Many of us recreational, semi-pro, and pro RPAS operators here on DIYDrones.com are fortunate enough to have had great dialogue with the public, sometimes even taking time off from our normal schedules or responsibilities to show others the wonders of robotic flight. Still, we are all to familiar with those few stories where the public has become confrontational with civilian and commercial drone operators.

In talking with the other board members of the Professional Society of Drone Journalists, we realized that some of these issues might be resolved with simple signage or clothing choices. Thus, we developed a high-visibility vest that both announces your profession, and keeps the public aware of nearby RPAS operations.

We originally designed these vests for RPAOs who are using their aircraft for news-gathering purposes. But besides the PSDJ logo, they are pretty universal and could be worn in any number of applications. Just please remember to operate responsibly when you wear the vest.

To get these vests out to operators, though, we need to sell at 50 by the deadline, which is in just 13 days. Proceeds will go to fund the DroneJournalism.org website (and hopefully in the future, more outreach and education opportunities).

From our Booster campaign:

We believe this high-visibility vest not only will support our mission, but also will provide our members and supporters with much-needed visibility in the field during drone operations. In addition, we hope this item will help improve the public opinion of drone journalists as responsible professionals who wish to keep the public alert of their news-gathering activities.

Our orange vests are being sold for $20 each. You can order one from the online Booster campaign.

Please note that they can not be mailed to anywhere outside the United States at this time. Our apologies with the shipping issue -- I was unware of that limitation, and we'll try better next time to make these items available internationally.

In a telephone news conference today, FAA Administrator Michael Heurta explained that the test sites will evaluate "what uses evolve," and consider "appropriate certificate and regulatory regimes."

The first test site is planned to be up and running in 180 days, and test site ops are due to conclude in February 2017, which incidentally is the same time the entire FAA is due for total re authorization.

Note that operators come from six states, but there are going to be test operations in at least nine states total. Some of these operators (University of Alaska and Virginia Tech) have memos that indicate joint collaboration from entities in other states.

Direct from the FAA:

After a rigorous 10-month selection process involving 25 proposals from 24 states, the Federal Aviation Administration has chosen six unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) research and test site operators across the country.

In selecting the six test site operators, the FAA considered geography, climate, location of ground infrastructure, research needs, airspace use, safety, aviation experience and risk. In totality, these six test applications achieve cross-country geographic and climatic diversity and help the FAA meet its UAS research needs.

A brief description of the six test site operators and the research they will conduct into future UAS use are below:

• University of Alaska.  The University of Alaska proposal contained a diverse set of test site range locations in seven climatic zones as well as geographic diversity with test site range locations in Hawaii and Oregon. The research plan includes the development of a set of standards for unmanned aircraft categories, state monitoring and navigation.  Alaska also plans to work on safety standards for UAS operations. 
• State of Nevada. Nevada’s project objectives concentrate on UAS standards and operations as well as operator standards and certification requirements. The applicant’s research will also include a concentrated look at how air traffic control procedures will evolve with the introduction of UAS into the civil environment and how these aircraft will be integrated with NextGen.  Nevada’s selection contributes to geographic and climatic diversity.
• New York’s Griffiss International Airport.  Griffiss International plans to work on developing test and evaluation as well as verification and validation processes under FAA safety oversight. The applicant also plans to focus its research on sense and avoid capabilities for UAS and its sites will aid in researching the complexities of integrating UAS into the congested, northeast airspace.
• North Dakota Department of Commerce.  North Dakota plans to develop UAS airworthiness essential data and validate high reliability link technology. This applicant will also conduct human factors research. North Dakota’s application was the only one to offer a test range in the Temperate (continental) climate zone and included a variety of different airspace which will benefit multiple users.
• Texas A&M University – Corpus Christi.  Texas A&M plans to develop system safety requirements for UAS vehicles and operations with a goal of protocols and procedures for airworthiness testing. The selection of Texas A&M contributes to geographic and climactic diversity.
• Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech).  Virginia Tech plans to conduct UAS failure mode testing and identify and evaluate operational and technical risks areas. This proposal includes test site range locations in both Virginia and New Jersey.

Across the six applicants, the FAA is confident that the agency’s research goals of System Safety & Data Gathering, Aircraft Certification, Command & Control Link Issues, Control Station Layout & Certification, Ground & Airborne Sense & Avoid, and Environmental Impacts will be met.

Each test site operator will manage the test site in a way that will give access to parties interested in using the site. The FAA’s role is to ensure each operator sets up a safe testing environment and to provide oversight that guarantees each site operates under strict safety standards.

