Graffiti drone

Tag your favorite (legal) wall with via drone.

Essentially the Graffiti Drone project is the following:

GML files -> Graffiti Drone -> Parrot AR Drone 2.0 + Arduino -> Tagged wall

Warning: this is still under active development and not everything is completed yet. The flight control is still a bit wonky. Suggestions and feedback are welcome as we finish building and testing...

Getting started

Build your Arduino circuits
Print the parts for the drone
Setup your Parrot AR Drone 2.0
Install the gem
Get taggin'

Arduino

We are using a Wifi Redback for this setup.

Hardware list:

Wifi Redback Yellowjacket compatible Arduino (with USB breakout board to program like the FT232RL)
2 distance sensors (HC-SR04)
DC/DC converter (TSR 1-2450) for Redback
Custom cable of mini-Tamiya female to split female / raw wires (mini-Tamiya out of the Parrot AR Drone battery is flipped)

Solenoid circuit hardware list (with suggestions):

Solenoid (HCNE1-0520) - may be able to find something better for the power/weight tradeoff
Diode (1N4004)
Resistor (2.2 kohm)
MOSFET transistor (IRLZ44)

The circuit layout can be found in the project under the schematics directory.

Steps for Arudino software:

Download the wifi server code and rename as 'CuHead' in your Arduino libraries area
Download NewPing library to your Arduino libraries area
Update the sketches/GraffitiDroneWiServer.ino sketch with your wifi hotspot information
Compile and upload

Tips and warnings:

If you don't flip the polarity of the mini-Tamiya coming out of the Parrot AR battery you will blow your diode in the circuit!
Arduino Nano w/ ATmega 3281 should be the board selected in the Arduino IDE or you will get an avrdude error when uploading
Make sure your CuHead/apps-conf.h has APP_WISERVER uncommented (and the rest commented out)
Don't attach anything to pins 9-13 of the Redback since that is used for wifi

Parrot AR Drone

We are using the Parrot AR Drone 2.0 for this project. If you want it to work with a different drone you should replace the argus gem with something else and update the GraffitiDrone.rb class to use it.

Update the drone so it will connect to your wifi network. You will need to do this every time you unplug the drone since the default settings are restored on startup.

You may want to consider getting a high amperage battery for the drone too to extend flight time and offset the power draw of the Arduino and solenoid.

3D printed parts

We use a 3D printer for the various pieces that extend and replace the body of the drone. See the 3d-models directory for the 3D Rhino and STL files for the additonal parts.

The AR Drone will look like the following with the new parts:

Spray can

We use the Montana Micro 30 ml spray can. You will need to adjust the 3D model if you use something else.

Software setup

Simple:

install gem graffiti_drone

Running it

Place the drone near a wall (within a foot or two) and run the following command:

graffiti tag FILE

FILE is the GML file you want the drone to tag.

Console output will keep you up to date on what the drone is trying to do.

Tests

There are some very limited rspec tests that have been added for a few of the modules, but more are needed.

Todo

If you want to contribute here are some ideas that we have had that would make the process even better:

Configurable starting point and size mapping for tags
Better system for understanding current position on wall (maybe computer vision based?)
Stencil mode
Actual PIDs for adjustment of wall distance and yaw

There are also a bunch of places in the code with TODO marked for changes and improvements.

Contributing

Fork it ( https://github.com/chrizbo/graffiti_drone/fork )
Create your feature branch (git checkout -b my-new-feature)
Commit your changes (git commit -am 'Add some feature')
Push to the branch (git push origin my-new-feature)
Create a new Pull Request

License

Code released under the MIT license.

Contributors

Chris Butler, Jason Dembsiky, Jon Phillips

chrizbo/graffiti-drone