AR Parrot Drone - Customizations - Discussions

Hello All,

This is my very first attempt to trying to modify a RC and after hours of research and millions of possibilities I decided to stick with using the AR Parrot Drone for my quadcopter platform. The issue with having this system is that I need to upgrade the battery capability, range, and FVP cameras.

The current range is based on a wifi to smartphone system which the company claims to only go 50 meters and that is a long shot. The battery only has about 10 minutes tops and therefor cannot do long distance missions. The cameras are very mediocre and deffently need to be updated with a better resolution camera(s) as that will be the primary source of viewing where the quadcopter is.

We want it to be able to view airsoft/paintball players on the ground in wooded & urban areas during realistic scenario games.

Basically we want an affordable prototype UAV that can do recon on the players for the refs and game coordinators.

If this is doable on the AR Parrot Drone or if someone has a better solution I am extremely open ideas.

We don't have an endless budget and therefore would like to keep the entire system costing not too much more than the AR Parrot Drone System which starts at $300.00 without the upgrades (which I estimate will be another $200.00 - $300.00).

Thanks so much for all your time!

You might be able to upgrade the battery to a larger mAh, but be warned as this will increase the weight and thus also reduce the flight time you'd expect at first. You'll probably have a bit of difficulty strapping the battery to (what looks to be) the Parrot's small frame... and you'll also have to learn how to solder together the Parrot's connectors to the new battery. --Note that you will have to get a different charger, too. Try to get one of the chargers that feature "auto-balancing," and study up a bit on Lithium Polymer tech before buying.

You can get a CMOS camera from just about any DIY electronics shop online, or possibly so-called "Spy" shops but I imagine their prices would be higher because they're "specialty" items. Have you tried Sparkfun.com? I remember seeing a camera there for sale once... Issue with getting a new camera though, is that I'm not sure if it will be compatible with the Parrot's on-board circuitry and software.

And finally the WiFi, that could be also a challenge depending on how the Parrot's software is setup. Ideally you'd want to be able to control it from something like a LinkSys network spread around the paintball field.

I suggest heading over to their forums and asking around about your modifications: https://projects.ardrone.org/projects/ardrone-api/boards

I skimmed through some of their discussions, so they seem more interested in making "games" and other ap's, but you never know till you try, eh?

Replies

Allen Babb August 29, 2011 at 11:25am

You might be able to upgrade the battery to a larger mAh, but be warned as this will increase the weight and thus also reduce the flight time you'd expect at first. You'll probably have a bit of difficulty strapping the battery to (what looks to be) the Parrot's small frame... and you'll also have to learn how to solder together the Parrot's connectors to the new battery. --Note that you will have to get a different charger, too. Try to get one of the chargers that feature "auto-balancing," and study up a bit on Lithium Polymer tech before buying.

You can get a CMOS camera from just about any DIY electronics shop online, or possibly so-called "Spy" shops but I imagine their prices would be higher because they're "specialty" items. Have you tried Sparkfun.com? I remember seeing a camera there for sale once... Issue with getting a new camera though, is that I'm not sure if it will be compatible with the Parrot's on-board circuitry and software.

And finally the WiFi, that could be also a challenge depending on how the Parrot's software is setup. Ideally you'd want to be able to control it from something like a LinkSys network spread around the paintball field.

I suggest heading over to their forums and asking around about your modifications: https://projects.ardrone.org/projects/ardrone-api/boards

I skimmed through some of their discussions, so they seem more interested in making "games" and other ap's, but you never know till you try, eh?

This reply was deleted.