Until now, the only way to connect APM or Pixhawk via wireless is using radio modem. Well, you can also use blue tooth but the range is very limited. It may be good for set up or so but certainly not flying if you wish to view live data. 

For long range FPV or aerial mapping mission, I use RFD 900 radio modem. It has served me well and depends on local environment, I can receive live data up to about 10 KM. It is sufficient for our job most of the time. 

The Dragon link V3 advanced system was released early this year. Beside the usual long range ( they claim up to 50 KM ) radio control, their receiver is equip with bi direction data transfer capability. Once set up, it can virtually replace the long range radio modem. Another added benefit is their transmitter has build in blue tooth so we can use our note book computer to connect with GCS such as Mission Planner or using hand phone / tablet with Tower. This is a full bidirectional connection, so we can view live data AND also upload command or flight plan. 

The bi directional data transfer feature is fantastic to me but unfortunately the earlier version of their firmware didn't help much to get thing set up. Some user had successful link it up with computer or tablet but the blue tooth connection is not reliable. I have tried earlier but no luck. 

Early this month they release a new updated firmware with lots of improvement especially the data modem feature. A user call Noircogi kind enough to post a detail set up guild in RC Groups, which is also found in Dragon Link support page. I follow each step but still can not get it connect to my computer or tablet. After a few post in RC Groups, Noircogi and other help me with some suggestion and point out some error in my set up and now I can get reliable connection. There is actually nothing wrong with Noircogi instruction, just that I misunderstand some points. Therefore I think it may be good if I can put up a graphical guild for those who wish to try.

The work flow of the set up is :

• Connect the transmitter with computer / tablet / hand phone blue tooth
• Connect Pixhawk telem 2 port to receiver
• Configure Dragon Link receiver
• Configure Dragon Link transmitter 
• Configure Pixhawk parameter
• Configure Mission planner parameter. 

Now, lets get start

Connect the transmitter with computer / tablet / hand phone blue tooth

 ( All italic text is copy from DL support, for which I believe is contributed by Noircogi. )  

I set CH 5 as " Serial OUT " and " CH 6 as " Serial IN " You can set to other CH. In the PPM Channel, select 12. This step is not mention in the instruction and I was told it has to be the same number of channel in the transmitter, which we are going to set as 12 CH later. I am not using TX / RX with reference to pin number. This is because I found contradict info which confuse me. TX and RX can be either no 2 or 3. I'm sure those technical guy can easily know which is which by I rather just use number. No 1 is the outer most pin and progressively go toward the centre of the flight controller where no 6 is the inner most.

Save the setting and reboot.

Configure Dragon Link transmitter

On the Dragonlink Transmitter GUI
Main page under RF select; 12 Channels, High Bidir Bandwidth, Fastest Update-Rate
'Radio modem & Telemetry" page select; Bluetooth: Radio Modem, Baudrate: 57600
Save and reboot here too.

Re-bind your Dragonlink receiver to the new TX settings.

You'll need to rebind to transmitter with the receiver again to let the new setting come into effect. 

Configure Pixhawk parameter.

You can configure those parameter by using USB cable plug into Pixhawk or use the normal telemetry. Once connected with Mission Planner, go to Config / Tuning then Full Parameter list and change the value as listed below. 

BRD_SER2_RTSCTS        0
SERIAL2_BAUD              19
SERIAL2_PROTOCOL       1
SR2_EXT_STAT                1
SR2_EXTRA1                    5
SR2_EXTRA2                    5
SR2_EXTRA3                    1
SR2_PARAMS                   8
SR2_POSITION                 2
SR2_RAW_CTRL               1
SR2_RAW_SENS              1
SR2_RC_CHAN                 0

Configure Mission Planner

Under the same tab, go to Planner and set the following :

Attitude to           5

Position to          2

Mode/Status to   1

RC to                 0

Sensor to           1

Now the moment of truth, Ensure your computer had pair with the transmitter with blue tooth, you can check in blue tooth setting. My Tough Book still running Win7 Pro so it looks like this :

For me. the computer had assigned COM 40 as the blue tooth COM port. So in Mission Planner, select the appropriate port and select 57600 baud rate and hit CONNECT. It should be connect within a few seconds. Now you had full data link. Shall we throw away our traditional telemetry ? No, I don't think so. first and foremost the DL system need more 

time to test for stability more user friendly in term of set up. For serious FPV fun or aerial mapping work where expensive equipment on board, a back up system is never a bad idea. 

