Hello,
I am building a sensor for vegetation survey,all together its 718 grams.I and looking for a fixed-wing (preferably) to carry it and the whole thing need to be under 2kg ( CASA regulation in australia to flight without spending a lot in licence ).
For now its just a prototype and i need to test my sensor with real condition.I am looking for a 10~15 min flight at a 50 m altitude (if things work fine i will be looking for a large drone that can fly for hours).In the 718 gram there is already a RTK-GPS that could be use also for navigation.
Do you know if its possible to carry that much weight witouth being over 2kg ?
Vincent
Replies
Vincent,
That looks about right. You will want to put all the components, camera, battery, wings, tail, pixhawk etc on a balance board. That way you can experiment and find the locations that put the CG at the wing spar and give you the most flexibility.
I would integrate the pixhawk with the Bixler3 and get it flying well. You may even want to set it up with a dummy weight that represents your camera.
Attached is my sensor ( on the bottom ) who weight 490 grams and the fuselage,Do you think i should place it at that height ?
Vincent Diallo-Nort said:
IMG_20170104_221000.jpg
Thanks a lot, Do you have any picture ? I am not sure where i should put the camera, i thought just under the wing will be the best place as it should be the CG,but i am not so sure.I am looking at buying Pixhawk PX4 2.4.8 for autopilot and use it for auto landing take off
Hi Vincent, Great to hear you have the bixler 3 flying. Putting cameras in the belly under the wing works for me. To open up the center section you may want to move the tail servos back to get the push rods out of the way. You can move the servos, hook everything back up and flight test it again. I like to get the aircraft trimmed and autopilot working well, then I modify the aircraft for the additional weight.
I have found that these multistar batteries are relatively light and provide quite a bit of energy for their 318 gram weight.
https://hobbyking.com/en_us/multistar-lihv-high-capacity-5200mah-3s...
With your sensor in the belly these batteries may be useful for balancing and keep the CG at the wing spar.
Hello,
I got the bixler 3 , build it and it fly ( well the instructor can fly it,i still need to learn to control it ) , I use different material for the sensor i get down to 570 gram. However i need to power it ( i will use 1.5 amp i think ) that mean bigger battery so more weight.At the moment the everything together is 1545 grams ( with a 3s 2.2 amp battery so not gonna fit to power everything) however the space inside the bix3 is not big enough to host the sensor. So i was wondering what i should do,Do a mold and redo the fuselage with carbon fiber and bigger en the belly so it can fit my sensor ?
Hi Vincent.
The only reason for staying under the 2kg limit is because you are doing it commercially ie for profit.
If this is a test platform, or for research, and you personally, are not getting paid for the activity of flying the aircraft itself, you do not need to limit yourself to 2kg and are free to choose a slightly larger, not much more expensive (maybe even cheaper) airframe. If it doubt seek guidance directly from CASA and explain the exact situation.
If you are looking for an off the shelf airframe so that you can put your custom sensor payload into it, then the criteria changes, and I'm sceptical of finding an off the shelf airframe that will do the sensor payload justice and also weigh under 1.2kg. Not a problem for a custom airframe however, but that will add cost.
Hi, be under 2 kg is really important for now because increasing the weight will drive significant cost ( around 10 kaud which I can't afford for now).For now I don't need much endurance, 10-15 min flight is what I need. Thanks for all your answer.
It is possible to make a sensor pod on any airframe. If you want to mount it inside tho you might need to use a wing instead (which needs a bit more finesse to fly) which is wide enough to house it easily. An X8 would have plenty of room and endurance but is not a sub 2kg airframe. A X5 or ZII wing might just work tho. Id look into trying to avoid the sub 2kg limitation instaed and get a larger airframe working for the sensor platform. I don't think you'll get the results you want from a Bixler mod.
Vincent, I fly a 100 mm long Canon across the fuselage of a bixler 2. Camera sticks out a bit but really not that much drag.
You can just cut a slot into the fuselage below the wing and slide the camera in. It will even be close to the CG.
Hi,I don't think it will fit in a 60 mm wide fuselage, its 100 mm long ( and this length need to be perpendicular to the ground ),130 mm wide, 60 mm large.
Does its possible to have something that will come out of the fuselage with some kind of protective bubble so the airflow get less impacted ?
Vincent
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