"Thanks a lot for that Chris. I guess if I had a really big charging station... :)   GT"

"Exactly. GPS will get you within 5m. You need less than 5cm for charger docking. It requires a whole different set of sensors and navigation techniques."

"Thank you for taking the time and I apologize for my continued ignorance.   So the difference between "going home" and docking with a charging station is one of accuracy?   GT"

"A quad that can "go home" is around $500 (see ArduCopter above). A quad that can dock with a charging station is a very different matter."

"Wow, most definitely more than what I thought it would be. From perusing this site it appears that the hardware isn't terribly expensive so the real money is in software development? Just to get an idea, what would the cost be for the quad…"

"For what you want, you're off by at least one order of magnitude and possibly two. These things are not off-the-shelf yet--you'd be looking at custom development. Check back in a few years."

"I don't really know and I don't know what is involved. I also don't know what is reasonable. Well, let me ask this question: Where does the expense come in? Hardware or development time?   I can't commit to a budget right…"

"What's your budget?"

"Ok... this is exactly what I want. Anyone in the U.S. want to build one for me? I don't need the fancy hanger but I was actually looking to use this for a security application. I'm not sure how much this ScandiCraft is but I think it may…"

" Sure"

"For the video problem you mentioned earlier. You don't need to review an hour of tape every day. Since the gates don't move (they have a fixed coordinate) you can just have the UAV take a single photo of the coordinate, then review that…"

"I know and saw a lot of different "UAV" but few work like a "microwave" where you can just turn on and cook your "hot pocket""

"You don't need TALS to do auto launch and land any more (it's nice), high res. dgps, laser altimeter, sonar works well and cheap (in operations now) There are many existing autopilot solution already out there so RD cost will lies in…"

"Funny you should say that about the livestock... :) GT"

"To keep the cost down, I would steer away from autonomous takeoff and landing. I think some kind of manual control is certainly advisable. I do agree though that a shift to a telemetry based manual flight control system would greatly enhance the…"