R10 is a quadrotor/micro air vehicle, radically designed from the ground up to be extremely easy to build, modify, and fly.
Affordable Micro Air Vehicles (MAVs) will revolutionize activities and tasks ranging from sports photography to infrastructure inspection to academic research. For years, technologists have been promising that this revolution is just around the corner, yet our expectations haven’t been met. The UAir team set out to deliver on these expectations with the R10 Quadrotor, a product that we think makes aerial vehicles truly accessible.
Micro Air Vehicles (MAVs) are an extremely important modern technology, with many groups considering using MAVs for various applications.
Until now, in all of these applications, the cost and complexity of operating MAVs have presented barriers to widespread adoption - often the financial outlay for a single MAV ranges from a thousand to tens of thousands of dollars, and operators invest significant time in pilot training. As a result, many industries that could benefit from ubiquitous micro air vehicles have been unwilling or unable to invest and recoup the many benefits.
From the early days of design and prototyping to it's current form, we built R10 to be a development platform, a workhorse if you will, to explore the incredible potential for MAVs and robotics. By bringing down the cost for a powerful and customizable aerial platform the future is full of exciting opportunities. We think R10 will be a useful tool for researchers, enthusiasts, and the development community to offer new applications and work alongside us to build the future. We're using the R10 as a platform for future aerial utility vehicles.
R10 Quadrotor: simple, capable, affordable.
To address the problem of high-cost MAVs, we put our best engineering minds to work to reduce the cost without sacrificing performance. We designed the system to make use of modern mass-manufacturing processes such as laser-cutting, as well as modern aluminium alloys; we designed a smart frame design and low-cost high-performance electronics; and we developed advanced stabilization and positioning software to automatically stabilize and in some cases pilot the craft. The result is the R10 Quadrotor, a reliable micro air vehicle that is both simple to operate, and very low cost, making micro air vehicles accessible to everyone. R10 is able to not only take on duties that previously required costly air crews, trained pilots, or expensive MAVs/UAVs, but to do so very affordably; now anybody from professionals to enthusiasts can own an R10, and operate their own micro air vehicle, or swarms of micro air vehicles
The R10 is designed to allow payloads such as cameras or sensors to be attached, for use in a variety of tasks. Yet the R10 Quadrotor’s low cost and accessibility means that it’s also an extremely fun radio-control aircraft to fly: more maneuverable than fixed-wing models, yet safer and more durable than model helicopters; making it perfect even for enthusiasts.
The R10 Quadrotor is the workhorse of quadrotors; designed to act as a highly capable, versatile, yet low-cost and easy-to-fly aerial platform.
See our website for more details: www.uair.co
Product Details
The R10 Quadrotor is a multi-rotor craft, using four rotors to generate lift and hover.
Throughout the design process we have carefully considered each component that makes up a quadrotor, selecting the most suitable off-the-shelf parts for the best price-to-performance ratio, and where no suitable component exists, developing our own, focusing on low cost, high performance, and easy assembly.
Frame
The frame of the craft holds the motors rigidly at a fixed distance apart, and provide a structure to attach the rest of the flight electronics, batteries, and payload. Our R10 frame was designed using a slot-together system of laser-cut aluminium alloy elements. The design minimises the resistance to airflow from the rotors, and maximises the strength and stiffness while minimising weight.
Aluminium alloy is an ideal material to use for this kind of quadrotor, providing high strength and durability at low weight and cost, and more importantly the material can be easily drilled, sawed, or riveted as needed.
Flight electronics
The flight electronics in the R10 consists of four three-phase brushless outrunners, four ESCs to drive them, and a 3S LiPo battery pack. The motors and props, and battery are standard off-the-shelf components, meaning that that users can easily purchase replacement or upgrade parts that would be compatible with the R10. The ESCs are custom modified for enhanced multi-rotor performance.
The R10 Standard loadout uses 8A motors for good battery performance and light duty, while the R10 Advanced loadout uses upgraded 20A motors for extra lifting capability or better performance.
The default 2200mAh LiPo battery pack can similarly be upgraded for higher capacities and flight times.
Flight controller
Our flight controller, Thalamus, was designed from the ground up based on the powerful yet low cost NXP LPC1347, a 32-bit ARM Cortex-M3 microcontroller clocked at 72MHz. The flight controller contains fully-integrated sensors; 3-axis gyroscope, 3-axis accelerometer, and 3-axis magnetometer, which allows the microcontroller to handle the stabilization of the craft. Thalamus receives manual control input from an attached 2.4GHz full-range (DSM2 Spektrum-compatible) receiver, and controls the ESCs via hardware PWM outputs.