From the start, the FAA recognized it was important to have requirements ensuring that privacy and civil liberties are protected at the test sites. Among other requirements, test site operators must comply with federal, state, and other laws protecting an individual’s right to privacy, have publicly available privacy policies and a written plan for data use and retention, and conduct an annual review of privacy practices that allows for public comment. 

Under the current law, test site operations will continue until at least February 13, 2017.

http://www.faa.gov/news/updates/?newsId=75399

Over Thanksgiving, I planned to map out a bayou in north Louisiana, and use it as a teaching moment for high school students involved in the Drones for Schools program back in central Illinois.

Due to issues with configuration and calibration, the mission didn't go according to plan, and I didn't end up with a Digital Elevation Model (DEM) of that interesting place. However, I did end up with images showing evidence of hooliganism at the south end of the property.

Those looping tracks in the dirt? Not created by the owners of the property. Some tracks had been there quite a while, but others were very "fresh."

So I wound up with a different, but still quite important, lesson. From my blog post on the mission:

Even botched missions can produce interesting data. Couldn't get the mapping data you were hoping for? Sometimes it's not all about 3D models and measurements. The ground changes all the time, and commercial satellite photos are low-resolution and few and far between. At the very least, the operator will gain valuable experience with the unmanned aircraft.

The post has a breakdown of the mission, including planning, stall speed calculations and visualizations generated from log files.

Recently had a chance to solder together and operate one of the smallest quadrotors on the market: the Crazyflie nano. It weighs less than 19 grams, and measures 9cm from rotor to rotor. The 3.7v LiPo 170mAh gives about 7 minutes flight time. Open-source firmware, computer client coded in Python.

Some background from by post about this flying circuit board:

At the National Science Foundation grant where I work, EnLiST, we've been tinkering with various different drone platforms which could be easily deployed in classrooms for valuable STEM (Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics) lessons. Although we're focused on STEM education, it's not hard to see how some of these drones can be used in a variety of other fields.

The quadrotors we develop one day could be deployed for research in environmental science, geology, city planning, and even "evidence-based" journalism. Drones are useful like that. At the end of they day, they're simply a means of getting a sensor from one place to another. What you use that sensor for, is entirely up to the teacher, scientist, or journalist.

We needed a drone that was small enough to fly in a classroom, easy enough for children to fly (not saying much as kids tend to pilot drones with relative ease), and hackable enough that we could mold it to fit our science curriculum. Enter the Crazyflie nano, a tiny, open-source drone developed by Swedish hackers at Bitcraze.se.

At 19 grams, and measuring 9 cm from motor to motor, it's one of the smallest quadrotor drones on the market today. Operation is fairly straightforward. The Crazyflie uses a 2.4 Ghz "Crazradio," which is plugged into a computer USB port for communication. Control is provided via USB game pad (not included), with the Xbox and Playstation-type controllers having preference by the development community.

Couldn't make it out to San Francisco for the first-ever small unmanned systems conference just for small business? Not a problem. I recently uploaded more than 100 photos on the sUSBExpo Flickr account. We also have 14 hours of video made during the two days of the expo.

This was an amazing event, made possible by an excellent roster of 23 speakers, including 3D Robotics' Chris Anderson, Insitu co-founder Tad McGeer (now president of Aerovel), Chris Norris of Alta Devices, Douglas Hunsaker of Scaled Composites, and many more.

I've aggregated all of the videos onto one page, posted recently on the sUSBExpo website, for easy viewing at any time. If you'd like updates on the conference, check back with the website on occasion, or follow our Twitter account (and the hashtag #susbexpo). Plans already are in the works for another great event next year.

Many of you might be aware of the situation in Turkey, where protests have been going on for longer than two weeks. Some of you on DIYDrones might also be aware that a man was flying a small RC drone above these protests, that is, until his aircraft was shot down by riot police.

I originally wrote about this on sUASNews, but I have an update: that man has a new drone, and has posted some new videos of clashes between police and protesters:

The drone's pilot, who goes by the name Jenk, was able to capture dramatic footage of the violence from the sky before his aircraft went down on June 11. Video from his DJI Phantom showed billowing smoke, and demonstrators scrambling to find cover from high-pressure water hoses and lobbing back the gas canisters from the riot police.

Now, it appears that Jenk has either repaired his drone or found a new one, and has returned to the Gezi Park protests to capture more aerial footage.

His newest video, posted June 16 on Vimeo, shows what he claims to be a person who was shot by police. His aerial video, which was shot at night, appears to capture a person in a crowd laying prone on the ground.

I also write about a group of activists here in the states who currently are in a legal battle to have their drone returned from someone's private land. Here's video of the drone over the Turkey protests, a DJI phantom, being shot down.

