Community on Paparazzi UAV Blog

First flights of the hybrid vehicle Cyfoam with Chimera board

Sun, 12 Mar 2017 13:09:11 +0000

The Cyfoam is a hybrid vehicle developed at ENAC Drone Lab. The aircraft is a foam, with a 3D printed fuselage, version of the composite-made Cyclone.

The vehicle is powered by the new autopilot board Chimera! which executes the control algorithms developed by Ewoud from Delft MAV Lab. We are currently aiming at a total autonomous mode, e.g., auto take off and auto landing.

Flying Parrot's Disco aircraft with Paparazzi

Fri, 24 Feb 2017 21:40:45 +0000

The Disco from Parrot is a fixed-wing aircraft designed for FPV with all the feature already available on their Bebop2, plus some extra things, like airspeed sensor, SBUS input and PWM outputs.

The autopilot itself is all integrated in a box called C.H.U.C.K. and it allows nice and easy flights with the SkyController2 and the Cockpitglasses, connected via Wifi.

Just like the Bebop and ARDrones, it is now possible to fly this drone using Paparazzi. Just connect to the plane, upload your code and you’re ready to go! Here is the video of the maiden flight:

1Bitsy & Black Magic Probe Kickstarter

Tue, 29 Nov 2016 23:55:28 +0000

1Bitsy & Black Magic Probe Kickstarter

As many of you know a programmer and debugger is a tremendously useful tool for many Paparazzi UAV based autopilots like the Lisa/MX and Lisa/S.

Our friends at 1BitSquared are running a Kickstarter to make a new revision of their Black Magic Probe JTAG SWD debugger and programmer with the addition of the 1Bitsy. 1Bitsy is a development board using the same CPU as Elle0 and Lisa/MX Paparazzi autopilots. It can serve as a good prototyping platform for payload control or for your next autopilot project.

IMAV2016

Mon, 24 Oct 2016 21:43:49 +0000

The International Micro-Air Vehicle Conference and Competition was held last week in Beijing, China, organized by the Beijing Institute of Technology and the National University of Singapore.

As usual, the level of the teams involved in the competition is higher year after year and we had a great show. The team from the MAVLAB of TUDelft was participating to both indoor and outdoor session. During the outdoor, they unfortunately couldn’t show their best due to many communication issues, preventing them to fully use their RTK Bebop2 (and also some regressions in Paparazzi code, hum hum… :( ).

DELFTACOPTER - Hybrid Drone on a Mission

Tue, 20 Sep 2016 19:26:38 +0000

DELFTACOPTER, an electric, long range, transitioning autonomous delta-wing helicopter, is on a mission. What mission? In this case, it’s the 2016 Outback Medical Express challenge and the MAVLab Team at TUDelft has high hopes for their hybrid aircraft.

This year’s Outback Medical Express mission requires a UAV to pick up and bring back a blood sample of an ill-fated person called “Outback Joe” located at an inaccessible roughly known location 30 kilometer away remote location with unknown terrain.

Paparazzi UAV at DefCon 24

Wed, 03 Aug 2016 22:39:16 +0000

We will be at DefCon 24. A yearly hacker conference in Las Vegas, Nevada. If you are there make sure to say hi. To get in touch just send a mention or private message to @paparazziuav on twitter or a contact us in our Gitter Discuss channel.

1BitSquared will be there selling their hardware. If you are interested send them a message to @1bitsquared on twitter. They will have Elle0, Lisa/S, Lisa/MX, Lisa/M autopilots for sale as well as Lisa/S starter kits and Quad Kits. The new Black Magic Probe v2 programming and debugging adapter will be available at the Hacker Warehouse in the Vendor area.

Flights at the ISARRA2016 conference

Sun, 24 Jul 2016 21:58:21 +0000

Last May, the ISARRA conference (International Society for Atmospheric Research using Remotely Piloted Aircraft) was held in Toulouse, France (http://www.meteo.fr/cic/meetings/2016/isarra/).

The week before the conference, a few teams of researchers gathered to share experiences and fly their drones at the Atmospheric Research Center of Lannemezan near the Pyrenees. Among them was some of the oldest users of Paparazzi: Martin Muller (http://blog.pfump.org), the team of Joachim Reuder from the Geophysical Institute of Bergen, the UAV Lab of ENAC and the French Meteorological Research Center who was hosting the event.

Flying Robot Commander + PPRZLINK = Improved MultiMAV Management

Mon, 11 Apr 2016 06:21:31 +0000

For those of us that use Paparazzi to fly multiple MAVs, the current GCS does a great job of managing and presenting just the right amount of information for safe flight. That being said, there’s always room for new tools. It’s my pleasure to introduce the Flying Robot Commander, a PPRZLINK enabled web application for managing multiple MAVs.

The Flying Robot Commander(FRC) is a Flask/python based RESTful web application that integrates with Paparazzi UAV via PPRZLINK. That’s right, you can now write python code to access/extend Paparazzi UAV capabilities (NOTE: one of the main complaints about the current Paparazzi GCS is that it’s written in ocaml). In addition to python, PPRZLINK also provides C and ocaml libraries for those that need them.

Introduction to the G0 GPS

Mon, 21 Mar 2016 22:30:05 +0000

Dear Paparazzians,

I made a new video describing the details of the G0 Paparazzi UAV GPS receiver module. In the video I go through and describe the several design decisions we made to ensure high Signal to Noise Ratio, good multi path GPS signal rejection and overall reliability of the GPS for use in airborne robotics applications.

I hope this video is helpful. If you think so too please let me know in the YouTube comments. If you enjoyed the video make sure to like it on YouTube and subscribe to the channel.

Introduction to the Elle0 Autopilot

Thu, 03 Mar 2016 00:33:17 +0000

Dear Paparazzians,

I made a new video describing the details of the Elle0 Paparazzi UAV autopilot. Elle0 is now available for purchase in the 1BitSquared store together with the G0 companion GPS receiver. In the video I go through and describe every IO pin as well as some of the design differences to the Lisa/MX Autopilot. Additionally, I describe how you can add a battery voltage monitor to your Elle0 using a voltage divider circuit.