The choice of components and compact design minimises the cost of the flight controller, while still allowing plenty of performance. The processing power afforded by the on-board ARM Cortex-M3 microcontroler allows Thalamus to work as a stand-alone stabilisation controller, or alternatively, the native USB capabilities of the microcontroller (USB HID, USB Serial Port, etc.), or the SPI data channels allow Thalamus to act as a peripheral to a computer system, or a slave board for another microcontroller system. This means that it is possible to control Thalamus and R10 using small computer systems such as a Raspberry Pi or Pico-ITX/PC-104 computer down to other microcontrollers such as the Arduino. This flexibility allows users to interface with the quadcopter and develop high-level control applications using any platform with a USB Host port or SPI port that they are familiar with.
The software that runs on the controller performs the sensor fusion and control loops needed to keep the craft stabilised, as well as implements the other features such as different flight modes. We developed the software from the ground up, and we have released the code as open source, allowing you full access to the system, and freedom to completely modify and change the control system. Our function libraries allows quick and easy access to all the sensors and hardware on Thalamus.
The firmware on Thalamus can be easily updated simply by plugging it into a computer via USB, where it will appear as a removable disk, simply erase the old firmware by dragging it to the Recycle Bin, and load the new firmware by copying the firmware file onto the disk! No special programming cable or dongle required, just a standard mini-USB cable!
GPS/Telemetry
An R10 system with the R10 flight controller can be controlled using an RC transmitter and flown manually. The system can be extended by adding Hypo, the GPS/Telemetry expansion board. Hypo contains the same LPC1347 microcontroller, but is fitted with a GPS module and an XBee radio. Hypo plugs into one of Thalamus’s SPI expansion ports, and provides a plethora of new features, ranging from the ability to communicate position and telemetry details to a ground station laptop, autopilot, waypoint (point-and-click) flying, and follow-me mode.
Like Thalamus, Hypo can also be interfaced to a computer or another microcontroller system via USB or SPI, alternatively additional sensors can be plugged into Hypo’s expansion ports to use Hypo’s telemetry link for real-time data-transmission.
The telemetry link between Hypo and a laptop also allows the R10 to be controlled using a standard USB gamepad or joystick.
Add-ons
We are continuing to develop improvements, enhancements and upgrades to the R10 system, for example we’re developing an integrated camera gimbal for the R10 that provides a stabilised bracket to mount cameras, allowing for wobble-free aerial video; and a suite of gas and particulate sensors, allowing the R10 to perform duties such as surveillance, surveying, and airborne sensors.
Which reward should I choose?
I just want to fly quadrotors!
If you just want to step outside and enjoy flying these things, whether you're an experienced flyer, or this is your first foray into flying craft, then you would be interested in the $370 reward where you will get a standard R10 quadrotor system as well as an RC transmitter. However you will need to get yourself a battery charger. If you're already a keen RC aircraft flier and already have a Spektrum transmitter, then the $300 reward is for you. If you're one of the lucky early backers, the $270 reward is our way of thanking you for believing in us.
You will receive comprehensive instructions on how to assemble and fly the craft, and you can always contact us for support!
I'm a quadrotor enthusiast/builder!
Good for you! You can take parts of our R10 system and use them in your own quadrotor projects, we have a wide range of rewards just for you!
Rewards
Please note: we are making it our goal to dispatch your rewards so that they arrive in time for the Holidays, however we are dealing with an international supply chain and so there may be delays that are out of our control.
*We will keep you updated with the status of the project and revised dispatch date estimates.
All backers will be forever immortalized on our Partners page: http://uair.co/partners, pick the name you’d like displayed, and your own message.
Bottle opener
UAir is not only committed to making micro air vehicles accessible, we are also committed to making tasty beverages accessible.
UAir T-shirt
It’s important to wear clothes. Here’s our T-shirt. Join the club! Note: T-shirt designs and colors will vary.
R10 Slot Frame System
With these reward options, you receive the R10 frame. You can use this to build your own quadrotor, you will need: motors, ESCs, battery, and flight controller. Don’t forget to check if your motors’ mounting points are compatible!
Thalamus
With these reward options, you receive a Thalamus flight controller. You can use this with an existing quadrotor frame. But it’s not just a quadrotor flight controller, with some simple software modifications, it can be used as the flight controller for fixed-wing or other types of rotor craft too!. And not only that, it’s a general purpose IMU board suitable for use in robotics, connect it to your other projects using SPI or USB Host.