Police shot down RC Drone @ Taksim Gezi Park Istanbul from Jenk K on Vimeo.

I'm very grateful to be in community that supports a laser-equipped Fab Lab. Lately I've been designing and fabricating custom components for my unmanned aircraft, especially components that are easily integrated into existing systems.

Above is a photo of one of my latest creations: a solution that houses a five or six-cell LiPo, an APM 2.5 autopilot with uBlox GPS, and potentially an RC receiver. Other features include vibration dampening via rubber o-rings, and slots to secure the module to the airframe via hook-and-loop straps. The material is 1/8th-inch birch.

Here's a custom acrylic (1/4-inch) mounting solution for the HeliPal Storm Drone quadrotor. Also makes use of 3mm rubber-o rings for vibration dampening. Not sure if it's the ideal material for this kind of structure, however, so I'm anxious to take it out for the first time.

Additional photos and details: http://www.mentalmunition.com/2013/05/you-cant-always-get-the-drone-you-want.html

The deadline for the Nemo Drone Prize, which aimed to prove the humanitarian and disaster-relief capabilities of drones, and especially low-cost DIY Drones, passed without submissions. But I'm hardly considering this a failure.

An update on the Nemo Drone Prize, from my website MentalMunition.com:

It hasn't been a good month for domestic drones in the United States. Lawmakers in Texas, Oregon, Missouri, and elsewhere recently introduced anti-drone legislation that could cripple commercial and humanitarian drone use in the United States. Journalism, that stuff that provides the essential flow of information for a democracy, could be hampered.

Couple that with delays in the federally-mandated process to integrate unmanned aerial systems into the national airspace, and you've got a problem that not only threatens a potential economic boost of $90 billion, but also shuts out life-saving technology.

I wanted to do something about it. I was preparing for a business trip to Washington DC by way of Boston, which is how I came to know a historic blizzard could slam the region and derail my travel plans. I had learned that governors in four states were ordering citizens not to use the road.

Travel, even by emergency vehicles, would be hampered severely. Well, perhaps emergency vehicles that drove on roads. But maybe not ones that flew in the sky.

I didn't have enough time to set up a Kickstarter for a drone that would help out during the blizzard. But there are many DIY drone enthusiasts in that part of the country, and surely someone out there could demonstrate that drones can provide essential services. Maybe one of them could program their drone to drop off an "emergency package."

I thought a prize would be a better format. Much like the X-Prize, which gives awards for technological achievements for space travel and oil spill cleanup, this would reward people for trying to make technology work for humanity. But this would reward people for proving that drones can be used for good.

So I did what I could. I withdrew $60 from my own bank account, and fired off a blog post. I copied the post on other online communities.

Then something unexpected happened. Over the next 24 hours, I received emails from other people in the community who believed in this vision and wanted to help.

Walter Volkman of Micro Aerial Projects LLC matched my $60. Then, Adam Sloan of BirdsEyeView threw in $100. Gary Mortimer of sUASNews.com pledged $120. Michael Shimniok of Bot-Thoughts.com contributed $20. Kévin Bouchard, a robotics coordinator and a student in computer science, also contributed $20.

One day after I launched the contest, the prize pot had grown more than six times its original size, to $380.

I'd like to thank the following sponsors for helping make the prize possible:

As the post reads, many of us involved in the prize are considering re-starting the challenge and making this thing systemic, but with introducing different parameters. The goal will still be centered around humanitarian or disaster-relief via drones or UAS.

If you've got any suggestions as to what the next goal for the Nemo Prize would be, please do comment here or send an email to mschroyer@gmail.com. Also looking for more sponsors, if this is something you'd like to get behind.

Although we didn't get any submissions, I was still able to snap some aerial photos above Massachusets. Visit the post to see more photos.

### UPDATE @ 8:52PM, 2/9: Kévin Bouchard, robotics coordinator for Fusion Jeunesse and computer science student at Université Laval, has pledged $20 for the Nemo Drone Prize! Thank you for your help, Mr. Bouchard.

Our new total: $380. ###

### UPDATE @ 8:10PM, 2/9: Michael Shimniok of BOT-THOUGHTS.COM has kicked in $20 for the Nemo Drone Prize!

Also, amending some previous updates, as Gary Mortimer of sUASNews.com announced he is in fact contributing $120, not the $60 as listed previously. Thank you Mr. Mortimer for your assistance.

Our revised total for the contest is now $360 - much, much better than the $60 I started with. Thank you to all the generous donors who believe drones can make the world a better place. ###

### UPDATE @ 4:03PM, 2/9: Gary Mortimer of SUASNEWS.COM is contributing an extra $60 to the Nemo Drone Prize!

That puts our new prize total at $280!

