I thought its possible to use video to transmit telemetry data back to the ground station with no need of an extra radio, just using the OSD to write closed captions on the video and read it later with something like this: http://blog.makezine.com/2011/08/16/enough-already-the-arduino-solution-to-overexposed-celebs/
Am I going nuts or should this work and be cheaper than a telemetry only radio system?
Replies
You can encode telemetry into one channel of your audio stream, thats what a lot of antenna trackers do. The point of an antenna tracker is that you wont ever loose video because it should outrun your planes range.
Do you mean something like that?
http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1672628
Haven't posted there since a while, but i have new very good results.
Br
You're looking for something similar to Eagle Tree's OSD Pro or RangeVideo's RVOSD? They provide not only the onscreen interface, but telemetry embedded in the video. The data are then extracted by the companies' respective ground stations for use in antenna tracking, mapping, and/or logging.
I'd very much like to see something like that for APM, too. The trick, I suppose, is that it doesn't just require hardware in the sky, but a piece on the ground as well.
It's been tried. No clue on the level of success.
http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1560086
http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1502966
http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1338452
Here's the trouble. If the point of the telemetry stream is to give you the ability to lead your plane back home when your video stream cuts out (and it will), then it seems like you lose both at the same time. If that's not what the telemetry is for, then why do you need to send the data to the ground? Just log it on the plane (data recorder) and then post-process back on earth.
Someday, someone will invent a R/C TX that has built in telemetry and a nice color display.
http://www.os-rc.com/products/117-osrc-main-unit