With some reward options, you will also receive a 2.4GHz (DSM2 Spektrum-compatible} receiver, allowing Thalamus, and whatever project it is connected to, to receive up to 7-channels of remote control signals from a Spektrum transmitter.
With some reward options, you will also receive a Spektrum DX4e transmitter, allowing you to remote-control your Thalamus.
Hypo
With these reward options, you receve a Hypo GPS/telemetry board. You can use this with Thalamus, or with other quadrotors, MAVs, robotics project, microcontrollers, or computers that have an SPI or USB Host port. Hypo then allows your aircraft, robot, or project to receive GPS information, as well as communicate with a ground control station.
R10 Advanced
With these reward options, you receive the fully upgraded R10 quadrotor, which includes everything in the Standard loadout, but with the following:
- 4x 20A motors (instead of 8A motors)
- 4x Pneumatic landing gear (instead of rubber bumpers)
- Hypo GPS/Telemetry unit
- 2.4GHz telemetry antenna
- GPS antenna
Note: To fly the quadrotor, you will additionally need a transmitter and a battery charger. With some options you will receive a Spektrum DX4e transmitter.
R10 + Q2
We are now collaborating with Quantum Robotics, to bring you a unique package: the R10 Advanced quadrotor, bundled with the Quantum Robotics Q2 XBee Handheld Controller, a programmable, customizable, and hackable XBee controller.
For more information about this, please see our Update #2
UAir Founders visit you
With this reward option, we travel out to meet you for one day. We can give a talk and demonstration at your organisation, school, or college, or we could just hang out and fly quadrotors all day. You also receive an R10 Advanced quadrotor kit. Please contact us before choosing this option if you live outside North America or Europe.
Be our next product
With this reward option, our next product will be named after you, and you will be the figurehead of that product. You also receive an R10 Advanced quadrotor kit.
The Story of the R10 in Pictures and Video
Getting to this stage has not been easy, when we started in early 2011, there were few MAV systems that we could purchase and fly, and available systems were multi-thousand dollar units designed for commercial and military applications. There were very few people trying to drive the technology forward and making things better and cheaper, for some time, MAV systems were only accessible to large businesses and the military. There were very few parts could be purchased at low cost, and for the most part, you were left to your own devices to bring together the many hardware and software components necessary to get a craft into the air. We persevered, using all of our combined engineering knowledge - mechanical design, electrical design, control theory, production engineering, the number of disciplines needed to bring together a commercial product was staggering. Yet this emboldened us, and gave us core aims to focus on: we would set out to create an aerial platform that would allow others like us to quickly and easily build systems using MAVs but without needing experience in such a wide range of disciplines - a computer scientist could develop and test advanced navigation systems using MAVs without needing to learn how to design electronics; a mechanical engineer could design, test, and fly new airframes using a base MAV platform without needing to learn about AHRS algorithms or control theory.
We have collected a series of videos that we took along the way to producing our quadrotors, and we hope they give you some insight into the story of the R10, and share some of our trials and tribulations: http://uair.co/r10-history
Risks and challenges
Currently the biggest unknown in the development process is the upgraded electronics, the original Forebrain/Seraphim stack that was used in the R7 is being upgraded by Thalamus, a new design that vastly reduces the cost of the quadrotor. However it uses a different accelerometer/gyroscope chip, and this change represents some risk; while on paper the specifications of the chip indicate that it should be more than capable of performing the task, it is always difficult to predict real-world performance without testing. We remain optimistic about how the new chip will fare, all signs indicate that it should match or better our existing prototypes.
The upgraded layout of the digital systems represents a not inconsiderable chunk of work - the new electronics effectively separate the low-level stabilisation and angle control from the high-level GPS positioning and navigation onto two physically separate microcontrollers (Thalamus and Hypo), whereas the system previously used one microcontroller board (Forebrain) and one sensor board (Seraphim). This split means reworking the flight code that is currently being used in our test craft, and extensive flight testing to ensure that there were no errors during the process.
A final challenge is the quality and timeliness of some parts, as several parts originate in China; there is always a risk of receiving sub-standard quality parts (as many Kickstarters have found), or parts being held up in customs (as we have experienced before). We are lucky enough, through multiple iterations, to be working with suppliers in China who have continually demonstrated an ability to reliably supply high quality parts, and have earned our trust and continued support. For the R10, we are also actively exploring sourcing more parts from US companies, doing so not only lowers risks and delays but also helps businesses we believe in.