Thank you to all our sponsors for making this prize possible. If you'd like to contribute to the cause, email me at mschroyer@gmail.com

For those in the affected areas, please keep in mind that the contest will end at sunset on Monday. NOAA is indicating light winds for the northeast on Sunday, and it now appears that there will be some precipitation for Monday. If you want to try to win the prize, it looks like tomorrow might be your best and only option. ###

### UPDATE @ 2:08PM, 2/9: More great news -- Adam Sloan of BIRDSEYEVIEW is contributing $100 to the Nemo Prize! That brings the total cash reward for the challenge up to $220!

In addition, Mr. Sloan is announcing that his aerial photography company, BirdsEyeView, will be donating aerial robot services FREE OF CHARGE THROUGH MONDAY. If you could use the assistance of a flying robot during this 2013 Nor'easter, email him at relief@birdseyeviewuas.com. ###

### UPDATE @11:23AM, 2/9: Great news, everyone! Walter Volkman of  MICRO AERIAL PROJECTS LLC is chipping in an additional $60 for the award. That means the total cash award for this challenge is $120!

I'd like to thank Mr. Volkman for his kind contribution to the cause. Micro Aerial Projects LLC provides aerial infrastructure and asset management, aerial mapping, post-disaster assessment, and drone journalism services (and more) courtesy of his Aibot X6 hexcopter.

Additionally, I'm now referring to this challenge as the NEMO DRONE PRIZE. It's like the X-Prize, but instead of sub-orbital spaceflight or oil cleanup, it's to put drones to use for helpful causes. ###

I'm announcing a contest: prove your drone can be useful during winter storm "Nemo," and I'll send you $60 $120 $220 $360 $380. Here's why:

"Above is a picture of a quadrotor drone, an airframe from a fixed-wing drone, and $60 $120 $220 $360 $380 cash. The money is yours if you make your drone useful during the aftermath of winter storm Nemo.

I know it's not a lot of money. It's all I can afford right now. But I'll mail it to you if you complete a task that demonstrates how useful drones can be in the event of a natural disaster.

Why? Because I believe that drones can be used for good. That's why I started DroneJournalism.org and co-founded Drones for Good.

The North East is having a weather crisis. Some call it "Nemo."

Governors in four states have ordered citizens not to use public roads. Airports are closing, and public transit is closing down in New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts. Feet of snow are supposed to fall, making it difficult for emergency crews to respond to the disaster.

You know what could help during a time like this? A drone."

Rules and details about the contest are posted on my website.

Anyone in the northeast not doing anything for the next couple of days? Well, here's something to do.

When you're working for a grant to improve K-12 STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) education, a surprising amount of work must go into presenting your work to the public.

How will you let parents, teachers, administrators and the public know how you're helping education? What kind of hands-on examples can you bring to show the public how it's all supposed to work together? How do you make a big idea fit into a small booth?

I'm the communications guy for a National Science Foundation grant. I'm also leading the effort at the grant to bring flying robots into the classroom. It's sometimes possible to make these drones fly in conventions, given enough space. While that's cool and all, it doesn't really show the educational value in aerial drones.

To do that, it's been very helpful to bring out the actual autopilot and show them the Mission Planner. Even if I can't get a GPS fix, I can show that this board has accelerometers, gyroscopes and a magnetometer to help determine the aircraft's yaw, pitch and roll. I can move the autopilot, and they see the horizon move on the attitude indicator, and it begins to click. They get it.

Just one problem: you don't want to play rough with your microcontroller, and you need to keep all the bits in one neat package that they can hold.

Thanks to the Epilog Helix 350 Laser Engraver, and the extremely helpful folks at the Champaign-Urbana Community Fab Lab, I now have a custom mount for just this purpose.

Measurements of the APM 2.0 and uBlox GPS were made, the mount was drawn up in SolidWorks, and the design was exported in PDF. Photoshop helped apply the grant's logo to the mount. The final design was sent to the Epilog cutter, which cut out all the vector images and etched all the raster images.

Here's the final product:

Last, a view from above, with everything mounted:

Big thanks to the folks at the Fab Lab for helping this one. I hope to be returning with some students in the near future who want to make drone components using 3D printers.

It's not the most elaborate pumpkin carving ever, but it's from the heart. Below is a time-lapse video showing the carving, imaging, and 3D modeling of this drone-themed pumpkin.

And here's a link to the Hypr3D model for you to play around with.

Happy Droneoween, folks!

