The functional requirements are:
- Stable indoor flight while piloted manually (to be used in the beginning phases of the project)
- Real-time flight data transmission
- Able to be piloted via PC (with joypad or so)
- Camera onboard, real-time video transmission
- Remote camera tilt control (only via PC)
- Obstacle avoidance
- Autonomous landing and take-off
...and that's it for the beginning. After a couple of days of feasibility study I've decided to go with:
- ArduCopter Quad KIT (I already feel lucky to begin with the project once the kit is already available, or at least will hopefully soon again be)
- HMC5843 - Triple Axis Magnetometer
- XBee Pro 60mW 2,4GHz
- Camera - don't know which yet
- Infrared Proximity Sensor Long Range - Sharp GP2Y0A02YK0F for obstacle detection
- LiPO Battery
- Hobby King Battery Monitor 3S
- Ultrasonic Range Finder - Maxbotix LV-EZ4 for autonomous landing
- Futaba 7C transmitter
And then the questions:
- Can you spot any inconsistencies between the requirements and parts choice already? Am I missing something?
- I just need a simple black&white camera, high resolution not required, I'd like to real-time process the data in my PC and send the results back to quad for navigation, so it just needs to suit the airframe.
- How to transmit video to the ground? I've read Xbees 900MHz are used to do that, do I need a separate Tx/Rx?
- Assuming my Futaba 7C (2,4GHz) has frequency hopping, can I use 2,4GHz Xbee for flight data transmission?
Now, I know it's a lot. So please answer even if you just know one answer or have any comments on my choices. Especially questions 3 and 4 are important to me, as I know very little of radio transmission.
Thanks in advance and regards.
Replies
You can use a precise (+-2cm) Indoor "GPS": http://marvelmind.com/.
Here a couple of demos:
http://www.diydrones.com/profiles/blogs/indoor-uav-3d-position
A piece of advice:
I suggest to use ultra sonic range finder also for "obstacle avoidance". Their beam are wider, thus detecting obstacles is more reliable.
For the radio link: you should consider using just 1 radio link, because you plan to control it via a PC. That's what I am doing on my drone, with just 1 bluetooth link for all usages: sending high level commands, manual control, telemetry, etc...