"M. Adam Davis" wrote:
> I suspect you'd spend less time in development if you built your own
> positioning system.  Radio would work, using lights on the runway and a
> camera in the plane would work, you could even have a transmitter on the
> plane, tracked on the ground using three radio receivers with all the
> heavy computations done by the computer on the ground.  You may want to
> go this route first only to make it easier to program the algorithms on
> the computer.

An inertial navigation system isn't too hard to do.

> The hardest part, I suspect, is not the actual mechanisms for tracking
> and autopiloting the plane but the algorithms that control it:

Actually, tuning the algorithms (w/o crashing) is the hardest part. The
"algorithms" can be simple uninformed control laws.

> Example:
> Up until recently two legged walking robots have all been built by trial
> and error and/or by keeping the center of gravity above points touching
> the ground.  The problem with doing it this way is that the algorithms
> are specific to the hardware/model they are using and are not
> generalized for other models.  When they do get the algorithm working on
> another piece of hardware they have to change hundreds or thousands of
> variables and re-tweak the algorithm.  Researchers have finally made a
> simple model, including equations to describe the model, that can walk
> and run in a dynamic fashion - with its center of gravity somewhere
> beyond its feet.  This model can be described in just a few variables,
> and adapting it to a different piece of hardware is a matter of changing
> only those few varaibles, not the algorithm itself.

Can yo provide any more info on this? I've been interested in walking stuff for
a while, but haven't been able to find any good papers on it. The best thing
I've seen so far is the trodon at MIT's leg lab, but they don't appear to be
talking about it.

> I imagine you are going to go with the trial and error method, and being
> able to program a computer on the ground in the situation is going to
> make this a lot easier.  I wouldn't try to do it with a PIC just yet.
>  Pick some fast high level language, or even create your own program
> with a scripting language so you can go through the trials more easily.

Actually, the MP1000 used two PIC's (I forget which ones) and could keep a
vehicle in the air. Although its handling qualities left much to be desired and
it certainly couldn't land.

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