This was a first test of modeling something in 3D using still images. The subject is a micro quad, 210mm from motor to motor. To make the model, 36 still images were taken from a 10MP DSLR and uploaded to Autodesk's 123D Catch application.

I first attempted to upload this to Hypr3D to do the same kind of modeling, but as you can see here it came up a bit short.

My next goal is to model a much larger object, a building or sculpture perhaps, using a quadrotor drone, and to export that model file to a MakerBot 3D printer at a local community fab lab to produce a miniature version.

This also has me thinking about imaging, modeling and printing other objects, specifically structural components such as frames and motor mounts. I've seen others make quad frames from 3D printers, I'd like to try my hand at doing that, but do it by imaging the object and creating the model in the same way described above.

I don't know how precise a frame like that would end up being, or how intricate of a support structure one could create with that method. I do, however, imagine there's a practical lower limit where it makes more sense to simply draft it and sent to the lab's laser cutter, where parts could be cut out of acrylic or wood and then assembled. Still, I would like to give it a shot.

Apologies for the incomplete first post here. I had saved the post, closed the browser in a hurry, and expected to come back to it later. For some reason it posted automatically.

From the blog at Nebraska's Drone Journalism Lab:

"Nebraska is seeing a drought worse than the Dust Bowl drought of the Great Depression. The least amount of rain fell on the state this summer since records were kept in 1895. From the ground, dead lawns and distressed trees show the drought up close. But the view from an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle nearly 400 feet off the ground provides a perspective on just how wide spread the drought’s impacts really are."

Matt Waite, who has an account on DIYD,  and his students at the Drone Journalism Lab have been working hard all semester, and this is a great first example of a journalism investigation using drones. They also back up their reporting with climate data, which adds some excellent context.

Once, I was giving a presentation on the history of drone technology and I showed a group of high school teachers the APM 2.0, and a teacher asked me "how big of a drone could you make with that?" I didn't know how to respond at first, because really there are practical limits on the size of a drone one builds in one's basement. That's not to mention the size of recreational, RC aircraft flying in national airspace is regulated by the FAA, and also the aerospace modeling associations to which it defers some of that decision (i.e., the IMAA).

But she didn't ask me about regulations, or the capabilities of a basement UAS developer. So, I gave her the best answer I could at the time: "I'm not sure there is a limit." Because really, if you had the time, the cash, and the skills, I'm not sure there's a definable ceiling for how big you could make these DIY drones, based on the current state and availability of the technology. It's just a matter of scaling it up.

If you're like me, you've seen some pretty cool YouTube videos of large-scale RC aircraft. My favorites are the big, multi-engine replicas of propeller-driven bombers from WWII and the Cold War. Though there are some pretty cool videos of large-scale replicas of modern transports like the C-5 Galaxy, powered by small turbine engines.

Having seen those videos, I was pretty excited to learn that my local RC club would be having a large-scale fly in today. There weren't any of those multi-engine behemoths there, but I did catch a picture of this: a giant-scale J-3 Piper Cub.

Some quick specs on the beast:

J-3 Piper Cub

60% Scale

21' wingspan

Twin 135cc gas motors

I'm not sure how much you could lift with this scale aircraft, but I think you could at least loft a small dog. The pilot didn't stress the "miniature" plane too much, flew it rather slow, but did show off by doing some one-wheel touch-and-gos.

I can't say that would fully support the general public making huge-scale drones that operate over people, cars, houses and that sort of thing. At least not without some kind of certification process. Having said that, this was a controlled, insured, private field, and it does make you wonder about the limits of home-built drones.

Some more pictures from the event:

We've done "FPV" video before, but this time, we've got slightly better resolution, two cameras, techno music, and an interesting landing. We're building drones for high school students to learn about computers, robotics, and environmental science. It's called "Drones for Schools," and it's part of a National Science Foundation grant to improve STEM education.

The video is probably lower-res than it should be, considering the primary camera was a Hero 2HD camera, but that's a production software issue we're hoping to fix. While this drone is equipped with an APM 2.0, we didn't use it for this shoot, which is why it's a bit wobbly (user error -- novice pilot here). The HD camera did add a not inconsiderable weight to our 7lb drone, which had a negative affect on maneuverability.

We hope this promotional video will bring more students into the program, though garnering interest hasn't been much of an issue as of yet. We have three high schools in Illinois looking to obtain drones and training through the program, and we really don't see demand for project-based learning decreasing anytime soon.

Enjoy!