Paparazzi UAV on Pixhawk teaser

Tue, 01 Mar 2016 22:20:49 +0000

Hi all Open-Source enthusiasts,

Today we are happy to announce we’ll be adding an extra autopilot board to there long list of supported autopilots.

The Pixhawk autopilot board will be integrated in our next software release! The video shows the first flight with Paparazzi UAV on a Pixhawk, more videos will follow.

Why choose Paparazzi UAV?

If you are looking for an advanced, modular open-source autopilot which has features others can only dream of, you choose Paparazzi UAV.

1BitSquared launches German Store

Tue, 12 Jan 2016 14:40:12 +0000

1BitSquared has just launched their German online store. This is the first dedicated Paparazzi UAV hardware supplier in Europe.

With a store in Europe they can provide faster delivery times of Paparazzi UAV hardware for all the European users and developers. Now you can purchase Lisa/M(X), Lisa/S, Elle0 autopilots and accessories for Paparazzi UAV within Europe without having to pick up your order at your customs office. We hope this will make the entry into Paparazzi and working with the system easier, knowing that you can get new parts and hardware faster from a local supplier.

Wiki Front Page Update

Wed, 06 Jan 2016 16:51:39 +0000

With the coming of the new year we decided it was time for a refresh of the appearance of the Wiki front page. Stripping away its colorful design and removing the boxes around text we thought it would help make the information cleaner and easier to read. We have added new icons to help clarify how you can best connect with the community and where to find what you need.

We hope people like the new look of the Wiki and find navigating it to be an easier experience, as always new contributions are welcome. Happy flying everyone!

Paparazzi UAV at 32C3 Recap

Mon, 04 Jan 2016 00:28:32 +0000

Here is a short review of our Paparazzi UAV meet up at the 32C3.

For those of you who have never heard of the Chaos Communication Congress, it is a hacker conference that takes place every year between Christmas and New Year’s Eve in Germany. For many years it was held in Berlin, but with the increased attendance a larger venue was needed, it is now being held in Hamburg, Germany.

Most people arrive in Hamburg on the 26th of December for day 0 of the conference. We met our assembly in the large Hackcenter hall. EZ who helped organize lodging for a lot of us also found and reserved tables for us. Usually it was the CCC organizers who were reserving the tables for the so called Assemblies. This time they did not do that for any Assembly with less than a 100 members. This shows how big the event is getting.

Lisa/S Nano Quadcopter featured on sUAS News

Tue, 15 Dec 2015 17:41:50 +0000

In the light of the recent FAA registration limits, the great guys at sUAS News wrote an article featuring the Paparazzi UAV powered Lisa/S nano Quadcopter. This platform was developed by 1BitSquared in collaboration with the TU-Delft MAV lab team, provides all the autonomous capabilities while being way below the FAA regulated limits for registration. The Lisa/S nano Quadcopter weighs only 39g while the FAA requires all aircraft above 250g to be registred.

Multi-UAV flights for simultaneous meteorological measurements

Fri, 04 Dec 2015 13:53:30 +0000

ENAC UAV Lab team and Meteo-France (CNRS-GAME and ENM) teams have spent several days at the Atmospheric Research Center of Lannemezan (in the south of France) in order to perform experiments for simultaneous meteorological measurements through multi-UAV flight.

This was part of a research project called VOLTIGE aimed at studying the formation of cloud and fog events. One of the planes is measuring the turbulence near the ground, a second plane is flying above the cloud or the fog with a radiation sensor and the last one is making a vertical profile of temperature, pressure and humidity up to 1500 meters AGL.

Paparazzi UAV at 32C3

Tue, 01 Dec 2015 03:34:38 +0000

This year we will be having another meetup at the 32nd Chaos Communication Congress (32C3) in Hamburg, Germany. The event is happening from December 27th to 30th, 2015. Make sure to secure your tickets! When you are in the area, find us and say hi! We will have our Assembly there and will have lot’s of cool hardware and people with us. See you there! :D

Elle0 Autopilot

Tue, 01 Dec 2015 02:05:12 +0000

1BitSquared has released Elle0, a new Paparazzi UAV autopilot. Elle0 is the lowest cost autopilot developed specifically for use with the Paparazzi UAV framework. It was inspired by the Lisa/MX and Apogee autopilots and has been stripped down to the most essential features while preserving the flexibility that Paparazzi autopilots are famous for.

Here are some of the specs:

STM32F4 168MHz ARM Cortex-M4 microcontroller with FPU
- 1 Mbyte of Flash memory
- 192+4 Kbytes of SRAM including 64-Kbyte of CCM (core coupled memory) data RAM
- Cryptographic acceleration: hardware acceleration for AES 128, 192, 256, Triple DES, HASH (MD5, SHA-1), and HMAC
- True random number generator
3 axis gyroscope (connected over SPI for high speed sampling and low latency)
3 axis accelerometer (connected over SPI for high speed sampling and low latency)
3 axis magnetometer (connected over SPI for high speed sampling and low latency)
barometer (connected over dedicated SPI for low noise operation and low latency)
1 I2C auxilary sensor connection
2 TTL level serial ports for telemetry radio and GPS
2 serial input interfaces for remote control receivers (using Spektrum compatible JST connectors)
1 USB port for easy firmware upgrade
8 PWM outputs/inputs for servos or legacy PPM RC receivers
2 Analog inputs for system battery voltage and current measurement
CAN TX and RX lines are accessible

Mechanically Elle0 is designed around the 30.5mm M3 hole pattern, popularized by the Nano Quad community. But Elle0 can be used on more than just Nano Quads, it has everything on board to control anything from a small Quad through a big Octocopter to Airplanes or Helicopters. For an autonomous UAV you just need to add a GPS, Telemetry radio and maybe RC receivers. ;)

Parrot Bebop 2 Support

Thu, 19 Nov 2015 00:16:47 +0000

Parrot has released their new Bebop 2 camera quadcopter. Paparazzi UAV already has support for that new platform.

