Software on Paparazzi UAV Blog

Running Paparazzi on Windows

Wed, 10 Apr 2019 18:56:31 +0000

Since there are many Windows users who like to try paparazzi on this popular OS and Microsoft introduced the possibility of running Ubuntu programs and tools on windows 10, now Paparazzi developer team is pleased to announce the initial release of the Windows10 support of Paparazzi.

The installation process is not so much different from the Linux, but you need some extra steps to install Ubuntu, and some more for using graphical interface and connecting to the aircraft via telemetry. This first release still retains the look and feel of its Linux sibling as currently it uses X Windows for rendering, so you need to install X server in order to have graphical interface.

UAV Network Intrusion Detection with Wavelet-based Signature Analysis

Thu, 21 Jun 2018 14:29:55 +0000

This is a first step of a hybrid IDS method based on the analysis of spectral traffic and a robust controller / observer for the estimation of anomalies in UAV networks. This module is currently designed to observe the traffic between the drones and the Paparazzi GCS. It provides a statistic signature of the traffic which can later be used to determine the nature of the traffic. The module is tested in face of a DoS attack and the results are very promising!

Secure Pprzlink released

Mon, 26 Mar 2018 19:26:27 +0000

The Paparazzi team is proud to announce a release of an encrypted version of pprzlink. The new secure Pprzlink uses a strong and fast cipher ChaCha20 with Poly1305 authenticator. For better security and user convenience, a variation of station-to-station key-exchange protocol is implemented, to allow seamless key-exchange between the UAV and the GCS.

Secure Pprzlink is backed by a formally verified cryptographic library HACL* (yes, the same library that is a part of new Mozilla Firefox).

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:

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.

Drones vs. Retro-gaming: fly with a Game Boy Classic

Mon, 01 Aug 2016 22:23:44 +0000

Some time ago, I found my old Game Boy at my parents’ house. So the first thing that came to my mind was: can I fly a drone with this ? (and also where is my Mario Bros cartridge).

So I spend some time searching the web to see if I could find some idea to solve my problem. And if it seems that piloting unmanned aircraft with a Game Boy is not so common, you can find everything you need to program it!

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.

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.

Paparazzi V5.8 release

Thu, 24 Dec 2015 14:29:20 +0000

Merry Christmas dear Paparazzians!

We are happy to announce the release of Paparazzi; v5.8, providing you with lots of new features and improvements!

Just to pick out a few:

ADS-B support
improved use of optic flow for velocity estimation
improved mavlink support
possibility to reduce RAM and Flash usage by compressing the sine table
this allowed us to add basic support for naze32, CC3D and CJMCU boards
flip mode for multicopters
INDI guidance loop
lots of improvements/additions for computer vision modules
high speed logging to SD Card via SPI
improve support for Bebop and add Bebop2
guided mode for rotorcrafts

For a detailed overview refer to the CHANGELOG. :)

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.

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.

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.

Paparazzi V5.6 release

Tue, 01 Sep 2015 22:16:12 +0000

The Paparazzi Development Team is pleased to announce the release of a brand new version of Paparazzi; v5.6, providing you with lots of new features and improvements!

If you’re curious to know the specifics on what has been added and improved you can, go here for an overview.

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

git remote update && git checkout v5.6

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 on the Parrot Bebop

Sun, 01 Feb 2015 08:21:44 +0000

The TU Delft MAVlab team made a great video showing off the ease of use of the Paparazzi UAV system on the new Parrot Bebop platform.

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:

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).

Paparazzi on the Parrot ARDrone

Thu, 16 Oct 2014 08:52:37 +0000

The TU Delft MAVlab team have made a series of tutorials for the Parrot ARDrone. Showing off the ease of use of the Paparazzi UAV system on the platform.

Getting started

Autonomous Flight

Paparazzi V5.2 Release

Thu, 28 Aug 2014 00:00:13 +0000

Paparazzi Development Team is pleased to announce the release of the Paparazzi v5.2 stable version with lots of new features and bugfixes.

See the CHANGELOG for an overview of new features and bugfixes. See the Release Upgrades page for hints on configuration changes that may be required if you are moving to v5.2 from v5.0.

If you are already using paparazzi with Git, you can switch to this new branch with

git remote update && git checkout v5.2.

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 UAV Installation Tutorial for Ubuntu GNU Linux

Tue, 11 Mar 2014 00:41:06 +0000

Video from the Paparazzi UAV tutorial series covering the installation process for Ubuntu GNU Linux.

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

Paparazzi V5.0 Release

Mon, 17 Jun 2013 00:00:16 +0000

For the opening of the Paris Air Show at Le Bourget, the Paparazzi Development Team is pleased to announce the release of the Paparazzi v5.0 stable version, including the support of the Parrot AR.Drone2. See this page for more instructions.

See the changelog for an overview of new features and bugfixes.

See the Release Upgrades page for hints on configuration changes that may be required if you are moving to v5.0.0 from v4.2.0.

Autonomous Paparazzi Parrot AR Drone

Tue, 22 Jan 2013 00:00:39 +0000

At the TU Delft university of technology student teams made the impossible; possible. Now you can turn your AR Drone v2 into an autonomous drone, controlled by Paparazzi autopilotsoftware. It’s simple, Insert GPS receiver into USB port, build and upload your flight plan via WiFi, and you are done! No hardware modification needed.