The idea of using homebrew drones for independent journalism is picking up steam globally. I just got a digital copy of a story from Aug-Sept issue of seLecT (http://www.select.art.br), the Brazilian art & design magazine, about that same topic. It features interviews with the Occucopter developer Tim Pool, Nebraska Drone Journalism Lab professor Matt Waite, and myself. You can click on the photos to enlarge the text, but it's in Portuguese, so I've included a quick Google translation below:

AT THE END OF 2011, A JOURNALIST OF 25 YEARS HAS BECOME THE SPOKESMAN OF ONE OF THE MORE RECENT EVENTS DISSATISFACTION WITH THE WORLD ECONOMIC CRISIS. Armed with a backpack with solar batteries capable of supplying your phone, Tim traveled the Square Pool Zucotti with watchful eyes and wait to record the voltage potential of the environment. Occupy The Wall Street had begun in September and dragged by the month of November, when the winter began to condense on the streets of New York. The idea of solar batteries in the backpack allowed Pool broadcast live via cell phone news channel free online Ustream for more than 20 hours per day. The images were relayed by Reuteurs, Al-Jazeera and the NBC, and he became a world celebrity.

The newest venture from Tim Pool could well have come out of a James Bond film and stands as one of the pioneers to practice journalism Drone. Any vehicle operated remotely, for example, airplanes and helicopters used in model aircraft, can be defined as a drone. Recently, Pool, along with his partner Sam Shapiro, coupled to a Parrot AR Drone - a kind of helicopter with four propellers - a camera that transmits images and aerial information in real time.

... "The Occucopter allowed us access to a gray area in terms of coverage. We can do aerial images closer and act quickly in conflicts. We wanted to test the potential of this technology amid such restriction, "Pool said in an interview to select, who confessed to the drone created as a way to show the abuses committed by police during Occupy Wall Street, which was not being shown by the mainstream media .

...

"The civil aviation authorities have stated categorically that the use of drones in the media coverage is prohibited by law. By statute the Federal Aviation Administration you can not use a remote control airplane for commercial purposes (among other things). They consider journalism a commercial activity, "said Professor Matt Waite, the journalism school at the University of NebraskaLincoln and founder of Journalism Lab Drone, the first of its kind that has news at a university.

According to Waite, despite the ban on aerial drones, its growth in journalistic practices is happening because the North American authorities themselves enacted a law that will take effect from 2015, approving the use of drones type UAV-Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (Vehicle Unmanned Aerial) for commercial use.

Throughout his career, Waite dedicated to make coverage based on using remote sensing data, collected mainly by satellite. In the 2000s, he used the satellites in an investigative piece about the illegal burial of conservation areas of the Florida swamps. He believes the arrival of the drones will change the landscape of investigative journalism. "It's fun to think about how all the stories I covered as a reporter could have been much different if I had used a small UAV," reflects the teacher.

...

"I created the Society of Professional Journalists Drone because I realized that there was a need education about their ethical side. This goes from the issue of surveillance to issues of security and well-being. Some of the aerial drones can be quite heavy, and they certainly cause damage to the driver somehow lost control hundreds of feet in the air, "explained Matthew Schroyer, creator of PSDJ.

For the group, the origin of the practice has always been linked to free enterprise, and especially to activism. "The origin of Journalism Drone can be traced back to Vienna, Austria, in 2004. The System-77 Civil Counter Reconnaissance was a consortium of activists, concerned about the level of government surveillance, which launched its own robot to monitor the implementation of laws. Do not know if aerial drones have been used, but the robot was very effective to show the truth to the public, "recalls Schroyer said by e-mail to select. But for the activist, Journalism Drone really made its mark in 2011, during the occupation movements worldwide.

As Tim Pool, Schroyer works in a series of models that involve activities such as hacktivism, and despite the concern with the "for worse" these tools, he believed the journalism Drone will become a business of the future. "Television stations will look at the drones as substitutes for the helicopter, and sports channels will use them to improve the sports coverage. But the true vocation of journalism in newsrooms drone is nonprofit and independent journalists, because they have more freedom and incentive to take risks and innovate, "he concludes.

Had a pretty traumatic experience today while I was trying to get an APM 2.0 working on an RTF "trainer," when I turned off the transmitter and the ESC burst into flames. I was hoping the community might be able to point me in the direction of a solution.

I was ground-testing an electric RC (a Hobbico NexStar electric) with an APM 2.0. The APM was completely stock, and had been loaded with firmware from the Mission Planner without any modification. Controls were calibrated on the Mission Planner as instructed in the wiki, with CH5 on the transmitter dedicated to switching between manual and "stabilize." This was using a Futaba 6ch controller.