. 
Now you can test it out

Power cycle everything. Make sure your PC's bluetooth is paired to your the DL transmitter (for now, you can only do that with the DL receiver powered off).

Launch mission planner.
In the upper-right corner, select the first bluetooth serial port which shows up. Select 57600 baud.
Power on your plane.
Power on your DLA transmitter.
As soon as you see the blue telemetry light show up on the TX, hit "Connect" in mission planner.

It should come right up and work. If it fails right away, select the other bluetooth serial port, power cycle the DL TX and hit connect as soon as you see the blue light.

The settings above give you 5HZ updates on the artificial horizon, 2Hz updates for GPS and 8 parameter downloads per second. At first I had everything much slower but with these settings it's nearly as fast as I was getting with the separate 3DR telemetry radio!

Dropped telemetry packets don't seem to cause any trouble at all.

Noircogi has a nice video which show the full telemetry function using Dragon Link. Data update rate is not much difference, If any, compare to conventional 915 / 433 Sik radio modem.

I think Dragon Link Advanced system may worth consider. Just look at the price of a of pair RFD 900. User had reported
about 10 KM data range for which the out put power of the micro receiver only 25 mW. The soon to be available full size
receiver with up to 1 W out put power should give us a lot more range.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jXO6cTJ7Ze0 

I have been using Canon S100 GPS for most of my aerial mapping work. It has been good to me as I do not require very high accuracy of the GPS location. My experience tell me that even with the small on board GPS receiver in the camera, my accuracy is always within 3 to 8 meter. Recently there are some request where very high resolution imagery is required and I start looking at better camera. For my Skywalker and FX 61 base UAV, I select Sony RX III or IV.

Since Sony III / IV does not has build in GPS, I had to use the Geo Tag feature in Mission Planner. I'm not going to re write the general work flow as it has been well documented here. I just want to share some issue that I encounter and how I solve it. 

CAM Message synchro

As stated in the manual, we can use CAM message from dataflash log and also time offset. It really doing a good job - provided you have set it up right. Very often user may encounter problem which prevent him/her to successfully Geo Tag  images and it is NOT fun to re fly the mission again after a long day in the field

For CAM message geo tag ,  " The most common problem in this processing mode is having a discrepancy between the number of CAM messages in log and the number of pictures in the folder. If the tool finds that they are different, it will output an error message and abort." as stated in the manual. Simply said, if the tools find more CAM message than the available images in the folder, it won't continue and you may end up forced to fly the mission again. 

To prevent the discrepancy, it is important NOT to set the camera trigger interval too fast. I think to be in the safe side, the minimum time trigger between images is 2.5 seconds. This will give the camera plenty of time to write data to memory card and get ready for the next shot. Some how if it fail, I use the following method to " rescue " the dataset. 

So, we have a problem here. CAM message 119 while only 114 images found. 

Using Geosetter, I found out that between image 1536 and 1537, the time difference is 6 seconds while other is one or two seconds. So the camera had stopped taking picture here. Since the tools tell me that it need 5 more images, I simply add 5 random images between images 1536 and 1537 and rename them to 1536_1, 1536_2 and so on. 

Now the folder has the exact number of images and the tools is happy to pre process it and subsequently geo tag the images.

I check the result in Geosetter and found that location is accurate. Of course the few " add on " images, even being geo tagged but won't help in orthomosaic / DEM processing for obvious reason. But at least we have most of the images geo tag and even need to re fly the mission, we only need to cover those missing area rather than the whole area. 

I think CAM message is the best and most accurate way to geo tag images. If you are using Seagull Map2 or similar trigger device, just make sure to check " Photo every ( est ) " is more than 2 seconds when you build your mission and you should good to go. 

