00:00:34.200
Smash AC! No, it's still going.
00:00:47.120
I think now if you guys do like single CA, automatic RA... You’ll be able to do that so when Rails 3 is supported, you'll be able to, and then migration.
00:02:23.200
You just go.
00:02:54.680
You have to give it.
00:03:02.680
No. Oh, hello! Good afternoon! Thank you very much for coming today.
00:03:10.040
We are showing you the world's first Ruby-powered autonomous blimp.
00:03:25.360
We never actually flew it in this large of a space, so there are a lot more airflows than we expected.
00:03:33.159
So anyway...
00:03:40.000
Um, we're going to do a manual retrieval.
00:03:48.080
Alright, so today we are not going to talk about web technology at all. Nothing to do with the web.
00:03:54.560
We have a little test flight of Road One. We will do a short history of open-source autonomous flying vehicles.
00:04:00.400
We're going to talk a little bit about our architecture and show you some of the hardware.
00:04:06.079
Then after that, we're going to make our own flying robot.
00:04:11.239
This presentation is completely different. We have no slides.
00:04:18.400
We don't believe in PowerPoint or Keynote; we're going for it!
00:04:23.800
We're not only going to do live coding, but we're going to do live coding of a flying vehicle.
00:04:28.960
And you can try this at home; it's a lot safer.
00:04:58.320
So this is a real blimp, the USS Shenandoah. It was the world's largest lighter-than-air vehicle.
00:05:05.440
It was built by the United States in the 1920s and at the time held the entire world's helium reserves.
00:05:12.919
Naturally, when it crashed and was destroyed later in the 20s, it was a bit of a problem.
00:05:19.280
And this event set flying airships back probably almost 90 years it would appear.
00:05:26.120
Um, physical computing—who knows what that word means?
00:05:32.680
Physical computing? Yeah, I know you!
00:05:38.639
Physical computing is computers that do things in the real world.
00:05:44.720
There are amazing things you can do—moving things, flashing things, reading instruments, and finding out what's going on outside.
00:05:51.520
A couple of years ago, a really amazing project started called the Arduino project.
00:05:56.560
Does anyone know how many people know what Arduino means?
00:06:03.360
That's great! For those of you who don't, it's actually open-source hardware, not just open-source software.
00:06:09.759
It uses something called the ATmega microcontroller.
00:06:17.199
The microcontroller is like the microprocessor inside your notebook computer, but it has a different purpose.
00:06:22.520
Its job is to communicate with devices in the outside world.
00:06:28.319
Programming in Arduino is done using C++, kind of like Scale.
00:06:34.599
A wonderful guy named Greg Bornstein said that's interesting, but I like Ruby a lot better.
00:06:40.759
So he created a project known as Rag, which is short for the Ruby Arduino development.
00:06:47.080
What it does is allow you to use a Ruby domain-specific language.
00:06:52.599
This means a nice little simple language to program the Arduino and convert it into the C++ code that's being run natively.
00:06:59.280
Simultaneously, another pair of guys, Chris Anderson, Wired Magazine editor, and his partner in crime, Jordie Mun, have been working on various unmanned autonomous vehicles based on Arduino.
00:07:05.840
We thought, wow, what if we could get this cool open-source hardware community and all the Ruby programmers together?
00:07:13.319
Then we'd really have something impressive!
00:07:19.759
So that was the beginning of Project Flying Robot about six weeks ago.
00:07:26.720
So let's take a look at the big picture.
00:07:32.800
This is the flying robot architecture. Here, we have an Arduino-based vehicle with an XB modem.
00:07:40.560
Anyone here know about XB? XB is a wireless radio frequency modem.
00:07:45.120
It allows you to communicate over long distances using very low power.
00:07:51.800
It uses the 80545 protocol, which most people have never heard of.
00:07:57.679
It’s a point-to-multipoint protocol designed for inexpensive low-power devices.
00:08:03.360
So one XB talks to another, and then we have some kind of ground control software.
00:08:10.560
In this case, we’re showing an application written in Shoes. Anyone here know about Shoes?
00:08:19.199
Alright, well Shoes is a way to create graphical user interface applications using only Ruby code.
00:08:26.080
This allows you to distribute them on multi-platforms.
00:08:31.080
So we thought, wow, let's just use Ruby everywhere for everything!
00:08:36.960
What other language is there? I mean, besides the other options.
00:08:43.200
But that's something I wrote my promise. I mentioned something about the web.
00:08:49.960
So this is basically the other part of the protocol.
00:08:56.560
One part is a digital protocol for controlling autonomous vehicles from the ground.