Detailed instructions to get your own drone flying with a Paparazzi autopilot brain can be found by following this link

Paparazzi V4.2.0 Release

Wed, 12 Dec 2012 12:12:04 +0000

Just before the end of the world, discover Paparazzi v4.2.0 stable version.

Based on the last stable branch v4.0, this new release offers several improvements, especially the total energy control developed by TUDelft. See the changelog for an overview of new features and bugfixes.

If you are already using paparazzi with Git, you can switch to this new branch with

git remote update && git checkout v4.2.

For new user, it will be the default branch when getting the source code from Github. You can also download a tarball or Zip file of the v4.2.0_stable source code.

Paparazzi V4.0 Release

Thu, 26 Jul 2012 00:00:44 +0000

The Paparazzi Development Team is pleased to announce the release of the Paparazzi v4.0 stable version.

After several months of testing and debugging, the release preparation branch v3.9 has been released as v4.0. See the changelog for an overview of new features and bugfixes.

If you are already using paparazzi with Git, you can switch to this new branch with

git remote update && git checkout v4.0.

For new user, it will be the default branch when getting the source code from Github. You can also download a tarball or Zip file of the v4.0_stable source code.

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].

Stable Paparazzi Releases

Wed, 09 May 2012 00:00:42 +0000

In order to improve the development workflow and provide stable releases we have changed our git branching model.

The branch “master” is now our development branch.

The “dev” branch was renamed to the release preparation branch “v3.9”. Switch to this branch if you want stable code.
“master” was reset to the previous “locm3” branch, where development will happen now with libopencm3 for the STM32 architecture.

Please see the RepositoryStructure page for more details.

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 Mac OSX release

Fri, 11 Feb 2011 05:29:31 +0000

After a very busy holiday period the Paparazzi developer team are pleased to announce the initial release the Mac OSX port of Paparazzi.

Although this release is a couple of weeks later than expected, the team is satisfied that this port will be easy to install and run. This first release still retains the look and feel of its Linux sibling as currently it uses X Windows for rendering. This is due to change, as the graphics library used by Paparazzi (GTK+) is improving its support for the native quartz engine found in Mac OSX. This improved version of GTK+ is due for release at the beginning of March. The team is tracking this and expect a more native look and feel version of Paparazzi to follow this release.

Adaptive Control in Paparazzi

Thu, 09 Dec 2010 17:33:51 +0000

Paparazzi features adaptive control loops that can cope with substantial “changes” of the airframe in flight. May it be a motor dropout, partial loss of control surfaces or dropping a heavy payload. As videos usually say more than words, here are two that demonstrate this.

The first video shows Paparazzi’s adaptive control loops (written by Pascal Brisset and Gautier Hattenberger at ENAC) for fixedwing aircraft keeping a Multiplex Twinstar on track, despite dropping a portion of the right wing and aileron and then switching the right motor off.

Paparazzi support on Mac OSX: Progress report.

Wed, 01 Dec 2010 00:46:07 +0000

This is a brief note to keep everyone updated on progress towards supporting Paparazzi on OSX. Currently Paparazzi is supported only on Linux. With the growing base of Paparazzi developers it has become possible for us to consider supporting multiple operating systems.

Mac OSX was chosen for attention ahead of Windows 7 due to the its similarity to Linux. We hope that the experience gained in supporting this operating system will give an indication of what form a combined build system for all three platforms will take.

Adaptive Control

Fri, 26 Nov 2010 00:00:59 +0000

There is a video available that shows how Paparazzi’s adaptive control loops keep a Twinstar in the air that drops 30% of its right wing with 50% of the aileron and then also switches the right engine off. Another video shows a Paparazzi quadcopter using adaptive control to stay level after dropping 50% of its total weight.

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.

PAPARAZZI ON MOBILE

Mon, 09 Feb 2009 14:00:45 +0000

Three ENAC students have released a Graphical control application for Paparazzi on Mobile phones using Java Technologies, connecting via Bluetooth to the ground station. It is divided into 2 programs, one running on the ground station, and the other on the mobile phone. Check the Ipodrom project page for more details.

*Ipodrom is the french acronym for Interface pour contrôler un drone sur un mobile. It is the French UAV control interface on a mobile phone.

Small and Light GCS

Wed, 06 Feb 2008 00:00:43 +0000

Looking for a small, light and cheap ground station? Paparazzi runs on the ASUS eeePC out of the box (after installing the Debian Paparazzi packages). Tested on the pre-installed Xandros distribution, on a standard Ubuntu and on the preconfigured eeeXubuntu.

Antenna Tracker

Mon, 05 Feb 2007 00:00:25 +0000

Jeremie Vacher, a student at ENAC, has developed a tracker for antennas. It is functional but still needs a little bit of polishing. Anybody interested?

7 State Kalman Filter

Thu, 07 Dec 2006 00:00:47 +0000

Antoine continues to make great progress toward the holy grail of 17 state inertial navigation and releases a video showing the performance of the 7-state Kalman filtered IMU providing the attitude-heading reference system (AHRS) on his quadrotor. Note how much coffee was consumed in preparation for this video. More info on the IMU is available on the sensors page. Also, be sure to admire the schematics and source code!

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.

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).

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.