Time offset

I consider Time offset is a back up method if the CAM message fail. For time offset, the common issue is the " estimated offset " suggested by the tools is not accurate and user need to play around with the figure. the end result may not accurate either because we just " guessing ". I do have some confusion regarding the time offset idea. My initial understanding is the auto pilot will record the time stamp once it get first GPS lock ( may be 6 satellite and above ? ) then the tools will find the time of first image. The difference is time offset. It seems that the " estimate offset " in the tools also work similarly. But if you input the offset amount suggested, the GPS location is way out. 

The best way I found out is just set camera time to your local time. You can simply Google your local time, in my case, I check here. Although most camera only allow to set up to minutes, you can set may be one or two minutes ahead of the time shown in the web site and wait to 59 seconds then press the " SET " key once it turn 00. Do it as precise as possible. You can take a picture of the computer screen with the time shown and check the images in Geosetter, which can display the image exif file up to seconds

Once the time had setted, if you use Time Offset for geo tag your images, you simply input 0 second offset, then go for pre process and geo tag images.

Here's the result

There you have it, a nicely geo tag data set waiting for processing. Some decent eyes may found that my Skywalker not tracking well at the first way point. This is because it make a sharp turn of more than 150 degree go toward way point 2 and for some reason the auto pilot is quite lazy to trace the grid line at that point. Normally I'll set 50 to 70 meter over shoot, depends on wind direction to avoid this issue. I also try not to let the plane turn more than 90 degree on it's flight path toward second way point. 

I hope the above info will complement the Arduplane manual and make geo tag images easy and fun. 

The ArduPlane Manual had a good instruction on this subject. I would like to share my own setting base on Sony RX 100 IV and using the Seagull Map2 UAV camera trigger in my Skywalker 1720 UAV power by HK Pilot32 soon to be deploy in Tanzania for ultra high resolution chimpanzee nest survey after the successful Pilot mission using X5 flying wing and Canon S100 GPS camera.

The Seagull map2 act as an interface between the camera and auto pilot. It also has a build in intervalometer features where user can select 1,2,,3,4,5,10,15 and 20 seconds time interval. Another really useful feature is the ability to turn on and off the camera. This can be done via auto pilot or a special assign channel from the radio control, or both. We want the camera in OFF status during take off and landing to avoid lens damage.

We can select any two unused channel to connect with Seagull map2. In my case I use channel 7 ( RC 7 ) for trigger and channel 6 ( RC 6 ) for camera on / off. The detail setting is as below :

Mission Planner > Initial setup > Camera Gimbal
set Shuttle to " RC 7 "
Servo Limit
Min " 1000 "
Max " 2000 "
Shutter
Pushed " 1700 "
Not Pushed " 1500 "
Duration " 10 "

To configure channel 6, go to Config/Tuning > Full Parameter list

RC6_DZ " 0 "
RC6_FUNCTION " 1 "
RC6_MAX " 2000 "
RC6_MIN " 1000 "
RC6_REV " 1 "

In order to add camera on / off control from radio controller, in my case, Futaba T8J, we can assign Channel 6 to Switch A. Please note that Seagull Map2 will turn camera on / off alternately when it receive " high " signal ( pwm 1800 - 2000 ) In practice, when you move switch A from top position to bottom position, the camera will turn on, to turn it off, you need to move switch A to top position follow by bottom position.

To take full advantage of the Seagull map2 and Mission Planner build in function, the mission planning logic is : we want the camera in OFF status at the beginning. After take off, about one minutes or so from the first way point, we want to switch on the camera. Once it reach first way point, it'll start capture images base on distance and continue to do so until it reach the last way point. From there, we want the camera to stop taking images and shut down.

You can plan your mission as normal using Auto WP > Survey ( Grid ). After the mission is build ( accept ), you need to ADD a way point in front of the first way point, Preferably at least 200 meter from the mission first way point. Right after the newly added first way point, add another two way point.

Set way point No 2 to " DO_SET_SERVO "
Ser No " 6 "
PWM " 1900 "
This will turn the camera on
Set way point No 3 to " DO_SET SERVO "
Ser No " 6 "
PWM " 1500 "
This will return to neutral
Now way point No 4 is the first mission way point follow by " DO_SET_CAM_TRIGG_DIST " which is automatically generated by Mission Planner.
To turn off the camera, add two way point AFTER the last " DO_SET_CAM_TRIGG_DIST " command
Set second last way point to " DO_SET_SERVO "
Ser No " 6 "
PWM " 1900 "
This will turn the camera off
Set last way point to " DO_SET SERVO "
Ser No " 6 "
PWM " 1500 "
This will return to neutral.

