http://www.eodevices.com/main_erc_2kit_frameset.htm

Electro-Optical devices sells kits and spare parts to build a real, far-ranged LIDAR ranger, such as: nanosecond timer, transmitter module (high voltage laser power supply included on-board), receiver module (APD photodiode, PIN photodiode), controller, laser diodes (power 10W - 75W).

The price of the cheapest kit ERC2-KIT is $ 429 , but you can get even cheaper if you buy just the modules and assemble it yourself.

The boards are really small and are thus ideally suited to fit an UAV plane which includes a rotating mirror system and a capable memory onboard.  

Maybe there are some restricting laws about the power of the laser? Anyone knows?

Hello everybody, just wanted you to know that I just published a paper here https://sites.google.com/site/imager3d/quadrotor It is a brief description of a concept-proof steering system for Quadcopters, based on the transposition of the center of mass of the copter. I have not made tests, it is just a straight idea. Thanks to the readers! bye droners

Here you are some photographs of my flying robot.

It's a chinese replica of the t rex 450 equipped with brushless motor and lipo battery.

As you can see, there's a CMUcam mounted in the front. It points the helicopter in the direction (yaw control) of a coloured object, and follows it when this ascends or descends, lowering and raising height.

The new arduPilot mega with IMU shield is mounted on the tail boom, near the body. Currently it works just as a stabilization unit with little code modifications. In the future, when I'll have some spare time, I'll adapt it as an autopilot with gps guide and indoor navigation techniques such as the Polly algorithm (CMUcam software) which recognizes wall edges.

The goal of this project is to demonstrate (or not!) that cheap electronics and models can lead to a "successful" and reliable robot, to use as a platform for sensors.

in particular, the major goals to achieve are:

-long flight time

-payload weight

-almost absolutely fail-safe hardware and software, reliability

-autonomous navigation

upgrades can be a controller such as the RoBoard, the roboRealm vision software and a camera

I'll post more as soon (long) as i have time to work

cheeeeeers