I'm working for environmental and anti poaching organizations in Africa. The problem is that there is often not enough personnel to patrol the entire area. We're loosing a lot of game.
We're therefore looking for a low cost, affordable reconnaissance UAVs as an alternative to more expensive existing UAV systems or manned airplanes.
It should possess the following attibutes:
- operational range of 3 km
- weatherproof design that can resist hot temperatures
- GPS
-autopilot
- real time video transmission
- cost between $1000 - $ 3000
Could you recommend us any models?
Thank you, man! Your help is greatly appreciated!
Replies
In response to President Obama’s Executive Order
on Wildlife Protection, Kashmir-Robotics is
hosting the Wildlife Conservation unmanned aerial
vehicle (UAV) Challenge to foster innovation and
invention in the design, fabrication, and utilization of
unmanned aircraft to assist with counter poaching
and illicit wildlife trafficking. It calls on students,
hobbyists, academics, and corporations to cooperate
in a Build & Fly challenge that emphasizes the
integration of sensors, embedded systems, and
communications in a robust and high endurance
aircraft.
The Challenge is based on simulated wildlife
poaching and trafficking activities. Each Challenge
Scenario will be composed of three phases.
Phase One - teams will propose a concept that
includes aircraft, sensors, embedded systems,
communications, and operational concepts.
Phase Two - teams will fabricate their aircraft and
demonstration air worthiness and safety at their local
AMA flying fields.
Phase Three - teams will compete in the challenge
scenario. Specific details of the challenge scenario
will not be released until the morning of the
competition, so teams will need to be prepared to
adjust flight profiles, sensor parameters, and data
processing as needed.
Evaluations will be based on performance of the
aircraft and ability of the aircraft systems to support
the mission.
The winning UAV will participate in counter-poaching
missions throughout South African National Parks.
Monetary and scholarship prizes will be awarded to
regional winners and National champions.
wildlifeUAVchallengepdf.pdf
Hi
I'm currently starting up a project to build drones and supply them to nature reserves in Southern Africa.
Here is my Indiegogo campaign: http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/droning-for-rhinos/x/1554456
Cheers
Hi There i am looking for exactly the same thing!!
have you found anything?
somthing like this http://www.suasnews.com/2012/12/20295/blimp-in-a-box/
Hi!
Closest thing to your problem is:
http://c-astral.com/
Their Bramor UAV is superb military grade product available for general market.
Hi Jerry,
We have had the opportunity to introduce the Drone concept to a very well known Game Park. We flew for some new Green Scorpions at the time. They loved the idea, because as the Security Chief of the Game Park mentioned, they have quad bikes, men on horse, men on foot, men in bakkies(trucks).....but nothing in the air. We had at the time 2 cameras on the drone, and could switch between the two, one with a wide angle, and one with a fixed zoom.
Yes and as Graham mentioned....it is freaking hard to spot someone behind a bush. But even with these limitations the Game Park still thinks its an awesome idea. We are trying to get hold of a thermal camera to enhance the concept. Waiting for funds to come through.
Regarding your budget......$1000 -$3000....that you will have to multiply by 3 or so, for a basic setup.
I hope this gives you a better picture!
Bakgat
As pointed out, you're going to have trouble with getting the video and doing anything useful with it.
I would suggest that you have several UAVs in the air at any given time. Equip them with microphones!
Why? Because with GPS and the high precision time from the GPS you can use the microphones to triangulate any gunshots. That way you'll instantly get a fairly accurate fix on any gunshots.
I completley disagree with the notion that UAVs cannot be quiet. I have witnessed an entirely silent (actually metered) 12' uav flying overhead at 500' with completely audibly undetectable. The key is avoiding 2-stroke engines and getting your prop speed down. My recommendations:
Hobbyking 2350mm L-4 Grasshopper ARF (its actually the L-3B, but that's another story) ($200)
Honda GX25 4-stroke engine ($200) - go with an 18x12 or 18x10 prop for this RPM range, also look at 3 or 4 bladed props
APM w/telemetry and Airspeed ($500)
Roll your own FPV setup on 5.8ghz ($250)
Servos and TX/RX ($350)
So call it $1500 as a rough estimte for a near-silent uav. The sky is the limit as your desires for better range and video quality increase. Some are using HD COTS cameras with remarkable quality for a fration of the cost. The other points of how you are actually going to stop them is another case entirely. Hope this helps
-Giaco
am also in SA and have been thinking of the same idea, infact I went as far as designing an Anti-Poaching UAV during my summer holidays. I know of two aero companies who have been working on this idea. Paracreo and Denel Saab. If u really interested i can hook u up with relevent contacts of this two. An AP-UAV is probably wat we r looking for. I wont divulge information as to how the 1 i was involved in wwork bcos its part of the company policy not to reveal information about any of the projects. However i can give u some specs we've been working on:
- range (covering Kruger National Park) ...so its a fly out-of-aircraft. KNP is de largest park in SA so a uav dat covers dis would be sufficient to cover any of the smaller parks around South Africa.
- Endurance - we have been looking at 8 hrs without refuelling.
- could probably be classified as a MALE but smale than this.
Thanks to all of you for your advise! You're champions.
However, I believe that some of the arguments put forward against UAVs are not accurate. Maybe poachers can avoid drones by just going behind or under a bush. But the same holds true for manned airplanes. Maybe poachers can shoot at a drone. But they can also shoot at a manned ultralight aircraft.
So I still believe that UAVs are a low cost alternative to many manned air vehicles and thus a useful tool in anti poaching.
Remember, we don't want to shoot the poachers with them. We just want to observe the area from above and if I look at many videos here on diydrones.com I think that amateur drones can do the job very well.
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