Thanks to the great work of the TU-Delft MavLab team and especially Freek van Tienen it is possible to replace the stock functionality of the Parrot Bebop 2 with Paparazzi UAV.

This change gives the platform a lot of autonomous flight enhancements like dynamic flight plans, as well as improved stabilization algorithms like the INDI controller.

BACCHUS Meteorological Project

Mon, 19 Oct 2015 11:38:31 +0000

Researchers from the GMEI/MNPCA have recently returned from a one month field measurement campaign at the weather
station of Mace Head in Ireland. Their report was very positive with more than forty scientific flights, up to 3350m above sea level, some of them synchronized with a
meteorological satellite overpass, for the study of interactions between clouds and aerosols. Several unmanned aircraft, equipped with the Paparazzi UAV
systems, have been used, carrying meteorological, aerosol, cloud and 3D wind sensors. A bungee was used for taking-off, while a big net was needed in
order to recover the planes, since the ground was not suitable for traditional landings. This campaign was part of the BACCHUS project (Impact of
Biogenic versus Anthropogenic emissions on Clouds and Climate: towards a Holistic UnderStanding).

Multi MAV Autonomous Flight

Sun, 27 Sep 2015 11:42:09 +0000

Rich Burton of Hooperfly made a video showcasing the flexibility and accuracy of the PaparazziUAV system running on the 1BitSquared Lisa/MX autopilot.

Using Paparazzi’s flight plan software to dictate a pattern of waypoints for three of his TeensyFly MAV’s to take off autonomously, hover, fly a rectangular pattern, hover and land. All the flight plan blocks are triggered in unison with a custom papget xml config file. The unison nature of their flight is quite beautiful to behold.

IMAV 2015 Competition

Sat, 05 Sep 2015 08:50:55 +0000

This year‘s International Micro Air Vehicles Conference and Flight Competition (IMAV 2015) is organized by the Institute of Flight System Dynamics of the RWTH Aachen University and the German Institute of Navigation. It takes place in Aachen, Germany from September 15 - 18, 2015. If you are in the area, you should check out the event.

IMAV is a yearly event that combines a diversified scientific conference with a technological competition involving Micro Air Vehicles (MAVs). Such a combination allows research groups from all over the world to share their knowledge, and stimulates them to focus on research that can be used in real life scenarios. Every year the competition scenarios become more advanced and more extensive. However, competitors are given the opportunity to either do complete missions, or to focus on sub-elements of the mission scenario.

Paparazzi UAV controlled with arcade

Tue, 01 Sep 2015 21:59:54 +0000

Here is a fun demo by the ENAC UAV Lab. They are showing off the flexibility of the Paparazzi UAV system by connecting an arcade gamepad to the ground station.

Lisa/S Nano Quadcopter Getting Started

Tue, 01 Sep 2015 21:54:35 +0000

The awesome guys from the TU-Delft MavLab have created another of their great tutorials. This time they explain how to get started with a Lisa/S based Nano Quadcopter.

PaparazziUAV Flying Robots on Slashdot

Fri, 21 Aug 2015 02:37:19 +0000

The kind folks over at Slashdot.org were nice enough to stop by the PaparazziUAV booth at OSCON 2015 to talk about flying robots. Thanks Tim for the opportunity to talk about HooperFly, the Lisa/MX autopilot from 1bitsquared and the coolest open-source UAV software on the planet, PaparazziUAV.

Here’s a link to the video: Flying Robots on Slashdot.org

Chaos Communication Camp 2015

Mon, 10 Aug 2015 19:49:17 +0000

From 13. - 17. August 2015 we are attending the Chaos Communication Camp in Ziegeleipark Mildenberg, Zehdenick, Germany. If you are attending too make sure to visit our Village and say hi.

Paparazzi UAV + HooperFly = Flying Robots

Wed, 22 Jul 2015 05:42:16 +0000

HooperFly made a great video showing off two of their airframes, flying completely autonomously. These robotic aircraft are based on HooperFly’s own rugged airframe design the TeensyFly and feature Paparazzi UAV powered Lisa/MX autopilots. The multi aircraft support in Paparazzi makes these types of flights possible.

Paparazzi UAV Videos 2004-2010

Sun, 19 Jul 2015 09:50:42 +0000

A few days ago ENAC UAV Lab uploaded their Paparazzi UAV video collection from 2004-2010. If you are interested in some Open-Source UAV history you should take a look at them.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLD885PC3Hy2DhiL_OEH3qMrcOFEh2McGN

It is exciting to see how many things Paparazzi UAV could already do 5 to 10 years ago, as well as how far things have improved and evolved since then.

One of the highlights is a multi UAV flight at IMAV2006. This is 9 years ago. It is great to see how relaxed the safety pilots are. :)

Flying the Paparazzi autopilot Blog

Fri, 17 Jul 2015 22:42:45 +0000

Martin Müller and his team have created a blog documenting their meteorological research operations (SUMO). They are flying their Paparazzi based systems in the Antarctic collecting data. It is a great read showing the robustness of the Paparazzi UAV systems and hardware.

Paparazzi UAV at OSCON 2015

Thu, 16 Jul 2015 23:39:32 +0000

We will be showing off some of our hardware at the O’Reilly Open Source Convention 2015 (OSCON). The event is happening on July 20–24, 2015 in Portland, Oregon USA.

Piotr Esden-Tempski from 1BitSquared together with Rich Burton from Hooperfly will be bringing some of their Paparazzi UAV based creations to show off. If you are attending OSCON find us in the exhibition hall for the hardware showcase and say “Hi”. We would love to meet some fellow Paparazzians.

