Best DIY Multirotor for Agricultural use?

Posted by Agriavionics on May 15, 2014 at 7:41pm

Hi,

I have been doing a lot of reading around the use of UAV's for Agriculture, a lessons learned by 3DR staff related to the agricultural use of UAV's (http://robohub.org/ten-lessons-for-farm-drones/) basically said that multi rotors would be a more favourable option compared to fixed wings due to various reasons.

Multirotors come at the cost of endurance, i would really like to get some views on currently what would be the best DIY multirotor frame etc within the $1000 range that can carry a basic canon camera converted to gather NDVI images and use this in a third world country where there aren't many regulations around the usage of this technology.The goal would be a combination of basic capability of collecting NDVI images with a DIY camera with maximum endurance to maximize coverage.

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Replies

    • Agriavionics > Craig Bussel May 16, 2014 at 8:52am

      Thanks Craig!...great to hear from someone applying the technology and providing feedback!..things are become a lot clearer with all this feedback

    • Cala > Drone-University.com May 16, 2014 at 5:16am

      I' agree with you too, I have both and they do different works, multirotor (cuad) flies low and takes ultra high resolution samples photos and the skywalker takes the hole field with less resolution for presicion aplications.

    • Branson > Drone-University.com May 16, 2014 at 3:55am
      I agree with drone university, I have the same interest in DIY ndvi cameras and am converting a canon sx260 I purchased second hand from eBay to keep cost down. The main reason I needed a drone was to launch this camera into the sky and no other reason.The first platform we built is a skywalker 2013. I am so glad we started with foam. The first few flights resulted in quite a few hard landings to say the least. I very quickly learned to boil foam and consider myself quite skillful at foam repair now more through necessity then intent. It took us about 6 hard landings before we got it right on the first build. Many lessons learned and I'm totally in love now with the skywalker and APM. All things that went wrong we were totally at fault. Some just are slow learners.

      However I will say that during some of these hard landings where bits of plane electronics and batteries were scattered amongst the foam all over our mapping area we only broke 1 RFD 900. Everything else including camera is still flying and flying well. The plane still even looks like a skywalker and the airframe is very sound even after all the repairs. Cost was mainly time and glue. I found that it takes a few mishaps to get all the detail right when you first start.

      We are now nearly complete on second skywalker2013 build with pixhawk this time all lessons learned from first build were incorporated into second build.

      I too am now also seeing the need for a multi rotor and after much research I decided on an fx680 frame from fpv model with sunny sky kv400 motors and 6S 6200mAH battery. Autopilot will be pixhawk. Ground station will be nexus tablet with Bluetooth wireless connection to an RF head on tripod. Camera will be sx260 with diy IR lens mod for ndvi (once again second hand to keep cost down) All the bits arrived last week so build starts soon. Will be interesting to see how we go. But I'm planning for mishaps this time as I don't expect the carbon fibre frame to be as forgiving as the foam. I'm glad I started with a skywalker and not a multi rotor as my focus is all about the end result and not so much the airframe, to be honest I don't want to fly a multi rotor but at present I need the capability that a multi rotor offers. So here I go, Best of luck with your research and maybe we can compare notes in the future.

      Cheers Branson
    • Agriavionics > Branson May 16, 2014 at 5:27pm

      Branson would you be kind enough to list the components other than any camera etc you used...motor..battery etc...looking up the list of items i need for the build.

    • Agriavionics > Branson May 16, 2014 at 7:07am

      Hi Branson,

      Thanks for your insight, did you consider a flying wing for the fixed wing option...like the Zephyr II. It seems all the commerical entities are using flying wings....less parts and simple to fix...i guess the learning curve of flying it compared to a Skywalker would be the issue ?

      I recently put together a quad with a QAV500 frame and APM 2.6...have autopilot going and all...now was thinking of taking the next step and adding a camera and then moving on to NIR etc...and now also considering the fixed wing option...thats where i now have the question...Zephyr II  or Skywalker?

  • UAVStuff May 15, 2014 at 9:09pm

    I tend to disagree with the 3DR's assessment of multi rotors over fixed wing aircraft for ag use.  I've been flying a Y6 for the past year and it's been great, but the flight times are laughably short for field coverage.  With a 4S 6000mah battery and a tiny Canon S110 I get ~12min flights in low wind.  That covers just a couple of hectares.  With my Skywalker plane I can fly for ~60mins, and cover 60 hectares.  And unless you're flying tiny, tightly packed farms you'll pretty much always have a place to land... every tractor needs a road!

    I think you'll find that if you go with a heli in that price range you're going to be wishing for more very quickly.  It can be a huge pain to have to program multiple chunks to cover one field and swap batteries (or recharge if you haven't bought many) every 10-12 minutes.  

    • Agriavionics > UAVStuff May 16, 2014 at 7:09am

      Thanks for the insight, i agree with the flight time constraint...when considering the skywalker what are your views about flying wings  like the Zephyr II....less parts to break...more durable for hard landings

  • Scott Penrose May 15, 2014 at 8:12pm

    I have been doing a lot of wind testing with my 3DR X8 - so far fantastic response, but my top is currently on 10m/s (36km/h) - I am building up to 16 m/s or higher. I think for the < 1000 mark think about a 3DR Y6 - good redundancy, close to X8 for wind, cheaper.

    Also, there is a lot you can save as one off. Base station, transmitter etc. A Y6 kit, assuming you have a transmitter is $600 ish. RTF with then $1100, + $169 for a transmitter. So price depends on what you need.

    How far do you need to travel? If you only have 12 minutes at say 25kph will that be enough? If not, then a quad rather than y6/x8 with better motors and props would get you a lot further, but no redundancy and higher price (maybe $2K for a scratch build).

    • Agriavionics > Scott Penrose May 16, 2014 at 7:12am

      Hi Scott,

      For now i put together a QAV500 and have been flying it to learn etc...i have it all setup with APM 2.6 with gps and have it flying in auto mode etc...im now thinking of adding a camera and doing some basic mapping...next step os for NIR etc...thats where the next question is...if i also want to move on to a fixed wing...whats the best option..skywalker or a Zephyr II....skywalker has more parts and more fragile...ZII is simple and durable...but compared to a skywalker tougher to fly and setup i guess

    • UAVStuff > Scott Penrose May 15, 2014 at 9:12pm

      My stock 3DR Y6 is good up to about 20mph, but as soon as it starts gusting over things get scary.  3DR support has echoed this figure as the maximum recommended wind speed for any loiter/auto/guided flights.

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