00:09:03.680
The other is a plug-in architecture.
00:09:10.160
What Ruby Arduino development lets you do is create Ruby-based plugins for all the different hardware devices you might want to communicate with.
00:09:16.399
That way, you don't have to know a lot about the different hardware to integrate it into the solution you're trying to build.
00:09:24.480
In our case, we created a bunch of new Ruby Arduino development plugins.
00:09:30.560
We built our Lithium Polymer battery, our digital compass, IR sensors, GPS, and all sorts of other things.
00:09:35.959
Unfortunately, we found out that this very small blimp envelope won't hold much weight.
00:09:42.079
So most of the software we were going to show had to be discarded for today because we couldn't carry enough.
00:09:48.560
So anyone that wants to help buy us a bigger envelope, talk to us later!
00:09:54.000
Now, we're going to take a little look inside at the hardware.
00:10:00.360
Yeah, hardware is cool!
00:10:05.440
Right, so we're going to bring up the camera here.
00:10:12.000
Che...
00:10:20.199
Camera: Hi! I put on my chat. People are going to start chatting with me saying, 'Hey! How's it all Ruby?'
00:10:33.520
Too bad Sky Captain is a terrible movie! Anyway, um, I don't know how you will see this on the camera.
00:10:40.000
But I was going to take you guys a little walkthrough of the guts of our UAV here.
00:10:46.960
The most prominent feature you can notice is the XD modem.
00:10:53.960
Anyway, I just held this up for you guys.
00:10:59.680
This is the XV modem. We decided to go with the Pro because of its longer range—potentially up to a mile.
00:11:06.720
However, considering its maneuverability, you might notice it can't handle much of a gust, even in the air conditioning.
00:11:13.440
So, I think it's probably limited to indoor usage for the time being.
00:11:19.639
Tucked inside here is the servo that we use for thrust vectoring of the motors.
00:11:27.239
It provides a little elevation control—up and down.
00:11:33.279
We actually used a clone of the Aro, which I have another one here called the door board.
00:11:39.080
For about ten bucks, it's basically the brain of your system in a pretty small package.
00:11:46.320
Although there are actually smaller surface mount versions of these same parts.
00:11:53.840
You can make them lightweight and hopefully cram a few more sensors into the GTO.
00:12:00.320
One little piece that we were able to add that we might try to demo later is a small digital compass.
00:12:06.440
We can use it to figure out your heading and navigate.
00:12:13.720
That was the only thing we could fit in weight-wise.
00:12:21.200
You may have noticed the video feed sign on the screen—up there.
00:12:28.640
We just used a small cheap security camera that operates at 2.4 GHz.
00:12:35.679
That was basically the only option we had right now because it was sort of quick and dirty.
00:12:41.760
We only had this idea not too long ago, and in the future, we might get a camera that can connect through the XV.
00:12:49.240
This way, we could deliver the signal without competing signals.
00:12:55.200
That was the cause for some interference that we only kind of barely got around.
00:13:02.560
But uh, yeah, we let a breakdown of the inside.
00:13:05.560
Also, we can use the XP modem—just another little fun tidbit.
00:13:15.440
Through a lot of trial and error, we discovered that we can program the board wirelessly using the XP modem.
00:13:22.159
This means if we want to upload new code while it's in the air, we don't have to pull it out and connect it to USB.
00:13:28.920
Also, we went with a Lithium Polymer battery for our power source.
00:13:36.280
They’re great due to their energy density and they’re pretty lightweight.
00:13:42.640
However, one note about them: you really need some sort of battery monitoring software.
00:13:48.800
This is part of our robot GUI, and you need that because if they go below a certain voltage, they will die and need to be recharged again.
00:13:55.680
If that happens, there goes your $27 battery. We learned that the hard way on a couple of dead ones.
00:14:02.960
There are ways to bring them back to life, but the law prevents me from describing it as they could result in fire or explosion.
00:14:09.520
So, you can find that online. It’s amazing how much stuff we've melted or blown up while learning about flying blimps.
00:14:15.840
So on that note, we're going to—how are we doing on time? Well, we're going to actually take a brief moment and create a new flying robot. Hopefully, let's see what happens!
00:14:22.160
So the first thing we're going to do is start a new Ruby Arduino development project. We'll call it 'LA Ruby'.
00:14:33.600
That is going to create the new skeleton for our Arduino sketch.
00:14:38.080
Then we'll turn that into a flying robot. Not a dangling robot; that's something else.
00:14:45.480
What that will do is take and overwrite our main sketch, replacing it with the flying robot protocol.
