I am writing you because i think you all have the knowlege to give me some advise.
At the end of december, two boats with tourists where lost in the sea, in that moment the government started a search and rescue operation (very big), but one of the tragic things that happened was that one of the rescue helicopters had an accident taking off to start the search and 3 rescuers died that day....
Some friends in the rescue institute noticed my effort to learn about autopilots and UAVs, they saw some of my succesfull tests, and they are asking me to develop a search and rescue plattform to help them.
We need to reach 50 km range, i started allready to make a fiberglass prototype 4,4mts wing span, i received a donation of a 3w 150cc gas engine, and a sony box camera 21x zoom.
So, we are planning to use APM (allready have it) to make the autopilot work, but we need your advice on the long range remote control, telemetry and video transmision.... i also have to design a Ground control station (in a trailer) to make it transportable.....
I have been doing good testing with what i have now, but 50 km is too much for the xbee on telemetry and the 1 watt amplifier for the control.
What do you think? i would appreciate any idea or sugestion....
Replies
Hi Diego,
How is the project ? Did you rich 50km with ArduPilot. Do you have some videos ? What type of gimbal do you use for the camera?
Your project is very interesting to me !
I know very little about telemetry, but share a similar goal. SAR searches with a drone over densely treed areas. Trouble is most searches are in the middle of the night, it's raining, windy, and our local SAR could't afford to pay for lost drones on a regular basis.
For an autonomous long range search would your local ham radio club with there sensitive receivers be of any help?
Its very likely that Coast guard SAR would have a boat in search grid maybe you could transmit on a marine band monitored with portable modems.