug-in modules, they will be the lightest possible, perfectly integrated modules.
This is aligned with one of the core concepts of ArduBee: flexibility.
Don’t worry, we are already devoted to this add on concepts from all our in-house 5’’ fleet.
CAMERA ADDON
We still need to find the most interesting simple camera to support (for FPV or photos), and an advanced camera module to enable computer vision capabilities. If you have experience in this area, please get in touch! We would love to learn from you!
To enable camera tasks and other kinds of research we’re thinking about offering off-the-shelf support to the Raspberry Pi Zero as a companion computer.
What do you think? If you like to share your suggestions don’t hesitate to comment here, this is a tool for the community!
If you haven’t already done it, please fill the following form to receive updates on the Kickstarter launch and to be involved in the development.