00:14:51.840
It's also going to install all the plugins for the different hardware that we're currently supporting.
00:15:06.959
We're going to keep the blimp tethered while we upload experimental software, just for obvious reasons.
00:15:13.200
You might want to duck when we say, 'Not right this minute!'
00:15:19.200
Alright, so here’s the basic project called 'LA Ruby.' I apologize for the screen resolution.
00:15:34.720
Alright, so the way that it works is it defines a standard list of commands that any unmanned autonomous flying vehicle would need to respond to.
00:15:40.280
For example, a 'hail' command when it is sent will prompt a 'Roger' response.
00:15:46.000
Things like elevators, throttle, autopilot, these are all standard interfaces which have already been defined.
00:15:52.200
You just need to implement those in order to make your own flying vehicle.
00:15:59.680
So let's start by changing our baud rate to 192.
00:16:05.520
The reason for that is the XP modems can only communicate at a fixed baud rate.
00:16:11.880
It can go faster, but the old cheap Arduino clone we’re using here only supports up to 192.
00:16:18.400
Now, we're going to define a couple of the hardware things that we need.
00:16:24.000
One of them is the software serial interface.
00:16:30.240
We’re about to upload this code wirelessly. If all goes well, it'll work like the Arduino.
00:16:37.600
So, this first thing is saying we're going to use a serial interface to communicate with the separate motor controller controlling our motors.
00:16:44.240
We're going to assign it pin three and ten from our Arduino's input outputs.
00:16:50.560
Let's just call it 'main engines'.
00:16:57.360
And we also need a reset pin, which is going to be an output pin.
00:17:02.720
Come back; it's not supposed to do that.
00:17:08.640
Yet that's why I wish I had planned to do this.
00:17:15.679
So, pin four is going to be the main reset.
00:17:22.280
Once you pick up your own Arduino, it's pretty open as far as what you can do.
00:17:29.640
So, we've defined our pins that are going to control our little motor controller.
00:17:36.000
Now let's make the throttle do something.
00:17:43.880
We’re going to say if our current throttle direction is forward, then turn the motors on and go.
00:17:51.920
Forward tip is the name of the protocol, so that’s why we have that.
00:17:58.000
We're going to say that motor two is the left motor and we're going to turn it forward at a speed of, let's say, twenty.
00:18:05.110
We went through several motor controllers, burned out motors and overheating issues.
00:18:11.340
This led us to control some larger sizes that can handle much more power.
00:18:18.180
With the new motor control, we were able to get much more power through the motors.
00:18:25.130
In fact, if I go full throttle, the spin of the motors itself will cause everything to go in the other direction, like a helicopter.
00:18:31.360
This is something we didn't expect to happen and was not something we thought would be an issue.
00:18:38.640
Our fix for that is a prop or reverse pitch.
00:18:46.000
So we counter-rotate them and hope they go straight forward.
00:18:53.240
Okay, so let's interrupt here. Sorry, but here we're saying if the current throttle direction is forward.
00:19:01.040
We're going to turn on both motors going forward at a strength of twenty; otherwise, we will turn them off to zero.
00:19:10.960
That way, we have a way to stop it.
00:19:16.080
When we were practicing this demo, we realized, 'Oh oops! We forgot to turn them off!'
00:19:23.320
So that was kind of embarrassing. The last thing we need to do is initialize the motor controller.
00:19:30.520
The controller requires some initialization, so in case something goes wrong, it will turn itself off.
00:19:38.960
So we say quick reset and we tell it to use the main engine.
00:19:45.480
Okay, so now at this point it should be able to be compiled and uploaded.
00:19:54.480
Let's replace the battery so we don't destroy them.
00:20:06.840
Let's see what happens! It compiles...
00:20:13.840
Error! Live coding is quick... and we’ll try again.
00:20:21.760
Okay, so it’s going to try to connect wirelessly. Hopefully, this will work.
00:20:29.760
With all the wireless interference in here, if not, we’ll try again.
00:20:38.460
This is using AVR dude, which is a standard utility.
00:20:45.840
It connects and reads back to verify. It's written the data to the flash RAM that's on the Arduino.
00:20:53.760
Okay, we've just reprogrammed using that little sketch and made our own mini flying robot.
00:21:01.920
So let’s test it! I'm going to use the screen program to send it the serial commands.
00:21:20.520
Let's check its status. Operational!
00:21:27.320
Hang on to the tether. I'm going to tell it to throttle forward.
00:21:32.640
That should turn on the motors.
00:21:51.760
So as you see, it's just using a very simple serial communication protocol.
