Wing for Sale

We've now got the web shop live. They are built-to-order so delivery is quoted at 4-weeks but we can probably get one out to you faster if you need us to.

Tasty

Staff development

Attracting and retaining the best possible employees is critical to the success of any company and Worthington Sharpe is no different. Here are some photographs of our two newest recruits busy at work.

This is Fergus, listening carefully to instructions on his first
day at work.

Dougal, on the left is in charge of quality control. Anything
that does not meet the strict requirements is knocked to the floor.
Meanwhile Fergus is busy organising the tools and equipment in
a manner befitting an operating theatre. "Tidy desk, tidy mind"
as you'll often hear him muttering to himself.

We offer flexible working but do expect our staff to work

overtime if required. To make the long hours easier to endure

we provide comfortable (if somewhat cramped) sleeping quarters.

The slightly terrified expressions that you see here have nothing

at all to do with the working conditions at Worthington Sharpe.

Minimal Input for Maximum Output

Sometimes people are initially surprised that with today's touch screens, gesture recognition and virtual reality, we have developed something that is, well, a bit like a mouse. However, despite it's rather humble nature, the computer mouse is extremely well suited to fast, accurate input and all-day use.

It reminds me of an quote from the game developer John Romero that I read in a gamesindustry.biz article some time ago and that I think goes far beyond just gaming:

Really the best optimal design for games is minimal input for maximum output - that's the way that games work best. When you watch people playing with a mouse and keyboard, you see them barely moving their fingers and hands but on screen you see crazy movement and all kinds of stuff.

Perhaps his predictions about virtual reality might not turn out to be totally accurate, but I certainly follow his way of thinking with the "minimal input for maximum output".

The Wing with CAD software

We've finally managed to get the Wing working with 3D Computer Aided Design (CAD) programs.

It has been tested in PTC Creo 2 , Creo 3, and Autodesk Inventor, and it should work with most 3D design software applications.

When I've got few spare minutes I'll get some demo videos uploaded.

Wing Ground Control Station Launch at Skytech 2015

We unveiled the Wing GCS in London last week at the Skytech exhibition. While we were pretty sure we were onto something, the reaction from the UAV industry left us in no doubt.

We had the demonstration unit on display running the Heli-X simulator so people could see how well the Wing performed for flying a multi-rotor UAV.

Here are a few photographs from the event:

Janet jumping out from behind the banner

Flying a quadcopter in Heli-X using the Wing GCS

The Wing GCS ready for use

The Wing GCS in use

Sam explaining the details

And here are the posters we had on display:

Poster 1

Poster 2

Poster 3

Poster 4

Ground Control Station (GCS)

You can leave the protein pills and helmet to Major Tom, we're sticking with Ground Control.

Despite all the advances in Uninhabited Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) over the last few years, the control hasn't changed a great deal. Large aircraft such as the Reaper are controlled by pilots sitting in full-size cockpit mock-ups. Meanwhile smaller aircraft seem to be falling into two camps: either they are still controlled by the twin-sticks that we have seen with model aircraft for years; or they are following the obsession over the smart phone.

We think another approach is needed where the pilot or operator can both plan and edit a mission and manually control the aircraft or camera. We've been busy designing an Uninhabited Aerial Vehicle (UAV) Ground Control Station (GCS) around the Wing to meet this need.

UAV control was a major impetus behind the development of the Wing right from the start and now that we've finished the design, we've had a chance to work on the rest of the system. Essentially, what we're trying to do is to integrate the mission planning, flight control, and data analysis into a single unit. It's a work in progress and so far looks like this:

We wanted something for people who want to focus on the job rather than piloting the aircraft. We took the Wing and added a docked-laptop, keyboard, sunlight-readable screen, second joystick and two-way telemetry system. This means everything necessary is in one integrated system, so that you can arrive on site, plan the mission, manually fly the aircraft if required, adjust the camera and analyze the data as it comes in.

I'll leave this post where I started it. - Back to Bowie.

The Wing for UAV Control

Things all got a bit more real on Monday when I took a trip down to Norwich to meet Elliot Corke of Hexcam. Hexcam operate UAVs (Uninhabited Aerial Vehicles, often called drones) for aerial photography and video work. I wanted to speak to them about using the Wing to operate the aircraft.

Some of our earlier engineering projects around a decade ago were on UAVs and the industry has moved on massively over the last few years. It is being approached from two sides: the hobby side of things, where there is still a lot of interest in piloting; and the industry side, where there is simply a job to be done and a UAV is the most practical solution for example in aerial mapping or search and rescue.

The level of autonomy has now reached a stage where it is extremely impressive. Take for example these flying robot rockstars. In many situations you can programme an aircraft to take off, complete its mission, then return and land, all by itself.

Our plan was to use the precision pointing of the mouse for the plotting and adjusting of the way points, and the 3D functions for manual aircraft control as required, or for camera gimbal control.

We already had the Wing working with the DJI and Ardupilot ground control software but we had only got as far as getting the sliders to move about in the calibration stage.

I had only really expected to open up discussions about the possibilities with Hexcam and have a look at how they operate but we managed a bit more than that; we plugged the Wing into the Hexcam laptop, calibrated it, and headed to their flight test site to see what would happen.

The Wing with Hexcam UAVs

We had already used the Wing with the Heli X5 simulation software and so had some idea of how it would behave. Nonethless, we were delighted by how well the Wing performed in the field. With the standard twin-stick transmitter as a back-up Elliot took hold of the Wing and started flying. The throttle was mapped to the z-axis, which wasn't ideal but nevertheless, Elliot was soon more than comfortable with the Wing and was manoeuvring the aircraft adeptly. Elliot pilots UAVs for a living so he's certainly a lot more skilled than most for this sort of challenge, but he even let me have a go.

Elliot using the Wing to fly a quad copter (Click the image for the video)

Elliot using the Wing to fly a quad copter (Click the image for the video)

 Throttle control would be better handled via the scroll wheel, rather than the z-axis but we didn't manage to sort this out prior to the test. Thinking ahead to increased autonomy, using the scroll wheel to dial in a height is likely to be an intuitive means of controlling the altitude of the aircraft directly.

UAV control was one of the main drivers right from the start of the Wing project so this was a big milestone. We're now speaking to a few people to try and get a demo rig put together. We want to be able to use the Wing to simply point and click on the map in order to direct the aircraft, while manipulating the 3D capabilities of pitch, roll and yaw to control the camera. Exciting times lie ahead.

The day seemed surprisingly clear of technical problems until the way back. The train driver announced there would be a delay as one of the train doors wouldn't close. A short while later there came another announcement 'Don't be alarmed at the lights going out, we're going to try re-starting the train.'