Yahoo Tech article: Hate Drones? This New Website Lets You Create a 'No Fly Zone' Over Your Property by Alyssa Bereznak.
https://www.yahoo.com/tech/hate-drones-this-new-website-lets-you-create-a-110632205119.html
bigkahuna's Posts (3)
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I've never owned a quadcopter, but have often thought of getting one. I work in the remote robotics industry and have been a fan of quadcopters, FPV and personal "drones" for years. That may change, though, if what I experienced yesterday is what we can expect in the future.
My wife and I were at the beach most of the day yesterday. There were probably a hundred other people in our small area, mostly families with kids. People had their awnings set up, bar-b-ques grilling, and kids running around just having fun. About mid afternoon a fellow showed up with a DJI Phantom (I recognized it because I often thought of buying one) and full FPV gear, not 10 feet from where my wife and I were, and not more than 30 feet from all the kids running around. He then launched and flew the drone up and down the beach, sometimes hovering over people, sometimes flying over boats and paddleboards that were passing by.
While I was in the water, his drone buzzed over my head, hovering maybe 5 feet away from me and stayed there. Just out of reach but definitely "studying me" like a buzzing giant mosquito. It was my first experience like this and I gotta tell you, it was creepy. I don't know this guy. I don't know his flying skills. I don't know how well he maintains his equipment. I don't know if he's shooting video of me and, if he is, what he plans on doing with that video. Is he a convict? Is he a child molester? I know nothing about this guy who is flying his quad just feet above me and is watching me so intently. The one thing I did know was that this guy's drone was invading my space and my privacy. He was watching (and probably videoing me) and I didn't like it. And I'm a guy, I can only imagine how I would have felt if I were a woman. Or a parent watching this drone hover over my small child. In that brief moment my feelings about personal drones reversed 180 degrees.
If what I just witnessed is the future of the technology, where people no can no longer live with any degree of privacy or space, I, for one, can no longer support it.
This project is in the very early stage of development. I've got a couple ideas that I want to explore and need a suitable platform to work with. The following are some of the components I hope to use to assemble this platform.
Objective:
The objective of this project is to design a very small boat ( roughly 1 meter LOA ) that will be capable of autonomously traveling a preset survey grid to produce a sonar bottom scan. For this first iteration of the project I hope to use all off the shelf components, the only customization will be some custom code I will need to write.
Components:
CPU
HP Mini 311 - The brains of the boat. Probably over kill for the task, but I happen to have one.
Operating System
Windows XP - Mostly because of the wide range of free tools and info available for it.
Control Software
RoboRealm - This very cool software is really a key element to the whole system. It supports a wide variety of hardware (servo controllers, GPS sensors, serial interface, etc.) and provides a simple interface for making them work together.
Motor / Servo Control
Parallax USB Servo Controller - This will be used to control the boat's propulsion motor(s) and rudder(s).
Sensors
GlobalSat BU-353 USB GPS - The GPS will be used primarily to provide position, course to steer and distance to waypoint. It will not be used for heading information as GPS heading is almost completely worthless at slow vessel speeds.
Silicon Labs USB tilt compensated compass - A very inexpensive, tilt compensated, USB interfaced compass that I just happen to have.
Route planning
Polar View - A free chart viewer, route planning application. A track can be marked on a chart and then saved as an ASCII CSV file, which will then be used by the autopilot software I hope to write.
Remote monitoring / Control
Wifi + VNC - My plan is to use a 1 watt router connected to my shore based computer, and then a 1 watt USB dongle network adapter on the afloat computer. The goal will be to be able to monitor the boat's position and sensor data as well as being able to update/change the autopilot's route. I have no idea what the potential range is for Wifi over water, but hopefully 1 watt will give me at least a couple hundred meters.
Boat
I'm still sorting this out. I'd prefer to use something off the shelf (ie. a large RC boat) but most don't have the weight carrying and stability capabilities I will need. The hull will likely be a catamaran or trimaran and propulsion will be by electric motor. The final system will need to be hand carried by one person, so the size will likely stay at roughly 1 meter LOA.