00:21:57.760
The amazing thing was, you go out, these guys spend like $2,000 on this amazing flying airplane.
00:22:04.480
And they're controlling it with this little $20 potentiometer.
00:22:10.560
If you go out to the United States government, do they use a remote to fly a predator? No! They use a joystick.
00:22:16.960
So that’s actually one of our next projects.
00:22:22.800
We’re going to use an Arduino connected to a joystick to create a complete standalone ground control.
00:22:30.000
This way, you won’t need a flaky laptop or computer.
00:22:37.280
So let's hopefully go back and reprogram it with the original code now.
00:22:45.600
We’re going to try to reload the code from before, which is a lot more complex.
00:22:53.040
Hopefully, it's going to work.
00:22:59.760
Keep your fingers crossed! We found that a lot of Wi-Fi interference is in the same frequency spectrum.
00:23:07.760
It sometimes isn't happy. But this time it made it!
00:23:13.880
We've just re-uploaded the original code that we were showing when it was flying around before.
00:23:20.080
Now it's verifying, so you can just use all the standard tools.
00:23:27.360
We're just providing ways that you can take different pieces around and combine them together.
00:23:35.360
Let's talk about the future for a minute.
00:23:41.680
If you want more information, go to flyingrobot.com.
00:23:49.520
You can also check out my blog at deprogrammerssociety.com and Damon's blog at myfirstairship.blogspot.com.
00:23:55.919
So right now, the Flying Robot gem is available as of yesterday.
00:24:04.960
You can actually go on GitHub, download it, and try this all out yourself.
00:24:14.320
If you have one of the more traditional Arduino boards that you can get from places like SparkFun.
00:24:21.760
This is when people say Arduino—this is what they're thinking of, not necessarily that.
00:24:27.520
But what we're really trying to show is that using these standard bits of open-source hardware and software,
00:24:34.320
you can go off and create your own flying blimp.
00:24:41.840
In fact, there's really a standard reference platform for Arduino-powered autopilots.
00:24:46.800
One of them is called Blimpduino, the flying blimp that Chris Anderson showed at the TCH conference.
00:24:55.440
If you think we had problems, they didn’t even get theirs working.
00:25:02.080
They stood there and held it the whole time. I really feel for those guys.
00:25:07.680
Luckily, because they learned all those things, ours pretty much work today.
00:25:14.560
Also, just so you know, while we spent a fair amount on development,
00:25:21.760
the actual parts in this thing, if you follow our parts list, is a little less than $200.
00:25:28.160
So for less than $200, you can have your own vehicle complete with the camera and the whole rig.
00:25:36.160
It's a really fun toy—that's great to play around with.
00:25:43.600
You know, if you want to cruise around your living room filming your family and friends, it's not that big a deal to get involved.
00:25:50.320
The stuff you learn about hardware—stuff I learned about soldering and batteries.
00:25:57.680
There are so many great ways to wire things. You know, I had never built a robot before.
00:26:03.760
So I figured the best way to go was to just jump in, way over my head, and start building.
00:26:09.680
See what you come up with. There were a lot of failed attempts along the way.
00:26:16.080
A lot of boards that we ended up having to scrap because we just didn't know what we were doing.
00:26:24.320
But we figured it out and worked our way through it.
00:26:31.680
We came up with something that's a lot of fun.
00:26:38.640
So yeah, feel free to go out there and jump into it.
00:26:44.160
You can make your own Paparazzi bot just like this one with a $25 camera.
00:26:51.600
So, should we fly one more time? What do you guys think? Oh yeah, alright!
00:26:58.640
Let’s do this!
00:27:04.800
The application written here in Shoes is also available on GitHub.
00:27:14.560
It's called Mercury, and it’s our digital compass.
00:27:19.440
In fact, why don't we show that?
00:27:25.680
We wrote a very simple little autopilot that isn't very smart, but it does sort of know how to find North.
00:27:32.040
So let's try it! We'll hit the turn on our autopilot.
00:27:38.480
Let's see how it's trying to find.
00:27:43.840
North. It looks like it's trying to find its way.
00:27:56.080
Oh, there are several... There's an LED readout on the motor controller on the Arduino D board itself.
00:28:03.520
And the XP—it wouldn't be an Arduino demo without a blinking light. That's kind of required.
00:28:10.640
Alright, let's turn off the autopilot.
00:28:22.080
F yeah, PL! That... they’re expensive!
00:28:38.320
We're not going home; we're just in the F all day.
00:28:46.640
We'll trade it for any one of these cars.
