drone News - Page 6 of 7 - CNX Software

September 10, 2017September 11, 2017 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 3 Comments

UFS 3.0 Embedded Flash to Support Full-Duplex 2.4GB/s Transfer Speeds

All my devices still rely on eMMC flash for storage, but premium smartphones, for example, make use of UFS 2.0/UFS 2.1 flash storage with performance similar to SSD, with Samsung UFS 2.0 storage achieving up to 850MB/s read speed, 260 MB/s write speed, and 50K/30K R/W IOPS. UFS 3.0 promises to roughly double the performance of UFS 2.0/2.1 with transfer rates of up to 2.4 GB/s, and separately, the UFS Card v2.0 standard should deliver UFS 2.1 performance on removable storage. Several Chinese and Taiwanese websites, including CTimes and Benchlife, have reported that companies have started getting UFS 3.0 & UFS Card v2.0 licenses from JEDEC, and Phison is working on a controller to support both new standards, and scheduled to launch in 2018. Premium smartphone SoC are only expect to support UFS 3.0 in 2019 and beyond, and hopefully by that time eMMC will have been replaced by UFS 2.0/2.1 […]

March 24, 2017March 24, 2017 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 6 Comments

Kudrone Nano Drone Shoots “4K” Videos, Follows You With GPS (Crowdfunding)

Kudrone is a palm-sized drone equipped with a 4K camera that can follow you around for up to 8 minutes thanks to its 650 mAh battery by tracking your smartphone location via GPS. You can also take matters on your own hands by piloting the drone with your smartphone. The drone also includes various sensors such as an accelerometer, a gyroscope, a magnetic compass, a sonar, and a vision positioning sensor enabling features such as auto hovering. Some of the specifications include: Storage – Up to 64GB (micro SD card) Connectivity – 802.11 b/g/n WiFi up to 80 meters GNSS – GPS / GLONASS Camera Sony CMOS 1/3.2 image sensor (13MP) F2.8 / H100 V78.5 / D:120 lens Image resolution up to 3280 x 2464 Video resolution 4K, 2.7K, 1080p, 720p Flight Parameters – Max altitude – 30 meters; hovering accuracy: +/- 0.1 meter Battery – 650 mAh LiPo1S battery […]

March 14, 2017 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 3 Comments

$80 BeagleBone Blue Board Targets Robots & Drones, Robotics Education

Last year, we reported that BeagleBoard.org was working with the University of California San Diego on BeagleBone Blue board for robotics educational kits such as EduMiP self-balancing robot, and EduRover four wheel robot. The board has finally launched, so we know the full details, and it can be purchased for about $80 on Mouser, Element14 or Arrow websites. BeagleBone Blue specifications: SiP (System-in-Package) – Octavo Systems OSD3358 with TI Sitara AM3358 ARM Cortex-A8 processor @ up to 1 GHz, 2×32-bit 200-MHz programmable real-time units (PRUs), PowerVR SGX530 GPU, PMIC, and 512MB DDR3 Storage – 4GB eMMC flash, micro SD slot Connectivity – WiFi 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.1 LE (TI Wilink 8) with two antennas USB – 1x USB 2.0 client and host port Sensors – 9 axis IMU, barometer Expansion Motor control – 8x 6V servo out, 4x DC motor out, 4x quadrature encoder in Other interfaces – GPIOs, 5x UARTs, 2x […]

January 31, 2017January 31, 2017 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 4 Comments

FOSDEM 2017 Open Source Meeting Schedule

FOSDEM (Free and Open Source Software Developers’ European Meeting) is a 2-day free event for software developers to meet, share ideas and collaborate that happens on the first week-end of February, meaning it will take place on February 4 & 5, 2017 this year. FOSDEM 2017 will features 608 speakers, 653 events, and 54 tracks, with 6 main tracks namely: Architectures, Building, Cloud, Documentation, Miscellaneous, and Security & Encryption. I won’t be there, but it’s always interesting to look at the schedule, and I made my own virtual schedule focusing especially on talks from “Embedded, mobile and automotive” and “Internet of Things” devrooms. Saturday 4, 2017 11:00 – 11:25 – Does your coffee machine speaks Bocce; Teach your IoT thing to speak Modbus and it will not stop talking, by Yaacov Zamir There are many IoT dashboards out on the web, most will require network connection to a server far […]

December 27, 2016May 29, 2017 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 8 Comments

JeVois-A33 is a Small Quad Core Linux Camera Designed for Computer Vision Applications (Crowdfunding)