We are now on Facebook

Sun, 14 Jun 2015 18:04:31 +0000

If you are on Facebook you might be happy to hear that we now have a Paparazzi UAV Facebook page. Join us there and like our page. We hope this is another good way to follow along with the project and the community.

TU Delft Student Challenge 2015

Wed, 27 May 2015 11:09:28 +0000

Students at the TU Delft MavLab compete with ARDrones running Paparazzi to fly seamlessly around obstacles without injuring the aircraft. The object to autonomously avoid all obstacles. This is a fantastic demonstration of the flexibility of the Paparazzi system and its ability to fly accurately around waypoints.

Paparazzi at the National Center for Meteorological Research

Sun, 01 Mar 2015 00:00:08 +0000

The National Center for Meteorological Research (CNRM-GAME, Toulouse, France) conducted an airborne experiment in Cyprus in March 2015 as part of the BACCHUS project. The main goal of CNRM’s contribution is to complement the ground-based observations of aerosol and cloud condensation nuclei with airborne measurements to characterize the vertical distribution of aerosol, radiative fluxes, 3D wind vectors and meteorological state parameters. As payloads were limited to 500g (and total weight < 2.5kg), multiple RPAS (remotely piloted aircraft systems) were instrumented for a specific scientific focus. The Paparazzi system was used to navigate the RPAS. During the campaign, airborne measurements were taken over 4 weeks (5 March to 2 April, 2015) with 52 research flights and 38 hours of flight time. Vertical profile were regularly sampled up to 2100 m.asl (limited by authorized flight ceiling) and often observed the layers of dust originating from the Arabian Peninsula and the Sahara Desert. RPAS profiles generally show a well-mixed boundary layer and compare well with ground-based LIDAR observations. Flights below and within clouds were also coordinated with satellite overpasses to perform ’top-down’ closure of cloud micro-physical properties.

ENAC Flying Paparazzi Aircraft at the Atmospheric Research Center of Lannemezan

Wed, 04 Feb 2015 00:00:05 +0000

The ENAC team has been flying several aircraft (X6-Skywalker, Easystar, Funjet) at the Atmospheric Research Center of Lannemezan, close to the Pyrenees in the south of France. The goal was to prepare several meteorological planes for research studies held by Meteo France that will be held next month in Cyprus. Weather conditions were pretty harsh some times, with snow and icy fog, but also provided some really nice pictures, and of course interesting flights up to 1400m AGL with meteorological instruments.

Paparazzi V5.4 Release

Mon, 05 Jan 2015 00:00:16 +0000

The Paparazzi Development Team is pleased to announce the release of a brand new version of Paparazzi; v5.4, giving you the option to enjoy lots of new features and improvements, happy new year!

If you’re curious to know what has been added and improved you can, go here for an overview. For your enjoyment and to view what all those changes look like, click here.

If you are already using paparazzi with Git, to enjoy all improvements you can switch to this new version via:

BBC Interview with Bart Remes

Mon, 15 Dec 2014 09:14:07 +0000

Great BBC interview with Bart Remes, head of the Mavlab at TU Delft. Bart shows off the Lisa/S Nano Quadcopter and comments on the usefulness and safety of sub-miniature UAV.

Parrot Bebop Paparazzi Integration

Wed, 12 Nov 2014 00:00:19 +0000

As you know paparazzi is a very modular platform. To show the world how modular we are, we worked hard on implementing paparazzi into the Parrot Bebop. At the Micro Aerial Vehicle Laboratory (MAVLab) of Delft University of Technology faculty Aerospace engineering (TU Delft) we received a pre-production model of the Bebop. We did our best to have paparazzi integrated before the launch of the Bebop. If you want to follow the progress check our (youtube channel).

IMAV 2014 Recap

Sat, 16 Aug 2014 06:27:37 +0000

IMAV 2014 was a great experience this year. If you don’t know what it is, its a micro air vehicle competition and conference that was held in Delft, Netherlands.

During the three days of the conference, there were many very interesting talks and presentations as well as an incredible showcase of research talent during the competition. Here is a playlist of the talks, they can be found on the TU Delft MAVlab YouTube channel.

IMAV 2014 Live Streams

Tue, 12 Aug 2014 00:00:45 +0000

The Micro Aerial Vehicle Laboratory (MAVLab) of Delft University of Technology (TU Delft) is proud the present the 2014 International Micro Air Vehicle Conference (IMAV 2014), now offering the possibility of attending the conference by live stream free-of-cost. The live stream will support most platforms showing innovative keynotes of pioneers in the industry as well as the current state-of-the-art presented by many researchers working on MAV’s. The schedule is published on the website of the conference. Tuesday, August 12th, 2014

PAPARAZZI AT DEFCON 22

Fri, 01 Aug 2014 01:42:02 +0000

Paparazzi UAV and 1BitSquared will be attending this years DefCon 22 in Las Vegas, Nevada. It takes place from August 7th through 10th, 2014.

We will be at the Hak5 vendor booth, with Lisa/S autopilots, Black Magic Probe, Nano Quad kits and more. Please come by and say hi!

Paparazzi on Gitter.im

Sat, 26 Jul 2014 09:34:12 +0000

We are now part of the Gitter.im beta. Join our paparazzi/discuss channel. And live chat with the community!

Paparazzi on Android

Fri, 25 Jul 2014 00:00:54 +0000

The Android application PPRZonDroid, a GCS extension for Android devices that you can use to control Paparazzi aircraft, is now available on Google Play.

Drones 101 Series on HAK5 - Episodes 1-7

Wed, 30 Apr 2014 00:51:49 +0000

Piotr Esden-Tempski of 1Bit Squared is working together with Darren Kitchen of HAK5 on a series about Open Source Drones, explaining what Drones/UAV/UAS are, how to build, operate, program, and calibrate them. This series highlights Paparazzi’s hardware and software systems and their strengths.

Here is the first episode in the series titled, Drones 101- Hak5 episode 1611. In this episode Piotr and Darren build an Open-Source autonomous aerial system.