I attach the tlog of test mission. You can extract WP file and also parameter file if interest. Use at your own risk : )

2016-04-02%2015-52-18.tlog

A sample image taken by Sony RX100 IV at 100 meter

Introducing the new 100 KM long range Mapping / Video conservationdrones base on Skywalker air frame. With the new power system, the flight duration is more than 3 hours and range over 120 KM with 200 grams payload, typical weight for point and shoot camera such as Canon S 100 GPS on board. The all up weight of the drone is 2.9 KG ready to fly.

About 18 months ago, I've achieved 100 KM with FX 79. But it has never put into practical use in the field. The main reason is with the required batteries on board, if I put payload , such as camera in front, I'll need to add weight at the rear end to get the plane balance. The total weight will be about 3.7 KG and hand launch become very difficult and dangerous. landing a heavy plane at confine area is another challenge. 

I have tried a few combination but non of them meet my requirement until I found the current power system. The major breakthrough is the new Lithium Ion battery pack which rated at 3 C continuous discharge. According to supplier, it use imported LG Lithium Ion battery and the pack is assemble at their partner factory at China. 

The air frame I use is the proven Skywalker 2014 1800 mm three piece wings model. I think other version of Skywalker should give similar performance. The motor is SunnySky 2820 800 kv match with APC 12 x 8 electric propeller. With this set up, you'll need to limit the top end power via Mission Planner to limit the full throttle at about 26 Amps, which give more than enough power for take off and climb to altitude. Once enter cruising mode, the average amps draw is only about 5 to 8 Amps.

The 100 KM attempt took place at my local flying field. It was a sunny Sunday afternoon with some winds. Load the fully charge 4S 21000 mah Lithium Ion battery and some basic set up, it was ready to go. Because of the light weight ( 2.9 KG ) of the plane, I was able to hand launch it with my left hand while using my right hand to hold the radio transmitter. Take off was effortless and after climb to about 60 meter, I switch to RTL mode to test the auto pilot and climb to mission altitude ( 100 meter ). Once everything seems fine I switch to Auto and start the mission.

Three hours and 5 minutes later, It has travelled 117 KM with 29 % battery capacity remaining. As it was getting dark and it actually completed the planned mission, I decited to land. If there was enough time, when push to the limit, I think it can travel another 25 to 30 KM or 40 to 50 minutes. But for general mission flying, it is always good to have about 25 % of reserve capacity for better battery life cycle and prepare for unfavourable weather condition. Another issue need to consider is camera battery life. Most camera will not operate for more than 2 hours without extenal power supply.

The lithium ion battery I used can charge with normal Lipo charger at 1 C rate, but the discharge curve and minimum voltage is difference from Lipo battery that we all familiar with. When high power was loaded, such as take off, the voltage will drop significantly. In my case, the freshly charged battery voltage reading is 16.97 volt. During take off at full power, which draw 25 Amps, the voltage drop to 15.6 volt but once enter cruising mode, it bounce back to 16.4 volt or so. For air plane, it is safe to discharge down to 3 volt per cell or 12 V for 4S pack. If you push to the limit, It can hold up well until 2.8 volt per cell, after which, the voltage will drop fast. You will need to change the low voltage cut setting of your ESC to LOW or change the battery type to NICD/NIMH to avoid premature power cut off by the ESC.

Unlike lithium polymer battery, once the Lithium Ion battery discharge to very low voltage, say 2.4 volt per cell, it can bounce back to about 3 volt if you cut off the power for a while. If you are flying FPV and fight for the last KM to reach home, this technique and the characteristic of lithium ion battery may save your day or at least get it closer to you.

With 100 KM range, the new long range conservationdrone open up the posibility to map or video area that is previously unreachable by normal drones due to unaccessable suitable take off / landing area. It will also suitable to long range river bank ripirian area monitoring or border patrol or any other mission that require long range flight and long flight duration. Flying at 300 meter, it can also map 1500 Ha at about 10 cm per pixel resolution, which make large area mapping possible with a single flight. The camera will need external power.

