Raw flight footage.
Just to document some early progress in the building of a multirotor Conservation Drone with thermal imaging for wildlife research (last picture shows the quad with a FLIR PS32 camera, yet to be mounted). Apologies for the shaky video taken with an iphone (had to hold on to transmitter with other hand).
See: http://ConservationDrones.org for more information
Technical details:
Base unit: Reconfigured 3DR quadcopter with stock motors and ESC
Propellers: 10 x 4.5 SF props
Copter legs: improvised "foam noodles" (about $2 and surprisingly stable)
Battery: 2 x 5000 mAh Turnigy
Autopilot: APM 2.5 with power module, GPS uBlox LEA-6, Radio Telemetry
Firmware: ArduCopter V2.9.1b
APM parameter file: APMConfig_9XR_3DRQUAD.param
Flying weight: 1.8 kg
Total flight time: 21 minutes (17 minutes if flying with 1 x 5000 mAh battery)
Comments
Swimming noodles as landing gear/bumpers! What an interesting idea. And yes, nice loitering too.
Nice loiter looks like you had minimum wind but that weight is pretty impressive for a quad. Did you consider a hexa and if so why did you rule it out?