Drones 101- Hak5 episode 1612. In episode 2, Piotr and Darren discuss drone basics. How they are put together, what are their components, how they operate and what makes them special.

Paparazzi SUMO in Remote Antarctica

Mon, 27 Jan 2014 00:00:23 +0000

John Cassano from the University of Colorado has been flying Paparazzi equipped SUMOs in a remote camp in Antarctica over the last two weeks. See his blog for a detailed report.

Paparazzi Wiki Update

Wed, 08 Jan 2014 00:00:09 +0000

To make documenting and learning about Paparazzi easier we have updated the Wiki to the latest Mediawiki version (1.22). This new wiki provides a very improved search of the many articles, as well as video embed tags. You can easily embed a YouTube video into your article by writing {{#ev:youtubehd|videoID}}, or a Vimeo video by adding {{#ev:vimeo|videoID}}. The wiki is hosted on a new dedicated Paparazzi UAV server so it should be faster now aswell.

Paparazzi at 30C3

Fri, 27 Dec 2013 00:00:49 +0000

The 30C3 – 30th Chaos Communication Congress was held in the Congress Center in Hamburg, Germany on December 27th-30th, 2013. We were present there as part of the Paparazzi UAV Assembly.

Piotr Esden-Tempski of 1BitSquared made a presentation on Paparazzi’s History in the main events hall during the congress.

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IePG2fzKvF0

'A drone inside everybody's pocket'

Sun, 06 Oct 2013 00:30:21 +0000

Bart Remes of TU-Delft MAVLab speaking at TEDxAmsterdam. The topic, ‘A drone inside everybody’s pocket’. Bart demonstrates the ease of flight with a Paparazzi Lisa/S autopilot powered nano quadrocopter.

IMAV 2013

Fri, 20 Sep 2013 00:00:28 +0000

The MavLab team of TU Delft consisted of 12 people coming from aerospace, computer science, embedded programming and artificial intelligence. Thanks to the enormous team efforts in the last months, the team has won prizes in all the categories in which it participated at IMAV 2013 in Toulouse, France:

Outdoor: 1st place

With an autonomous swarm of 12 MAVs operated by a single operator. The MAVs only had to be plugged in and started with their own flight plan, while the operator could monitor their mission status and intervene where necessary. Our participation featured four main innovations: (1) a single operator for 12 MAVs, 3 hybrid UAVs, 7 Parrot AR drones and 2 mini-quadrotors, (2) onboard vision processing on the AR drone with Paparazzi, (3) hybrid UAVs able to fly under any attitude, and (4) the world’s smallest open source autopilot, Lisa/S (2 grams). The wind conditions were terrible on the outdoor competition day, with 6 Bft, and most teams had their MAVs blown away. Everybody was impressed with how the hybrid UAVs were able to cope nicely with these conditions and were still able to perform a precision landing.

Lisa/S at TU-Delft

Wed, 28 Aug 2013 00:21:17 +0000

Our friends at the TU-Delft MAVLab have made a video showing Lisa/S flying on a Quadrocopter and Helicopter. In the video you can see the Paparazzi UAV software compiled for Lisa/S stabilize and control the aircraft. It is using the SuperbitRF module to receive control commands from a Spektrum RC transmitter. All the necessary software is integrated into the master software branch of Paparazzi.

Antarctica Meteo Missions 2013

Tue, 13 Aug 2013 00:00:49 +0000

Over the last 9 weeks the Paparazzi autopilot has been used for operations with remotely piloted aircraft from the Finnish Meteorological Institute for scientific research on board the R.V. Polarstern in the Weddell Sea/Antarctica. You can see the course and read a short report on the homepage of the Alfred Wegener Institut.

Instructions on how to build your own small unmanned meteorological observer (SUMO) can be found here in the Wiki.

ATMOS Hybrid UAV

Fri, 06 Jul 2012 00:00:58 +0000

ATMOS, a hybrid airplane-quadrotor developed at the MavLab of TU-Delft, was awarded third place (out of 140) in the UAVForge Competition. There were more than 140 initial contestants and after several selection rounds with only 12 finalists, the paparazzi Lisa/M powered ATMOS was one of the few that could actually make it to the remote target site miles away in an RF unfriendly environment. No team fully completed the baseline objectives which is why no prices were issued. The vertical takeoff and landing, together with long range thanks to the wing and flexibility thanks to open-source paparazzi were key factors in this event [1].

Paparazzi YouTube Playlist

Tue, 08 May 2012 00:00:38 +0000

A lot of cool stuff is done with paparazzi driven UAV`s. To share what the paparazzi community is doing a youtube video playlist has been created. If you want your video to be listed in there please send a YouTube link to the mailing list.

Paparazzi in Madagascar

Mon, 09 Apr 2012 00:00:33 +0000

In March 2012, Paparazzi flew in southern Madagascar in the frame of a multi-university project to study and improve the ecosystem in one of the poorest regions of the world (Project). More than 4000 hectares of farm and grassland were photographed in visible and near infrared spectrum. More than 8500 photos were taken. Surely one of the biggest missions for science ever flown with Paparazzi.

Antarctic Meteo Summer Missions 2011/2012

Wed, 07 Mar 2012 00:00:17 +0000

In the Antarctic summer of 2011/2012 two teams flew Paparazzi-driven UAS on the southernmost continent. The University of Bergen flew at the Norwegian Troll station (video) and the University of Colorado near the US McMurdo station (blog, blog). They measured temperature, humidity, pressure, infrared radiation and wind with a Multiplex Funjet plane.

Paparazzi at 28C3

Mon, 26 Dec 2011 18:20:47 +0000

If you are planning to visit this years 28C3, and you remember seeing us there last year. We want to let you know that Paparazzi UAV has a dedicated table on the upper floor, and it should be easier to find. We will be very happy if you come by and say hi!

CRE187 - Paparazzi

Mon, 26 Dec 2011 14:50:56 +0000

Great interview with Martin Müller on Chaos Radio Express 187. Discussing the history and the inner workings of Paparazzi. Enjoy!

