Hi guys

I'm new to this forum and I'm not quite sure if this is the right one for this question, me and a couple of friends are about to enter in a contest of science, we are thinking of making an rc plane that we will be modifying every year until it becomes completely able to fly by itself but we want to start with something simple. I am an accomplished rc pilot, no worries there as i have build and flown giant scale planes and I'll be designing an stable platform for the project, but what we are looking to do is to control the plane from a computer with a gamers joystick. Of course i'll have a standard airplane transmitter on my hands to recover the plane in case the joystick system fails.

So my exact question is. How can we accomplish this? how can i make mi laptop to control the airplane with a gamers joystick? i have 3 months to design the airplane, build it, test it and of course to create the system for the laptop and the joystick

Hope someone can help me

Sergio

You are, essentially, building another remote control to the one you already have.

So quite apart from the obvious, Laptop and Joystick, you will need some way to read the joystick and code it into commands then send it out the serial port. Have a look at http://www.roborealm.com for this, makes the job much simpler.

From the serial port you are going to need to send it to the plane, something like the XTend or XBee modems should do the trick for you.

In the plane you need a microprocessor board to connect the modem to and multiplex you Rx signals and autopilot signals to the servos.
Have a look at http://www.millswoodeng.com.au

Then you will need an autopilot to interpret the commands and turn them into servo pulses. Something like the Ardupilot might do the job here, at least it is cheap at only $25US, check out http://www.diydrones.com. They also have some opensource code that will get you started and it already handles stabilisation, which is another aspect you will need to look at.

I trust this is enough info to get you started.

Mike

OMG XD thanks that info Mike

I think i'll need to read a bit more in those pages you gave me i guess there will be more questions in the future when i start to build the system of the joystick, hope to get help from you here again or from the other guys. I'll start to design the plane for the project and also to buy the stuff needed.

Thanks again Mike
Sergio

sr: There are a few short cuts you can take. I am in Guadalajara, participating in the Hydra project. Send me a private message and we can probably help you.