OpenWarfare.org

[via DIY Drones]

A company called Skilligent put out this video demonstrating computer vision based navigation that uses landmark detection.  I’d love to see an open source version of this capability.

Logic Sniffer

Logic Sniffers? Bus Pirates?? IR Toys???

Names can be deceiving. These little gizmos allow unfettered, real time access to the bits and bytes flying around us all day long. Now if only they had some wireless tools

This is a pretty nice talk by the guy developing the AttoPilot. It has a very impressive set of features compared to some of the more popular autopilots out there. I was particularly impressed by the Vector Navigation features and in flight trim and PID gain adjustments.

Via DIYDrones

I saw this article on Global Guerrillas this morning and had to comment on it. Apparently Iraqi insurgents have been using OTS hardware and some cheap software to intercept live video feeds from Predator drones. OMFG I can only hope that the control and telemetry links are encrypted. Once again hats off to GG for another great story. If you like this blog you should add Global Guerrillas to your list of dailies.

While I was browsing the RepRap site yet again (I neeeeeed to get a reprap). I came across and advert for the mbed. It is billed as a rapid prototyping platform (which it is) but it has a TON of features including 12 bit adc, USB host, . You can pre-order now and save some money. The only downside I see is that the IDE and compiler look to be in browser only. I’m sure someone will come up with a solution for that.

I’m a big fan hardware projects and have recently been playing around with a couple of Digi XBee pro modules for a UAV controller. Anyway I came across Travis Goodspeed’s blog post explaining a method for extracting keys from certain ZigBee chipsets. I won’t ruin the surprise for everyone so go on over to and check it out.

The folks over at InventGeek just released the plans and tutorial videos for making a paintball turret with pan (I think) and tilt. I really like these sorts of projects. They deal with a lot of the problems one would deal with when making a real gun turret…plus they are just fun to watch.

Via Hackaday

This is a cool project that aims to be a “universal remote” for those cheap IR controlled toy helicopters.The same group is also working on a visual tracking system as well. The main problem with IR is that you are basically limited to line of sight.  Even with that limitation the systems could be used for small scale simulations etc.  Kind of a poor man’s version of MIT’s SWARM environment.

Via HackADay

Via Hack A Day

Strobit is a neat open source project from strobotics creating a small cheap Arduino based wireless widget.  They are creating “personalities” which look like different sets of functionality.  It looks like they are working on mesh networking and solar power which would make this a great candidate for the Short Hop Messenger project.

As rapid prototyping /3d printing and DIY continue to converge we are going to see more and more of this sort of thing.  I did some digging and found his list of parts but none of them are printable by others at the moment.  He also has a forum at Shapeways detailing the build and a link to a video of it flying.  OpenWarfare should definitely try to get an open source version of this project together.

Via DIYDrones