IMAV 2011

Sun, 18 Sep 2011 00:00:01 +0000

This year IMAV 2011 in Delft, Netherlands went really well for all of the participants, we have seen lots of successful flights. ENAC Paparazzi Team took the 2nd place in general “Outdoor Autonomy Challenge” and Fire Storm demonstrated 105+ minutes of flight and took the “Best Outdoor Endurance Award”. He was waiting for this day for 2 years since the cancelation of IMAV 09. Additionally, Fire Storm flew its endurance mission with the new Umarim V1.0 autopilot board which will be released soon.

Paparazzi at Chaos Communication Camp 2011

Tue, 15 Feb 2011 22:45:18 +0000

Hi,

Just to give you guys a heads up. Several of the Paparazzi core developers are planning to go to the Chaos Communication Camp 2011 in Finowfurt (near Berlin) in Germany. The event will last for the 4 days 10|11|12|13|14th August 2011. If you have a chance be sure to visit us there. We plan on releasing some really cool new things at the event. I am sure if you are interested in UAV, Multicopter or Aircraft you will not want to miss this!

Antarctica Meteo Missions 2011

Tue, 15 Feb 2011 00:00:14 +0000

Paparazzi has flown on the southernmost continent: Antarctica. Scientists from the Finnish Meteorological Institute took three modified Funjets to the Finnish Aboa station and brought them back safely after more than 25 flights. They measured temperature, humidity, pressure, wind direction and speed in altitudes up to 1000m.

Paparazzi at the 27C3

Thu, 13 Jan 2011 22:36:57 +0000

It has been a little quiet here over the Christmas and New Year break. We were busy though. Felix Ruess, Martin Müller and me (Piotr Esden-Tempski) were at the 27th Chaos Communication Congress in Berlin. We presented Paparazzi and received lot’s of interest.

Felix gave an interview about Paparazzi to Projectmovie 2010. It is in German but the makers of the movie are planning to add English subtitles to the movie at some point. :)

Welcome to the all new Paparazzi UAV Blog

Sun, 28 Nov 2010 06:21:20 +0000

Hello everyone,

As the Paparazzi community is very active and getting bigger every day, we have decided that it is time to make a blog that reflects the thriving development and keeps everyone up to date. We hope to inform everyone about new features, challenges and plans.

Paparazzi is the only really Open-Source (hardware and software) UAV project in the world with proven capability and stability.

To support that statement we offer the following statistics:

We Moved To GIT

Fri, 19 Nov 2010 00:00:50 +0000

The paparazzi software repository now has a new happy life on github:

https://github.com/paparazzi/paparazzi

We believe the switch from Subversion to the fast git version control system will make development easier, faster and more fun. It also makes it easier for YOU to contribute. You can easily fork paparazzi on github, commit your bugfixes and new features and send us a pull request.

More info on how to get the paparazzi code from github can be found here.

Code Refactor

Sun, 01 Aug 2010 00:00:49 +0000

After many years of development, so many new autopilot boards and aircraft types have been added that a sourcecode reorganization was needed. This undertaking is started and will simplify the continuous evolution of the project.

To benefit from these important changes, it only requires you to update your airframe configuration document once. After you have updated, you should not notice the significant reorganization that is going on behind the scenes. This change will benefit your aircrafts flying successfully for the years to come. The required changes are described on Update Your Airframe Configuration.

IMAV 2010 Competition

Fri, 09 Jul 2010 09:03:16 +0000

The IMAV 2010 International Micro Air Vehicles Conference and Flight Competition took place today in Braunschweig, Germany. The ENAC Paparazzi team took home 1st place for the outdoor
autonomy mission and 2nd place for the indoor flight dynamics
challenge. Both the indoor and the outdoor event consisted of two separate competitions, one focusing on high maneuverability, the other one focussing on the MAV’s ability to perform a complex
autonomous mission.

Tragically We Lost Pascal Brisset

Sat, 22 May 2010 00:00:11 +0000

Pascal Brisset, also known as Hecto, and the father of the Paparazzi project died in an accident while climbing in the Pyrénées mountains in the south of France. He had dedicated the last seven years of his life to the success of the project. He was taking care of a huge part of the project by himself. To name only a few : development and maintenance of the entire ground segment, navigation and flight plan algorithms, code generation and build system, distribution packaging, server infrastructure…

University of Stuttgart uses Paparazzi

Fri, 19 Feb 2010 00:00:38 +0000

The Institute of space systems of University of Stuttgart is using the paparazzi system for large remote sensing aircraft. The missions include basic research and environmental monitoring. Payloads of up to 7kg are carried.

More information can be found on the Wiki page.

Outback Challenge 2009

Wed, 30 Sep 2009 00:00:26 +0000

Brisbane Grammar School UAV

Team “Look mAh, no hands!” signalling the UAV is in fully autonomous mode

Paparazzi was a big success at the 2009 UAV Outback Challenge held at Kingaroy Airport, Queensland, Australia, Sep. 28-30. Team “Look mAh, no hands!” representing Brisbane Grammar School, won the ‘Robot Airborne Delivery Challenge’ placing 1st, after performing an autonomous mission phase including autonomous payload release. The team consisted of four members in their senior years of high-school, and was led by team captain Ben Paratz. Many thanks to the paparazzi community, not only for the autopilot itself but for the assistance that was enthusiastically given whenever needed. Link to competition

EMAV 09 Recap

Thu, 24 Sep 2009 00:00:42 +0000

EMAV09 has already passed, now it is time to reveal our (ENAC-ISAE) new designs:

Fire-Storm a 50cm wingspan MAV.
Solar-Storm a 50cm wingspan MAV with hybrid power supply (solar and batteries).

EMAV 09 Results

Tue, 15 Sep 2009 07:02:03 +0000

The EMAV09 competition took place in Delft, Netherlands. With ENAC’s Paparazzi team winning second place in the outdoor mission this year.

