Hi i'm organising an expedition to the far Canadian North on a sailing boat to stay there the winter frozen in by the ice.
I'm interested in building a multicopter for several reasons:
-aerial photography
-video recording
-as a reconnaissance device for ice patterns
I see several aspects that might be a problem:
-Temperature : we want to be able to film inn temperatures down to -15C
-GPS : the signal is not very strong in those regions... Are there alternatives to GPS navigation? Can my multicopter still fly even when the GPS stops working?
-magnetic field: the copter uses a compass for positioning and orientation. What other possibilities are there?
Does anyone have any experience or ideas on these topics
Thanks
Kalle
You need to be a member of diydrones to add comments!
Replies
please take a look at http://koptercam.tv/
Hi Kalle,
The cold can be a real barrier to aerial photography, but it's not related to flying. If you use a camera with a separate battery, it will only work for a short period of time in negative temperatures. Even keeping the copter/camera warm doesn't help, because the camera batteries are quite low in mass and cool quickly. Best to supply the camera from the flight battery. When I fly at -10C, I keep the batteries on my body, under a jacket. Once the flight battery starts to drain, it will stay warm enough for a good flight time. The flight time is reduced, but no more than 15% or so.
GLONASS, the russian gps equivalent, has better coverage for northern latitudes. I suspect there are GPS modules that support both GPS and GLONASS.
Hi Kalle,
-15C should probably be no problem. I have flow helicopters down to -10C. Multirotors are even simpler, so they should be fine if you use good quality components.
You can see one of my winter flights here.
- You might look into using one of the M8 GPS units.
- Magnetic Field will absolutely be your biggest problem. It probably won't be usable. If you are skilled in flying, then you can definitely fly manually.
Heck, its colder than that here right now, and winter hasn't even started! (-18 C)
Over the years I thought of several schemes to keep my hands and batteries warm, but when it came down to it I just said F&^% it, its a good time to get back to building another model in the nice warm shop.
Hi Kalle, for some of our customers we have run extreme low temperature tests on our laser altimeters (below -32C). If you are thinking of buying one to stay above the ice then we can verify the low temp performance for you at no charge.