Dear fellows: I was talking with a friend of mine this weekend about an interesting application using IRIS+ (or a similar device) in order to inspect trains.
We are in Mexico and here trains are commonly used to transport raw materials like steel and coal from all over the country mainly to the USA border.
There is a big problem reported from years for all the companies doing this kind of services: robery. Thieves climb into the trains cars (train in motion) and extract all the goods in there so they would like to send a "drone" every hour or something like that in order to ispect train cars from above.
In France, they are already doing this kind of ispections, the main challenge is that train is in motion so I was wondering if you know some device in order to do this kind of application.
Thank you all!
Replies
You would definitely need to disable a number of the pre-arm checks in addition to the failsafes. It will be vibrating and in motion.
Yeah, and taking off would be like flying in a 30-40MPH wind - would be dicey for sure! Maybe a catch net for the return landing.
Si estas pensando de usar la sistema de APM para su proyecto, tienes que tener
en cuenta que el software que maneja los vehículos tiene una serie de cosas que
revisa antes de armar para el vuelo.
Uno de esos es revisando si la velocidad esta mas alta que 50cm/s.
Busque "bad velocity" en este articulo pa entender.
http://copter.ardupilot.com/wiki/flying-arducopter/prearm_safety_ch...
Esto no quiere decir que es impossible, si no que vas a tener que modificar un
parte critical del software que maneja la sistema operativa del vehículo.
Me parece que seria mas util usar una sistem para detectar un cambio electro/magnetico
cuando se introduce un nueva carga al tren. Usando sensores en cada caro, hasta podrías
identificar en que caro se esta detectado el cambio.
Roughly translated (for those of us following in English):
If you are thinking of using the APM system for your project, you have to have note that the software which manages vehicle has a number of things that checks before assembling for flight. One of these is to check if the speed is higher than 50cm / s . Look for " bad velocity" in this article pa understand.
This does not mean that it is impossible , otherwise you 'll have to modify a critical part of the software that manages the operating system of the vehicle . I think it would be more useful to use a sistem to detect an electro / magnetic change when a new load the train is introduced. Using sensors in each expensive , so could identify how expensive is this detected change.
Maybe setting ARMING_CHECK to "0" (zero) will over-ride all start-up errors. This will have to be Trial and Error test to see if it works.
You would definitely need to disable nearly every failsafe since they're all based on the drone environment being stationary. If you have a control failure, it's basically has to crash. No return to launch. No geofence. You'll need to accept the financial risk.
You'll need to consider the range of your transmitter too. You need to be able to control the UAV for the entire length of the train plus some margin of error. A mile or two is well outside the standard range of most stock control systems.
On the same token, your FPV system will need the same range.
@Pedals - Definitely good point on the transmitter / FPV range capabilities. My Futaba T14SG can reach out about to 5000' to 8000' max, so I was thinking a mile long train was doable.
If you defeat the transmitter failsafe and one were to use AUTO mode for most of process, you could have the quad wait for X amount of time at the "PosHold" monitoring point (location you fly to the side of the train for the starting point), then after the waiting period (manually calculated by taking train length divided by speed), the quad would then fly to a location where the front of the train will "be at" for the return (you could enter this location prior to taking off using DroidPlanner and a cached Map).
I don't know if the Iris+ has RSSI monitoring, but if it does, you could add that to your OSD to monitor status of your receiver's signal strength.
I think this would be a fun project. It is similar in nature to a distance test I was going to run on my hex. My hex can fly about 36 - 40 minutes on a 16,000mAh 6S battery averaging about 17A at 30MPH. My hex has a Pix F/C and I was going to see if it could fly 10 miles each way based on an AUTO program that was pre-loaded in the F/C. I found a location where I could do this with only a 50' elevation change. My plan was to just drive beside the hex while it was in flight (just to monitor it). Once it reached the 10 mile target waypoint, it would turn around a head back to the starting point. Not as complicated as the train task, but similar in determining all the parameters it takes to make it work. The challenge is what is so cool.
Well, heck, I've done this myself here in the US.
If you had an operator on the actual train, they could release the multi-rotor while the train was in motion, inspect the length of the train, then return back to a landing spot on the train. Sounds like a fun job!
Check out my video on this... Now I did speed-up the video for purposes of YouTube, but the idea can be implemented.
http://youtu.be/a97iapevPco
If you want, I can post the raw video, it's about 8-10 minutes long.
Thank you for your video. This is pretty close to what I'm planning to do.
The main differente is that my inspection would be done with a pilot on the motion train, not out.
So the challenge is to take off the IRIS+ to inspect the car trains at a point A and to land the quadcopter on the coordenates where it was took off which are going to be point A' = A + velocity * time.
What do you think?
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