1st Place at AUVSI for USU-OSAM Paparazzi team

Sat, 20 Jun 2009 00:00:09 +0000

The USU-OSAM Paparazzi team won the 1st place in the 7th AUVSI (Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International) Student Unmanned Aircraft System Competition (18 teams total). The competition was held at Webster Field, Maryland, Jun. 17-20. The honor also goes to all of the Paparazzi community, especially the developers. Link to competition

Paparazzi in the Industry

Fri, 19 Jun 2009 00:00:08 +0000

The Paparazzi System has been shown at Paris Le Bourget Airshow by three companies:

Fly-n-Sense with products FNS900-Seeker and ScanCopter CB500.
AeroArt with the plume project with the support of Fly-n-Sense.
Thales with the Spy’Arrow MAV.

ENAC / Paparazzi wins ONERA-DGA Challenge

Tue, 26 May 2009 00:00:18 +0000

ENAC / Paparazzi has won the ONERA-DGA Challenge, in France with a quadrotor. Twelve teams of French Universities out of 19 were chosen by ONERA-DGA to participate in this two years contest. ENAC designed a Paparazzi equipped Asctec quadrotor with an IMU developed in its lab.

EMAV 2009 Invitation

Tue, 07 Apr 2009 00:00:32 +0000

Dear Paparazzi members, the registration for EMAV09 is now open at http://www.emav09.org/.

We look forward to meeting many paparazzi teams at this yearly event.

Arctic Meteorological Missions 2009

Tue, 24 Mar 2009 00:00:38 +0000

We were back in the Arctic flying Paparazzi aircrafts on Svalbard (N78° E15°) doing research with the Geophysical Institute of the University of Bergen/Norway. There are two teams operating near Longyearbyen, one on the apron of Longyearbyen airport (LYR) and the other at the old northern lights research station in Adventdalen. We had permission to fly up to 1500m outside the airport opening times. The Paparazzi aircrafts work perfectly…for humans it is just a little cold. Last night we flew having -32°C (-25°F) on the ground. There is a video showing a 1500m vertical profile flight.

New UAV Forum

Mon, 16 Feb 2009 00:00:34 +0000

We have a new forum to talk about this project. Please visit and participate http://www.azoreanuav.com/forum .

Please, vote in the next link to continue with the forum or not. http://www.azoreanuav.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=7

Motodrone in Finowfurt

Tue, 23 Sep 2008 00:00:40 +0000

A paparazzi team took part in the Motodrone event held in Finowfurt near Berlin. It was fun, the beer was cool and barbecues worked flawlessly. And we flew funjets… Video

Second Place at Student AUVSI Competition

Mon, 23 Jun 2008 00:00:51 +0000

The OSAM Paparazzi team took 2nd place in the Sixth Annual Student Unmanned Aerial Systems Competition! The event is sponsored by AUVSI (Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International) and was held at Webster Field, St. Inigoes, Maryland. It should also be noted that this was Paparazzi’s and the OSAM Paparazzi team’s first time at the competition. Link to competition Highlight Video of Competition

Paparazzi as Meteorological Tool

Wed, 26 Mar 2008 00:00:54 +0000

Scientists from the Geophysical Institute of the University of Bergen/Norway flew Paparazzi controlled Funjet aircrafts equipped with meteorological sensors in the Arctic sea around Spitsbergen with only the help of an RC safety pilot and no Paparazzi team member nearby. They took off and landed on the helicopter deck of the Norwegian icebreaking coast guard vessel KV Svalbard for one week and set a new Paparazzi low temperature record by flying at around -20°C and 15m/s wind in altitudes up to 1500m. For another two weeks they also collected data on Spitsbergen near Longyearbyen. See pictures in the gallery and a video.

US-Asian MAV 2008

Sat, 15 Mar 2008 02:21:18 +0000

Paparazzi attended the US-Asian MAV 2008 competition taking place in Agra, India. The ENAC team won the “Best Autonomous MAV” Award.

Here is the program for the event.

MAV08 Proceedings

Tiny 2.11 Available

Sat, 15 Mar 2008 00:00:49 +0000

A number of vendors are now offering assembled and not-assembled autopilots, sensors and accessories. The software is written, the hardware is built, what are you waiting for? Getting started has never been easier! More details on the Get Hardware page.

The Slicer Flight System Presentation

Mon, 10 Mar 2008 06:35:46 +0000

Here is an interesting presentation showing the capabilities of the Paparazzi UAV flight plan system and new Slicer micro fixed wing platform. The strengths of the distributed agent ground control station, and some history of the Paparazzi autopilot hardware. As well as more interesting capabilities and solutions in the Paparazzi UAV framework. Presentation by Pascal Brisset, M. Bronz, M. Gorraz and J. Tyler of ENAC.

The Slicer Flight System Presentation

Flying Aircraft over Internet

Thu, 27 Dec 2007 00:00:48 +0000

From the 24C3 conference, Paparazzi aircraft operated in Hildesheim, Germany and in Castagnac, France were remote controlled in real time by Martin and Antoine (the station in Istanbul, Turkey was lacking a security pilot). The three local ground control stations and the remote one in Berlin were connected to a central server (located in Germany). Video from the 2 aircraft was also visible from the conference room in real-time. It was the result of great team work and … a lot of fun. See media section for some press coverage. The session video is available as a torrent here in Matroska or MPEG-4 format and these are the presentation slides.

MAV 07 Success

Fri, 21 Sep 2007 00:00:11 +0000

MAV 07 was yet another great success for the project! Paparazzi teams took 1st, 3rd, 4th, and 5th places in the outdoor autonomous surveillance competition and were honored to share the 1st place award with the very well designed Micropilot-equipped 48cm Ping Wing from Linköping University in Sweden. The first Paparazzi helicopter, Twisted Logic proved that a passively stable helicopter could operate well in mild outdoor winds and also took 2nd place in the indoor competition, surpassed only by the “Father of passively stable helicopters”, world famous Petter Muren of Proxflyer and BladeRunner fame. The team of Christian Lindenberg and (fake) Martin Müller also won the special award from the jury for it general performance and fair spirit.

