Posted by Matt Mishak on September 13, 2014 at 1:03am
Rick PurdomSep 13th, 12:27amI am a professional thinker. Yes, we are out there! I have an idea that I am giving you guys, gratis! I don't know too much about the drone technology but I have seen these small drones that you can fly remotely with an iPhone or iPad. I was wondering why no one has come up with an app that will "remember" a flown route and be able to replay it "hands free". Here is my idea. A docking station for recharging, kind of like those drone vacuum cleaners! You would fly your drone in a given route for, let's say, a surveillance or a large property, ie. Ranch, farm, apartment complex, car lot, salvage yard etc. at a pre-programed time, the drone would launch, video record it's route and return to base, dock, recharge and upload the video to your home base computer for viewing.Why hasn't someone come up with this?
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The waypoints are programmed, the flight flown hands-free as you call it, returns to launch point, etc. The video is streaming live, no need to download,
Your "gratis" ideas would have come in handy, say ten years ago.
To my knowledge, these are not "already existing features". Not sure where the underlying negativity is coming from ...
Sure it *can* be done, as in "one could write a program for that", but that does not mean it *has* been done the way Matt I think envisions it: A one click kind of thing. Fly manual, click "repeat", generate waypoint splines, extract attitude data, generate attitude control commands, and take off fully autonomously. Far from trivial.
Right now the only way to do this is via considerable manual work, hacks, klduges, and what not, and this will probably be a one-off, falling far short of an exact flight repeat in terms of attitude and speed. Sort of defeats the original idea and usefulness. Would love to be proven wrong on this, if someone can point to simple, integrated and working implementation of this II'd love to see it ...
Next step depending on application could be to actually purposely "smooth" out the flight. Great for intricate filming for instance: Fly manually until you get the shot you want just right, then repeat autonomously resulting in a smoother take.
Matt Mishak > John DenningsSeptember 13, 2014 at 11:49pm
Seems as though a recorded flight path could be translated into a waypoint file, no?
Gary Mortimer > Matt MishakSeptember 14, 2014 at 12:21am
Dean Goedde had it working a few years ago with his autopilot. But for now mapping a 3D aerobatic flight would be hard, mapping a trip around a fence to repeat would be simple. There would in fact be no need to ever fly that manual flight around the fence. Simply plot the flight in mission planner and refine it until happy. With Pixhawk you could even avoid terrain if you miscalculated heights.
Right off the bat a 3D aero flight would have issues with GPS lock if upside down for any amount of time.
You don't see many 3D aerobatic RPAS its a job more fun to do by hand.
You admit that you don't know much about the technology, but you have these ideas which you wonder why no-one has done before???
These are already existing features!
The waypoints are programmed, the flight flown hands-free as you call it, returns to launch point, etc. The video is streaming live, no need to download,
Your "gratis" ideas would have come in handy, say ten years ago.
Gary Mortimer > Matt MishakSeptember 13, 2014 at 10:14am
There have been autopilots that have had the feature. You could play back your recorded log file with APM and then just plot the route and make the auto flight. Perhaps even making it a spline nav flight to make it even smoother.
Matt Mishak > Gary MortimerSeptember 13, 2014 at 10:24am
Thanks Gary. What I am interested in doing is having an RC acrobatic pilot fly an aggressive manual mission and later be able to have the autopilot achieve the same level of sport flying. Re-mapping the waypoints would be a facsimile, but there would be much lost in translation, no?
Matt Mishak > Gary MortimerSeptember 13, 2014 at 9:29am
Gary,
Are you saying that some feature allows me to do a manual flight, record the mission, and next time have the autopilot fly the recorded waypoints?
THX
Matt
Replies
This is indeed a great idea.
Richard> These are already existing features!
The waypoints are programmed, the flight flown hands-free as you call it, returns to launch point, etc. The video is streaming live, no need to download,
Your "gratis" ideas would have come in handy, say ten years ago.
To my knowledge, these are not "already existing features". Not sure where the underlying negativity is coming from ...
Sure it *can* be done, as in "one could write a program for that", but that does not mean it *has* been done the way Matt I think envisions it: A one click kind of thing. Fly manual, click "repeat", generate waypoint splines, extract attitude data, generate attitude control commands, and take off fully autonomously. Far from trivial.
Right now the only way to do this is via considerable manual work, hacks, klduges, and what not, and this will probably be a one-off, falling far short of an exact flight repeat in terms of attitude and speed. Sort of defeats the original idea and usefulness. Would love to be proven wrong on this, if someone can point to simple, integrated and working implementation of this II'd love to see it ...
Next step depending on application could be to actually purposely "smooth" out the flight. Great for intricate filming for instance: Fly manually until you get the shot you want just right, then repeat autonomously resulting in a smoother take.
Seems as though a recorded flight path could be translated into a waypoint file, no?
Dean Goedde had it working a few years ago with his autopilot. But for now mapping a 3D aerobatic flight would be hard, mapping a trip around a fence to repeat would be simple. There would in fact be no need to ever fly that manual flight around the fence. Simply plot the flight in mission planner and refine it until happy. With Pixhawk you could even avoid terrain if you miscalculated heights.
Right off the bat a 3D aero flight would have issues with GPS lock if upside down for any amount of time.
You don't see many 3D aerobatic RPAS its a job more fun to do by hand.
These are already existing features!
The waypoints are programmed, the flight flown hands-free as you call it, returns to launch point, etc. The video is streaming live, no need to download,
Your "gratis" ideas would have come in handy, say ten years ago.
There have been autopilots that have had the feature. You could play back your recorded log file with APM and then just plot the route and make the auto flight. Perhaps even making it a spline nav flight to make it even smoother.
I think he wants the drone to dock and charge and upload data automatically too.
They have
Are you saying that some feature allows me to do a manual flight, record the mission, and next time have the autopilot fly the recorded waypoints?
THX
Matt
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