JeVois Neuromorphic Embedded Vision Toolkit – developed at iLab at the University of Southern California – is an open source software framework to capture and process images through a machine vision algorithm, primarily designed to run on embedded camera hardware, but also supporting Linux board such as the Raspberry Pi. A compact Allwinner A33 has now been design to run the software and use on robotics and other projects requiring a lightweight and/or battery powered camera with computer vision capabilities. JeVois-A33 camera: SoC – Allwinner A33 quad core ARM Cortex A7 processor @ 1.35GHz with VFPv4 and NEON, and a dual core Mali-400 GPU supporting OpenGL-ES 2.0. System Memory – 256MB DDR3 SDRAM Storage – micro SD slot for firmware and data 1.3MP camera capable of video capture at SXGA (1280 x 1024) up to 15 fps (frames/second) VGA (640 x 480) up to 30 fps CIF (352 x 288) […]

September 26, 2016September 26, 2016 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Parrot S.L.A.M Dunk is a Ubuntu & ROS Computer with 3D Depth Cameras for Drones & Robots

Parrot and Canonical have partnered to develop the Parrot S.L.A.M.dunk development kit for the design of applications for autonomous navigation, obstacle avoidance, indoor navigation and 3D mapping for drones and robots, and running both Ubuntu 14.04 and ROS operating systems. The name of the kit is derived from its “Simultaneous Localization and Mapping algorithm” (S.L.A.M) allowing for location without GPS signal. Parrot S.L.A.M Dunk preliminary specifications: SoC – NVIDIA Tegra K1 processor Camera – Fish-eye stereo camera with a 1500×1500 resolution at 60fps Sensors – Inertial-measurement unit (IMU), ultrasound sensor up to 15 meters range, magnetometer, barometer Video Output – micro HDMI USB – 1x micro USB 2.0 port, 1x USB 3.0/2.0 port Weight – 140 grams Parrot S.L.A.M dunk can be fitted various drones and robotic platforms such as quadcopters and fixed-wings, rolling robots and articulated arms using mounting kits. The computer module is then connected to the host […]

July 21, 2016 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Gateworks Ventana GW5530 SBC is Designed for Drones, Robots, and Digital Signage

Gateworks Ventana is a family of boards based on NXP i.MX6 processor designed for embedded applications, and often include one or more mini PCIe ports for expansion. Their latest single board computer – Ventana GW5530 – is powered by an NXP i.MX 6Dual processor coupled with 512MB RAM, 256MB storage, a mini PCIe port, a micro SD / SIM card slot, micro HDMI output, and some I/Os. Ventana GW5530 specifications: SoC – NXP i.MX6 Dual Core ARM Cortex-A9 processor @ 800MHz with Vivante 2D and 3D GPUs System Memory – 512MB DDR3 (Up to 2GB as option) Storage – 256MB flash (Up to 2GB as option), micro SD/SIM card slot, serial configuration EEPROM Video & Audio Output – micro HDMI 1.4 port Connectivity – Optional u-blox EVA-M8M GPS Receiver with MMCX or u.FL Antenna Connector USB – 1x micro USB 2.0 OTG Port Sensors – 9-axis inertial module (accelerometer/gyro/magnetometer) Expansion […]

May 23, 2016 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 8 Comments

HawkEye I is a Compact & Lightweight COFDM / DVB-T Video Transmitter with Up to 10 km Range

Shenzhen Falco-Tech Corp has designed a small COFDM transmitter mostly useful for drones, unless you want to make you own very local TV station, that can transmit video from an HDMI camera such as GoPro Hero 4, and compatible with any DVB-T TV tuners as it sends the video unencrypted. HawkEye I DVB-T transmitter specifications: Transmission – COFDM technology Channel bandwidth – 6/7/8MHz (optional) Frequency – 200MHz-2400Mhz (optional) Forward coding – 1/2,2/3,3/4,5/6,7/8 Guard interval – 1/32,1/16,1/8,1/4 Range – Up to 1.5km to 10km SMA antenna connector Video Input – CVBS or HDMI Video Codec – H.264/H.265 encoding with hardware acceleration Resolution – SD/D1/720P/1080p Framerate – 25/30/60 fps Power Supply – 12V via 2-pin terminal Dimensions – 84 x 25 x 90mm (Aluminum case) Weight – 143 grams Operating Temperature Range – -20~60 degrees Celsius There’s no word about power consumption, so it’s unclear how it would impact fly time. I’m […]