Below is the specification and parts components for the 100 KM Skywalker conservationdrones. Any experience drone builder can build it with the available information. 

Air frame : Skywalker 2014 1800mm 3 piece wings
Auto pilot : HK Pilot Mega 2.7 master set
Radio control : Futaba T 8 J
Telemetry : HK Pilot 915 air. RFD 900 ground
Motor : SunnySky 2820 800 kv
Servo : Hitec 65 HB
Propeller : APC 12 x 8 Electric
Battery : 4S6P 21000 mah Lithium Ion
On board sensor : Canon S 100 GPS

Here is the link for the tlog of the 117 KM flight. From the tlog, you can view the complete flight mission as well as extract parameter from it. Use it at your own risk as some setting may be difference from user to user. 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BwRKGgIOJSELcnp0djliZGs4NkU/view?usp=sharing

Here is the KMZ file 

2016-01-10%2015-15-00.tlog.kmz

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xKs8hmfe-VE

Futaba T8J is a reliable and economical 8 channel computer radio. I'm using it exclusively for all my UAV, both plane and multirotor. Normally I only use 3 mode for all my UAV build. For Plane, mode 1 is FBWA, mode 2 is Auto and mode 3 is RTL. For multirotor, mode 1 is loiter, mode 2 is Auto and mode 3 is RTL

While three mode set up have serve me well because of the simplicity and easy for user to remember. For advance user, especially multirotor, I wish I have more mode selection with my transmitter. 

I'm actually quite surprise to find out that there is actually not many info available to help Futaba T8J user to set up 6 mode for their APM or Pixhawk. I found one here but it is kinds of complicated and a little confusing. Base on the information from DronesportUSA, I would like to share how I set up 6 mode for Pixhawk / APM with Futaba T8J.

This method only use one Programmable Mix and is quite straight forward. 

The workflow is : 

Set Aux CH 5 to SW C ( Pixhawk ).  CH 8 to SW C ( APM ). Please make sure SW D is NOT assign to any other switches.

Set  CH 5 ( Pixhawk ), CH 8 ( APM ) End Point to 47 / 47

Select PROG MIX 1

Set Master to OFS

      Slave to Gear ( Pixhawk ) AU 2 ( APM )

      Rate to - 50%

      Mix to ON

      SW to SW D

      POSI to UP

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_IroP01fY6o

Aljazeera has just broadcast a documentary : Conservation Drones Tackling deforestation and protecting orangutans with drones in Indonesia. in their Earthrise series. 

The documentary was produced by Banyak Film, an award winning documentary and film production company lead by two very talented young man. conservationdrones was invited by a local NGO to fly some mapping mission and deliver a new UAV system aka conservationdrones to them. We successfully accomplished the mission while Banyak Film took lot of great video footage during the mission. The drone has been flying lots of mission ever since and we was told it is still in flying condition right now. 

We hope you enjoy the documentary and feel free to share the original video. The above video is an edited version which focus on UAV and much shorter video clip so more bandwidth friendly. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3odtsy6l_KE

Using Orthomosaic and Digital Elevation Model to create 3 D model is nothing new. But normally it will require lots of computing power and knowledge. Skyline's TerraBuilder and TerraExplorer make it easy for the average people to make 3D video from an orthomosaic and DEM. For sure there are lot's of other functions within the software, I think just a 3D fly around video create by my recent aerial mapping work will enable my client understand his land better as he can view the area at difference angle and prospective.

I just learn some very basic function and will need proper training to fully utilised the powerful software. I find very limited resource in the net to help the learning process. Any idea ? 

http://youtu.be/EZ4HON4k_qk

A few months ago I fly a mission with a Tau 2 640 infra red camera. All the info is here.  The first trial prove that the equipment can indeed operate in night condition and we learn how to take off and land in that condition. Unfortunately during the first few flight we did not capture clear video that show the existent of our target, the small size marque monkey. This is mainly due to the inconsistent radio collar signal we received ,so we may have plan the wrong flight path. 

