Hey everyone!
I am a relative noob to the RC world, but lately I have a reason to dive in head first...
I have a small company that designs & builds various electrical / alt power gear, much of it oriented around HAM radio and portable / emergency power & communications.
We have been making progress on an R&D project that just won't die... we keep getting closer to something that might work. ;-)
The goal of the project:
A small, collapsible flying platform that can lift a communications antenna about 30' off of the ground and hold it fairly steady for anywhere from a few minutes to a few hours.
The antenna is a flexible whip, about 20" long and weighing 34 grams (not pictured).
Power for the system comes from a DC source on the ground.
Control of the system is limited to throttle only.
Weight of the tether (DC power, signal for throttle, and antenna feedline) at max (30') height is 500 - 700 grams.
Weight of the air frame (motors,chassis, flight control, etc. is about 300 grams.
Currently building around Black Widow 2204 motors (with ESC built in).
Using Naze32 rev5 FC with 5030 props.
Primary construction of chassis is 3D printed ABS.
A few questions:
Do I need to use a small buck converter to deliver 5 volts to the Naze? Information I am finding online is not clear... remember I am not running a BEC
What is a good way to control motor speed... use a servo tester as throttle? A PWM speed controller? Remember this control is on the ground, hard wired up to the platform.
Any thoughts on the Naze being able to maintain level hover despite wind or movement of the operator on the ground? We are not running a GPS and don't want to.
Thanks in advance for your thoughts!
Replies
This is getting complicated.
Sorry, are you being funny?
I was wondering about an algorithm that could sense the 'end of tether' and more aggressively pitch into the wind... something like that.
You can consider to use a Pixhawk instead of Naza, as an open source platform, if you need any special function, you can modificate the software, you have smaller vers if you have little space like Px4, Pixracer, etc. Why you don't like gps in your proyect? It's incompatible with the antenna?
Another possibility, if you need to control throttle only is to use a CC3D controller, much cheaper, little and easy to configure, only stabilize.
Cala,
Interesting, thank you! I will dig into both of those controllers.
The CC3D controller looks interesting. Do you know if it requires an arming sequence? Meaning I wonder if it will control the ESC's without a receiver hooked up, but just a throttle?
GPS is undesireable because possible applications are outside of GPS coverage, and it is a level of complexity that should not be needed if the only goal is maintaining level flight.
Yes, it's requires that you move the stick to one side, I hope that all controllers need but you can investigate if It's possible to avoid it by settings, If the only goal is to mantain level, It's the controller for you, it's have good performance with windy conditions and it's cheap to give it a try, It is used in many RTF racer copters.
I've got an email sent off to one of the developers... fingers crossed.
Thanks again. Good info. ;-)
Good Luck!!
Please show us the finished product, I'm curious :)
I have got it , finally got a solution for you
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/fotokite-phi-aerial-videos-made-...
BTW
search engine at rcgroups.com is not smart, so failed to output
search results including "tethered drone" in subject line
But the above project is exactly what are you looking for.
Foldable, tethered drone, out-of-the-box
For more "tethered drone" projects
just go for Google search and Bing search
and enter "tethered drone"
and switch to images to view really great projects.
Wish you success
Darius,
I am familiar with that indiegogo campaign.
That device is quite a bit different than what I am trying to do, although it outwardly looks similar.
I have already done internet searches.
Thanks
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