QBall 2

This product is no longer available.

The Quanser QBall-X4 and its later version, QBall 2, were the first open-architecture quadrotors for indoor autonomous robotics research. To accelerate research in multi-agent, swarm, and vision-based applications, we now offer the QDrone, a feature vehicle of the Quanser Autonomous Vehicles Research Studio.

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The Quanser QBall 2 quadrotor is an innovative indoor rotary wing platform suitable for a wide variety of unmanned vehicle research applications. A complete system includes the QBall 2, ground control station, and OptiTrack cameras. The open-architecture design allows users to add other off-the-shelf sensors. This presents a flexible, open-architecture platform researchers can use to quickly develop and apply controllers and control algorithms, without having to integrate disparate hardware and software resources.

Protective carbon fiber cage for indoors use, enclosing Qball 2 motors, propellers and embedded computer
Ready for use out of the box, no assembly required
High-definition on-board avionics data acquisition card
Low power on-board computer with Linux operating system for high-level, real-time decision making and task execution
Built-in sensors (3-axis accelerometer, 3-axis gyroscope, sonar height sensor)
Customizable with off-the-shelf sensors supported by QUARC (digital – SPI, UART, IªC; analog sensor)
Accurate localization and tracking system
Wireless inter-vehicle communication capabilities for multi-agent research applications
Up to 10 min flight time on one battery charge
Up to 300 g payload

QBall 2
Diameter	0.7 m
Power	2 LiPo rechargeable batteries, 2700 mAh, 3-cell
Flight time	10 min per charge
Weight (with batteries)	1.8 kg
Maximum payload	300 g
Embedded Computer
On-board computer	Gumstix DuoVero Zephyr with integrated 802.11 b/g/n WiFi
Processor	ARM Cortex-A9, 1 GHz
Memory	1 GB DDR SDRAM
QUARC maximum sample rate	1,000 Hz
I/O Channels Specifications
PWM motor outputs	4
Configurable PWM outputs	2
3-axis gyroscope	250 deg/s – 500 deg/s – 2,000 deg/s selectable range
3-axis accelerometer	± 2g – ± 4g – ± 8g selectable range
Sonar height sensor	0.2 m – 7.65 m range 1 cm resolution
Analog input	2 12-bit, 0 V – 5 V
SPI	1
Reconfigurable digital I/O	8
UART	1 serial 3.3V
I²C	1