MAV 07

Mon, 17 Sep 2007 00:00:02 +0000

MAV 07 will be held in Toulouse, France (of course!) September 17-21, 2007. Expect to see lots of great Paparazzi systems kicking ass and taking names!

We Lost Dr. Paul MacCready

Tue, 28 Aug 2007 00:00:57 +0000

Dr. Paul MacCready, legendary aeronautical engineer and founder of Aerovironment, died in his sleep at the age of 81. Many of us met him met him in 2005 at MAV05 in Germany but all of us are familiar with his incredible body of work ranging from the first human powered aircraft, to the GM Sunraycer electric car, and the world altitude record holding Helios. MacCready was a world champion sailplane pilot, holds a Cal Tech Ph.D. in aeronautics, has been granted 7 honorary degrees, and has contributed a total of 4 aircraft and one car to the permanent collection of the Smithsonian Institution. He founded Aerovironment in 1971, the world’s largest supplier of hand-launched UAVs.

Flohof measurement campaign

Tue, 21 Aug 2007 00:00:18 +0000

Three Paparazzi equipped Funjets were part of the Flohof measurement campaign around the Hofsjökull glacier in Iceland. We were able to measure temperature, humidity, pressure and estimate the wind. The authorities issued a NOTAM, clearing the airspace up to 12.000 feet which allowed us to set a new Paparazzi altitude record.

Spring flights

Thu, 01 Mar 2007 00:00:12 +0000

The sun is finally back. We took all of these babies for multiple aircraft flights. From left to right : 600g minimag, 900g twinjet, 600g funjet and 350g microjet. It’s such a shame that multiplex stoped producing microjets….. they didn’t even ask us :(

2nd and 3rd places on MAV 06

Fri, 24 Nov 2006 00:00:17 +0000

Two Paparazzi teams, ENAC/Miraterre and Martin Mueller/Christian Lindeberg won 2nd and 3rd place at the MAV06 competition in Sandestin, Florida. Unfortunately, both teams had insufficient video resolution to identify the 1.5m ground target required for high-scoring and the winning prize went to Bringham Young University who was able to identify 2 of the 3 targets with a Panasonic KX-141 camera and an unusually narrow 30 degree FOV lens. The Bringham Young team used the Procerus Kestrel autopilot (originally developed at the university) and obviously practiced video target recognition much more than the rest of us.

2003 - 2006

Wed, 01 Nov 2006 00:00:45 +0000

Paparazzi has come a long way since it’s creation in 2003. For a bit of nostalgia browse the original website.

EMAV 06 Results

Tue, 25 Jul 2006 02:14:12 +0000

The EMAV06 competition took place in Braunschweig, Germany. All the teams were equipped with Paparazzi. With four Paparazzi teams winning four first places. ENAC took 3rd place in the “Fixed-Wing” category.

MAV 05 Results

Mon, 25 Jul 2005 09:35:37 +0000

MAV05 took place in Garmisch, Germany. With three ENAC Paparazzi teams taking the first three places in the competition.

JMD 04 Results

Mon, 20 Sep 2004 10:18:38 +0000

Paparazzi was very successful at the JMD04 (Journées Micro Drones) competition/conference in Toulouse, France. The ENAC team won first place with the Microjet. Here is the report from Antoine Drouin.

Hi everybody

Paparazzi’s microjet won the JMD04 MAV event ( http://www.micro-uav04.net/ )

During the event, we had contact with industrials who told us they were interested in manufacturing our board. Maybe the end of the nightmare for those of you who don’t enjoy the soldering iron :)

PaparaDzIY - MAV's for Dummies

Wed, 15 Sep 2004 06:13:10 +0000

Here is an interesting presentation from Pascal Brisset and Antoine Drouin of ENAC-CENA.

PaparaDzIY - MAV’s for Dummies Presentation

EMAV 04 Results

Tue, 10 Aug 2004 01:16:28 +0000

EMAV04 took place in Braunscheweig, Germany. With the ENAC Paparazzi team taking the first place with a Microjet (0.65cm, 0.4kg).

First Place at Ensica/Supaéro "journées microdrone"

Fri, 03 Oct 2003 07:56:46 +0000

ENAC’s Paparazzi team placed first in the Ensica/Supaéro “journées micro drone” in France. Here is the report from Antoine Drouin.

Hi folks..

Paparazzi has won first prize in the Ensica/Supaéro “journées microdrone” (http://www.ensica.fr/microdrone).

It successfully completed the autonomous flight and was able to locate the target :)

More details on the webpage asap.

Regards,

Antoine

Paparazzi V1.0

Wed, 01 Oct 2003 00:00:44 +0000

This article is based on the gallery on the original paparazzi savannah website.

The following pictures were taken between August 2003 and October 2003.

We had developed a flight controller board similar to the autopilot one. We had been able to re-use some of their code - for example radio control receiving or servos commanding. Thanks allot Trammel.

The plane now had the potential to become fully autonomous (not controlled from ground anymore).

JMD 03 Results

Sat, 20 Sep 2003 09:10:32 +0000

Paparazzi was very successful at the JMD03 (Journées Micro Drones) competition/conference in Toulouse, France. The ENAC team won first place with a Twinstar (1.4m, 1.4kg).

Paparazzi V0

Fri, 01 Aug 2003 00:00:02 +0000

This article is based on the gallery on the original paparazzi savannah website.

The following pictures were taken between February 2003 and August 2003.

This was the very first version of the system. The airborne hardware was minimal. It only consisted in a GPS receiver, a pic micro-controller and a modem. The pic would transmit GPS data to the ground. The plane was steered from the ground laptop using the buddy jack input of the radio control transmitter. The plane was equipped with a genuine FMA stabilizer and we tried to pilot “through” it.