Open Source DroneShield Kit Alerts You of Snooping UAVs

http://www.droneshield.org/Home.html

http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/droneshield/

 

DroneShield: A simple device that alerts you to nearby drones

DroneShield is a low-cost, easy-to-use device that detects the presence of nearby drones (including RC helicopters, quadrotors, etc) and issues alerts via email, sms, and a flashing light. The goal is to help preserve privacy from low-cost remote-control air vehicles with video cameras.

How Does It Work?

DroneShield includes a microphone that listens for sounds of drones. Each DroneShield contains a database of common drone acoustic signatures so false alarms are reduced (IE ignores lawn mowers and leaf blowers) and in many cases the type of drone is also included in the alert.

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Technical Specifications

Our initial target platform is the Raspberry Pi. Other components include a microphone, power supply plugs (or micro-USB battery pack). Wifi connectivity is required for email and SMS alerts. Signature database updates can be downloaded and uploaded on the RPi’s SD card.

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What’s the Plan?

The goal of this initial campaign is to create a low-cost device that will help protect privacy against RC helicopters and quadrotors with video cameras; we already have a working prototype running on a laptop. The Indiegogo campaign will port that code to a small low-cost hardware platform that you can plug in and forget about. If you like you can periodically update the signatures of the drones we scan for, or even contribute your own signatures to the database.

 

a88d9f100657c844c46320e9ab8c9b0fOur goal is to port our existing code and database to the Raspberry Pi platform and bundle that with peripherals into a stand-alone product that can be operational right out of the box with absolutely no technical knowledge needed. The funds will be used to buy hardware in bulk (reducing prices) and the developers will donate their time to assemble the hardware and port the code.

We hope that there will be enough interest to justify further development to reduce costs in future generations; we believe ultimately we could get the cost down to the $20-range at scale. Future plans could include moving to an open-source ’sourceforge‘ type development environment and teaming with additional hardware makers.  We could also envision a smart-phone based platform for portable applications.“

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http://www.cafepress.de/cp/customize/product2.aspx?number=836272730

found via http://www.techthefuture.com/technology/open-source-droneshield-kit-alerts-you-of-snooping-uavs


Raspberry Pi PCF8563 Real Time Clock (RTC)

„Having recently received my Raspberry Pi, one of the first things I wanted to do was hook up a real-time clock chip I had lying around (a NXP PCF8563) and learn how to drive I2C from the BCM2835 hardware registers. Turns out it’s quite easy to do, and I think makes a useful project to learn with.

So, here are some notes I made getting it to work, initially with Chris Boot’s forked kernel that incorporates some I2C handling code created by Frank Buss into the kernel’s I2C bus driver framework.“

http://www.susa.net/wordpress/2012/06/raspberry-pi-pcf8563-real-time-clock-rtc/

(c) Kevin Sangeelee

 

 

 

Take control with your Raspberry Pi!

„Pi-Face Digital is the first of a range of interfaces to allow the Raspberry Pi to control and manipulate the real world.

It allows the Raspberry Pi to read switches connected to it – a door sensor or pressure pad perhaps, a microswitch or reed switch, or a hand held button.

With appropriate easy to write code, the Raspberry Pi then drives outputs, powering motors, actuator, LEDs, light bulbs or anything you can imagine to respond to the inputs.

Pi-Face Digital Interface

  • Allows you to control lights, motors etc.
  • Sense inputs
  • Creditcard size, stacks on top of Raspberry Pi
  • Buffered to protect the Raspberry Pi
  • Easy to connect with screw terminals
  • Program in Scratch or Python
  • Test with onscreen simulator

 

http://pi.cs.man.ac.uk/interface.htm

The University of Manchester – School of Computer Science

Raspberry Pi mediacenter with AirPlay and AirTunes support

„Raspbmc is a minimal Linux distribution based on Debian that brings XBMC to your Raspberry Pi. This device has an excellent form factor and enough power to handle media playback, making it an ideal component in a low HTPC setup, yet delivering the same XBMC experience that can be enjoyed on much more costly platforms. Raspbmc is brought to you by the developer of the Crystalbuntu Linux Distribution, which brings XBMC and 1080p decoding to the 1st generation Apple TV.

Here’s why you might like Raspbmc:

  • Free and open source.
  • No knowledge of Linux is needed. If you want to use the Raspberry Pi as an XBMC frontend you can do exactly that with no knowledge of how anything works.
  • It can be installed with a few simple clicks from a Mac or a PC running Windows or Linux.
  • It’s auto updating, meaning you constantly get new features, performance and driver updates. You can however turn updates off at any time.
  • It supports 1080p playback.
  • Share your content from your PC over NFS, SMB, FTP and HTTP.
  • AirPlay and AirTunes support allow you to send music and video from your iDevice to the TV.
  • Full GPIO support!
  • As it is a Debian system, it is completely expansive and you can install any packages from Debian’s massive repository!
  • … and much more!

Raspbmc is created and maintained by Sam Nazarko, an 18 year old student from London.“

http://www.raspbmc.com/about/