The jumper was connected on JP1, in the stock configuration on the APM 2.0. I was supplying power to the output rail via 4.8v NiCd power source, which I checked beforehand actually was supplying about 5V. A standard feature of this trainer-style airplane, an external on/off switch was between the power source and the output rail. The 50A ESC used in the RC airplane did not have a BEC. A previous test without APM 2.0 proved the servos, ESC, motor, RX and TX were all working as designed.

With the APM installed in the airframe and connectors attached as per the wiki, I turned on the transmitter and then the power source to the APM. In manual mode, all controls responded to inputs as was expected. I switched CH5 to "stabilize," and servos and control surfaces responded to yaw, pitch and roll, albeit in the reverse, and potentially with not enough input (I chalked this up to a calibration issue I hoped to resolve after shutting everything down).

I switched CH5 on the transmitter (CH8 on the APM 2.0 input rail) back to "manual," and then turned off the transmitter. The motor turned quickly as if responding to input, then stopped, and smoke rolled out of the electronics bay, followed promptly by a fire coming from the ESC. This fire got approximately 6 inches tall from the ESC and began to burn away the aircraft's external coating and lighted the wood frame of the fuselage. I yelled to my wife to run and get the fire extinguisher, which she ripped off the wall and passed to me, and I applied the extinguisher directly to the electronics bay. This put out the flame and saved the house, and I carried out the airplane to the back yard for safety. By this time, there was no more smoke.

An inspection after the fire showed that a section of external coating was burned, as was some of the balsa frame. Several wires leading to the ESC (two motor wires and battery positive wire) were melted right through. Although the LiPo batteries were mounted next to where the fire took place, they appeared at least on visual inspection to be unharmed by the fire. APM and receiver seemed unharmed from a visual inspection, but I'm not certain at this time whether the chemical flame retardant from the extinguisher has altered the function of those electronics.

At this point, I'm real hesitant to test this particular APM 2.0 on a new ESC to investigate the problem, and I'm really concerned about this as a safety issue. Does anyone know of a condition whereby the autopilot would supply max current to the ESC if the connection between TX and RX is severed? Thank you.

Specs:

TX: Futaba 6EXA 6ch
RX: Futaba R168DF
ESC: Hobbico SS-50D 50A (w/o BEC)
Motor: RimFireTM 42-50-800 Outrunner Brushless Motor

More pics:

Left side of aircraft, showing damage to external coating.

Electronics bay shortly after the event. In front are dual LiPo batteries, wrapped in protective foam. The 4.8v RX/APM power source can be seen hanging over the edge of the aircraft on the right of the photo. Yellow residue is flame supressant.

A shot of the APM and RX upon extraction. Both were coated in a thick layer of frame suppressing powder, until some of it was vacuumed off.

This week, AUVSI (Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International), an industry group representing drone manufacturers, developers and operators, unveiled a "code of conduct" for operating UAS. While the code fairly broad and covers concepts of safety, professional conduct, and respect to laws, it also is not terribly specific. This might reflect the diversity of the people AVUSI represents (how specific can you get for 2,100 member organizations and 7,000 individual members?), but I believed it can be improved.

The area of drone ethics -- for journalism -- is even more underdeveloped. I founded DroneJournalism.org in December 2011 with the hopes of starting that conversation, with hopes that the website would become a "wiki of drone journalism and ethics." While we've made some progress in terms of building and operating drones, we haven't come too far in the way of establishing that code. So here's my first crack at a code of journalism ethics, "A Code of Ethics for Drone Journalists."

The full link to the post of the code is on the website, but the Cliffs version is: drone journalism is a branch of journalism, and so journalists who use drones for reporting have all the responsibilities that we traditionally expect journalists to have, but with some added responsibilities that come with operating spinning, flying machines that could hurt somebody.

Also, in my view, it's important not to just throw a list of requirements at a person and expect them to make sense of it. Many codes of conduct or ethics are just that: lists of bullet points that don't really provide direction or help with the application of the rules. I think a better approach borrows from "Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs," which hinges on the idea that to proceed to the next "highest" level of achievement, you first must solve some very basic problems.

So really, what I'm going after is like a check-list for drone journalism ethics. Here are the levels of this "hierarchy of drone journalism," starting from the bottom and working to the top of the pyramid:

1) NEWSWORTHINESS. The investigation must be of sufficient journalistic importance to risk using a potentially harmful aerial vehicle. Do not use a drone if the information can be gathered by other, safer means.

2) SAFETY. A drone operator must first be adequately trained in the operation of his or her equipment. The equipment itself must be in a condition suitable for safe and controlled flight. Additionally, the drone must not be flown in weather conditions that exceed the limits of the drone’s ability to operate safely, and it must be flown in a manner that ensures the safety of the public.

