Cameras for Micro Drones

Posted by Monroe Lee King Jr on September 24, 2015 at 9:50am

3691245722?profile=originalI've been looking at tiny fiber optic cameras. A tiny fiber optic camera could be gimbal mounted on a micro drone.

What are the requirements for our tiny camera? Do we want night vision with IR illumination? Is thermal imagining an option?

I also think we could provide yaw axis camera control via the flight controller independent from the direction the drone is traveling in? Perhaps reduce the demand on the gimbal mechanical's?

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Replies

  • Monroe Lee King Jr September 25, 2015 at 2:27am

    3702098794?profile=originalThis camera patent by Apple gives me some ideas! if lens and mirror assembly 720 is made to rotate you can cover the yaw axis. you can swing the entire camera in the roll and pitch axis and you have a tiny gimbal with zoom!

    Instead of magnets use piezoelectric actuators which are VERY fast and accurate. Then add a little software stabilization?

    • HeliStorm > Monroe Lee King Jr April 4, 2016 at 6:40pm
      I had considered piezoelectric before. Small, low energy, fast. What about something like DLP chips. Use the nano mirrors in reverse, rather than projecting images, focusing them on a sensor?
    • Monroe Lee King Jr > HeliStorm April 4, 2016 at 9:32pm

      That idea has merit as well. I'm about to start a build here using a Airbot AIO PX4 board and their new mini ESC board, It will be the basis for the first micro drone I'm building. Waiting on frame and motor's from Airbot.

      This first drone will be about 250 size.

  • Developer
    Jani Hirvinen September 24, 2015 at 9:52pm

    Mostly normal daylight cameras will be ok for these. For IR vision or thermal I bet we need to look some other camera and that also means modifications to gimbals. There are few nicelooking micro thermal sensors available now but those are all bigger than fiber optic cameras.

    • Monroe Lee King Jr > Jani Hirvinen September 25, 2015 at 2:29am

      Hey Jani! Good to see you around. You think the fiber optic camera is usable?

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