I'm looking for information on low-tech UAVs that don't require a smartphone to fly and doesn't use GPS. Mainly to avoid blocked geography, Stingray monitoring and firmware update swindles.
Just a video camera to fly by-the-seat-of-your-pants to guide a more advanced camera to a target.
Are your talking about line of sight RF control? gonna be range limited but why couldn't you cobble together (modify) something improvised from the RC toy hobby and bypass the GPS and cell phone net?
I mean a servo is a servo right? it'd be easy to make one fly, the video can be stored on board vs a link?
If you are worried about the airspace locking like you see in DJI, you can always use a pixhawk controller instead. Bonus that it's open source and you can incorporate your own code into the system.
Building a small race style drone and throwing in your own camera isn't that difficult and can be found on the web pretty easy. You can buy a baseframe and motors, and then start building in your controller and receiver systems pretty easy.
Yeah, all the technology is easily accessible. It's just a matter of throwing some $$ and time at the project. Unfortunately it gets pretty expensive if you are planning on using goggles to fly with. If not you will be flying all line-of-sight which may be a challenge because of the drone's small size. You can't fly out that far before it becomes too small to see and control.
I would see if you have a hobby shop in your area that specializes in RC drones. You might be able to find some used transmitters, goggles, and drones at prices that will save you a lot from new. It gets expensive to build from scratch.
If you don't already fly you might want to learn on an inexpensive drone like a Tiny Whoop before moving on to a larger, more expensive drone. They will bind to your transmitter and you can learn to fly inside. https://www.tinywhoop.com
Just my .02 worth.
Abby Normal
"Government is not a solution to our problem, government is the problem." Ronald Reagan
Posted by Abby Normal Yeah, all the technology is easily accessible. It's just a matter of throwing some $$ and time at the project. Unfortunately it gets pretty expensive if you are planning on using goggles to fly with. If not you will be flying all line-of-sight which may be a challenge because of the drone's small size. You can't fly out that far before it becomes too small to see and control.
I would see if you have a hobby shop in your area that specializes in RC drones. You might be able to find some used transmitters, goggles, and drones at prices that will save you a lot from new. It gets expensive to build from scratch.
If you don't already fly you might want to learn on an inexpensive drone like a Tiny Whoop before moving on to a larger, more expensive drone. They will bind to your transmitter and you can learn to fly inside. https://www.tinywhoop.com
Just my .02 worth.
Abby Normal
Thanks!
I can see an application in your mine exploring and rescue.
When I lived in Colorado, there was a guy who fell into a really deep shaft near Cripple Creek. The Colorado Mine Rescue folks had a camera they sent down the shaft ran out of cable at 675' and didn't hit bottom.
The guy's parents (in Pennsylvania) called their senator and got the Federal mine rescue crew involved. They were able to produce a picture of the body at the bottom of the 1000' shaft.
A friend and I just picked up a Mavic Pro. I'm hoping to use it for some aerial video footage, but also to "scout" areas more quickly than we can on foot. Some of the more extensive sites can stretch over a mile in various directions. Some adits are hard to see until you get right on top of them. I've also thought about using a slow flying RC airplane for the same purpose but don't know if there is any reason to now that we have the drone. When it comes to drawing unwanted attention, an electric RC plane would be significantly quieter but more much visible.
I'm not sure how they would work underground. There are a lot of issues with signal propagation. Even with line-of-sight down a shaft, walkie talkies have trouble beyond a 100 feet or so. We are going to play with some of the small drones underground to see what happens. It's such an unforgiving environment that any mistake in flying will probably result in a lost drone. On the other hand, it could really expand our knowledge of a mine since we could put a drone in places that we just can't get to. We would also have to figure out the lighting requirements to be able to film. Small cameras require a lot of light and batteries are heavy.
Be sure to post up your status if you go that direction. It would be fun to see how it develops.
Abby Normal
"Government is not a solution to our problem, government is the problem." Ronald Reagan
I forgot about that. I know someone that does cave rescue and I made a wire dispenser for him to use with hand-crank phones for use in cave rescue.
I want to say it was Minnesota, someone had a crawler (non flying) drone they sent into a collapsed tunnel trying to find another entrance. They ended up dragging it out by a line the attached to it.
Posted by Radio2600 I want to say it was Minnesota, someone had a crawler (non flying) drone they sent into a collapsed tunnel trying to find another entrance. They ended up dragging it out by a line the attached to it.
That was me. Toy R/C tank with a disposable camcorder duct-taped to it. I didn't know you'd mentioned that in this thread, came here to suggest duct-taping a camera to an R/C plane
Ethics