3) SANCTITY OF LAW AND PUBLIC SPACES. A drone operator must abide by the regulations that apply to the airspace where the drone is operated whenever possible. An exception to this is provided in instances where journalists are unfairly blocked from using drones to provide critical information in accordance with their duties as members of the fourth estate. The drone must be operated in a manner which is least disruptive to the general population in a public setting.

4) PRIVACY. The drone must be operated in a fashion that does not needlessly compromise the privacy of non-public figures. If at all possible, record only images of activities in public spaces, and censor or redact images of private individuals in private spaces that occur beyond the scope of the investigation.

5) TRADITIONAL ETHICS. As outlined by professional codes of conduct for journalists.

These are pretty basic guidelines for the time being (not intended to be all-encompassing), but we hope to fill out the gaps with the help of the droning community. Any opinions or comments are welcome.

After months of planning, hard work, setbacks, training, re-design, fabrication and construction, DroneJournalism.org today successfully launched and flew JournoDrone 2.

The drone eventually will be equipped with an Arduino-based autopilot (APM 2.0) and cameras to collect aerial photography and aerial photomaps for use in journalism investigations. Sunday, June 3 was a basic shakedown of the airframe, without autopilot or sensors, to prove the airworthiness of the drone.

While the airframe proved slightly heavy and unpredictable at times, our indication is with some modification it will be a competent flyer for our purposes.

JournoDrone 2 is based on the "FPV Raptor" radio controlled airplane with some important modifications, the most important of which is carbon fiber-reinforced fuselage. The airplane had a fairly good track record as a First Person Video drone, so we didn't feel that we needed to change the layout of the craft. Yet we needed to have an extra layer of security to make it more of a "tool" rather than "toy."

While we had some initial concerns about weight gain, the two layers of carbon fiber and epoxy proved its worth when the aircraft experienced a sudden gust of wind in its second flight and crashed. While the impact separated the motor pod, chipped the propellor, bent the motor shaft, and cracked the casing of an on-board camera, the fuselage was totally unscathed. We were not able to recover the on-board video of that second flight.

A big hand to University of Illinois physics professor Mats Selen, who not only is an RC expert who not only helped immensely with the setup, balancing, and repair, but also provided his piloting expertise for the first flight. He's pictured in the right on the topmost photo.

Mats and I, along with fellow DroneJournalism.org developer and UIUC GSLIS PhD candidate Acton Gorton, are using this learning experience to help our Drones for Schools initiative. Through National Science Foundation (NSF) Math Science Partnershi (MSP) grant, EnLiST, we hope to better STEM education by giving high school students the opportunity to build and program these drones in the classroom and use them to provide aerial intelligence in their communities.

Here's the video from the ground of that first (short) flight:

Although we’re several years away in terms of regulation and technology for making drones a feasible, low-cost platform for television news, the television news industry has started to talk about using drones to enhance coverage.

Myself, along with Matt Waite of Nebraska’s Drone Journalism lab, were recently interviewed by the television news trade journal TV Technology. It briefly mentions DroneJournalism.org and our (unfortunately now departed) JournoDrone One (pictured above).

Tom Butts, the writer of the piece and the editor in chief of the TV Technology magazine, focuses mainly on drones as a cheap alternative to helicopters. He also draws attention to how ethical or technical mishaps with drone technology could slow or prevent the adoption of drone technology in the TV broadcasting industry.

Here's the first graphs:

For TV news crews, operating an “eye in the sky” means hundreds of thousands of dollars per year in aircraft maintenance and fuel costs. Using choppers also comes with inherent risks that have resulted in numerous accidents over the years.

 

As stations look to sve money while reducing safety concerns, some in thenews business are beginning to examine the use of unmanned aerial vehicles to obtain highly valuable news coverage from above. While it’s a relatively new concept for journalists, the technology of “drone journalism” is familiar and extremely cost-effective when compared to traditional aircraft.

 

In essence, drone journalism involves the use of remote-controlled small aircraft outfitted with cameras to acquire footage from the air. What defines “aircraft” could be anything from a toy helicopter purchased at the local mall to more sophisticated devices, and the camera could be a typical point-and-shoot to a more expensive DSLR with video capabilities.

 

There’s just one problem. The use of such devices is illegal in the United States – for now, at least. Last month, as part of its latest budget, Congress gave the Federal Aviation Administration until 2015 to develop a set of rules and guidelines authorizing the commercial use of such remote-controlled unmanned aerial devices. And several researchers and entrepreneurs are exploring the technical – and perhaps even more important – ethical uses of these drones.

…

The remainder of the article is here:

http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/newbay/tvt_20120411/index.php#/70