Gyro Stabilisation for Camera

[KarbonBird]

Anyone got a plan/pic of a gyro stabilised system. I'm guessing that this would be stabilises on two planes which require two independent gyros but can't work out how to mount them.

[askman]

you need gyro roll and pitch axis with gimbal that can move in those axis . two gyros mounted on the gimbal where it moves with the camera. if you add in the pan, it becomes 3 axis.

[spork]

There are two ways you can do gyro stabilization. You can mount traditional gyros on the platform to literally inertially stabilize the platform (although there are some problems with this), or you can mount our type of gyros on the platform to "sense" the motions of the platform, and then use high-speed servos to actively oppose the high-frequency components. You will not want to use a gyro in HH mode if you do the latter (unless you want your camera to be truly inertially stabilized - in other words, it would maintain its pose even as the heli changes its pose).

[Angelos]

Check out the videos http://www.spartan-rc.com/products/visionlock/visionlock.htm

-Angelos

[spork]

It looks to me like that system maintains the camera orientation while the heli's orientation changes. But it looks to me like its bandwidth is far too low to remove any vibration. I suspect that is still up to the user. As far as videos go, I'd rather see a video showing the resulting video taken with and without this mount. Of course it goes without saying that the more telephoto you shoot, the more critical the performance of such a mount is.

[MLaBoyteaux]

Hey Spork, when you say "our type of gyros".......which type would that be?

I've picked up from your posts, that you develop some pretty cool stuff! You've mentioned ring-laser gyros (which are what's used on our commercial aircraft) and other techniques. I'm figuring that for the Nascar vehicles, you're using something similar to a ring laser setup, with GPS to keep it from drifting? Sounds like most of it might be too heavy for our setups anyway (and waaaaay beyond our budgets!) but it'd be cool to hear how you guys do it! :D

[spork]

Hey Spork, when you say "our type of gyros".......which type would that be?

I'm sorry I wasn't more specific. I meant gyros that simply "sense" rotation. In R/C helis we don't tend to use mechanical gyros with sufficient mass to physically stabilize the bird. Instead we sense the motion (usually only yaw) and respond to that with automatic control inputs. As you probably know, the typical R/C gyro these days is basically a coriolis based sensor.



I've picked up from your posts, that you develop some pretty cool stuff! You've mentioned ring-laser gyros (which are what's used on our commercial aircraft) and other techniques. I'm figuring that for the Nascar vehicles,

We do use ring laser gyros in the NASCAR vehicles, and fiber-optic gyros for placing virtual ads behind the batter in MLB. In NASCAR we use some very high end GPS. The GPS establishes a carrier-phase fix, which gives us accuracy to about 2 cm. This is based not only on decoding the GPS data from the satellites (code-phase), but also from computing the number of waves (and phase) of the actual carrier between the satellite and car. Unfortunately, when you go under an overpass, or behind an obstruction, you can lose carrier-phase lock (which is slow to re-acquire). This is where the IMU comes in (3 ring laser gyros and 3 high end accelerometers). The better they help maintain knowledge of the car's position the more quickly we can re-acquire a carrier-phase fix.

We also map the track very accurately, and use it to effectively "add" one satellite to our constellation. This component (and some of the others) are patented.

I'd be happy to tell you more about the system if there's anything you'd like to know.

Just yesterday my boss and I came up with a new approach for tracking all the cars on the track more robustly. Not sure how soon we'll get to implement it. The system for the upcoming season is already well under way.

[AZ ChopperCam]

here's what a Kenyon Gyro can do on a properly designed mount.

http://www.azchoppercam.com/portfolio/video/stabilization_data.htm

[spork]

That looks good. But it also looks like you've done a nice job of making a fairly vibe-free heli, and a mount with good isolation. This helps reduce the gyro workload - which is always best if possible.

[DKTek]

Spork, do you or have you worked for BST? They do a lot of in car stuff. Myself, I'm a Wescam tech/operator by trade.

[spork]

My company works with BST, but I personally have not.