This time, with a more organised planning, sufficient ground survey to confirm the movement of the two monkey that fitted with radio collar, we know where our target was and plan the flight accordingly. With the same set up and same flight altitude, this time we do successfully record them which show up as bright white spot in the video.

Flying at 100 meter, the monkey only show up as a few pixel through the camera sensor. So we are not hoping to see the animal outline through the video. As there are no bigger size animal stay on top of tree at that area, those white spots found around the tree area are pretty much confirm that is the marque monkey. More detail analysis will require to make accurate survey but we have demonstrate that it is viable with our low cost UAV.

I post this video for those who may be interest to use this camera for their research work as a video out put reference. 

A few months ago we were invited by a Non Government Organisation to fly at a hill resort. They are exploring the possibility to use drone equipped with camera or Gopro to monitor the status of the forest reserve.    

Until recently, in the name of development and some “Unknown” reason, a lot of pristine forest has been clear for human activity such as farming, residential and commercial purpose. A recent finding also suggest that the only water catchment area may be in danger of being clear by some un-responsible party.

Since this is a high altitude mountain area, road access is limited. Effective monitoring of the forest reserve had been an uphill task for the organization. But now they may have a new weapon to level the fighting ground - Low cost UAV.

Our test flight area is about 1400 Meter ASL, from there, our drone has to climb for another 800 meter before heading to the first waypoint to avoid  terrain.

We are using Skywalker 2014 power by a 4S 6000 Mah battery and 2814-8 1000 kv T-motor. When I hit RTL to climb for altitude, I notice the climb rate is slower than what we normally use to be. But it was climb at a healthy rate, a few minute later it reach the designated altitude and start the journey.  We fly a total range of 17 KM, As you can see from the video, some parts of it is above cloud level which make a very scenic view.

The APM is totally reliable throughout the whole test flight in high altitude condition. It hold altitude and flight path nicely. We also experience strong thermal where our plane has been circle for a few minutes with zero throttle without losing altitude.

With the low cost drone system, we hope they can monitor the situation more effectively. The photo and video taken by drone will serve a good visual impact to create public awareness and ultimately our environment can be protected for us and many more generation to come.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JnmOMfmBZbY

It has been our goal to find out how we can train a user with no radio control airplane experience to operate our drone safely in the shortest time possible. In our experience, all who come for the training do not have experience in radio control. Some of them even not aware of such a hobby before they start thinking of using drone system to do their work.

As most researcher or user do not have the luxurious to spend a few week with us, our training is confine to 3 to 5 days. Therefore the normal radio control coaching method which we have been used for years to train up a new hobbyist is not suitable for our time constraints students.

Before radio control flight simulator become popular, a beginner will start with a trainer plane, the instructor must help him to set up and trim the plane to ensure it will not have any bad habit. Then with a trainer cord connected between their transmitter, the instructor will flip a switch and let the student take control of the plane. Usually it will not be too long, most of the time, in 20 seconds or less, the instructor will need to take over the control again. Depends on individual talent, it may be a few months of Saturday and Sunday hardworking before a student earn his/ her wings. Fast forward today's situation, we need a better and faster flight plan.

Prof Edward Webb from National University Singapore still hold the honour as the only pilot who land his plane on the FIRST flight

For a radio control airplane beginner, the most difficult part is eye hand coordination and the prospective model airplane view in the air relative to his fixed ground position. Radio control flight simulator has been in the market for more than 20 years and today's flight sim such as the latest Real Flight 7 had great graphic and realistic physics. The fact that you can practice without worry about crashing the plane is a great help too. We have been using it to train beginner hobbyist with good result.

For best result. we have been evaluating using helicopter instead of airplane for the student to start the training. Over the years, I have noticed that if a student start flying with airplane, in simulator, he may able to fly randomly for sometime. But actually he had very little control over the airplane. A lot of bad habit will quickly develop in this stage if the student did not get good advice. It will take more time to undo those habit then learning a good one. Therefore, before the student come for training, we request them to buy a simulator and try their best to hover a helicopter, preferably 60 size. The main objective is to train up their eye hand coordination.

Our student is not come here to prepare for their next world RC aerobatic championship, the focus is how to safely take off and land the airplane. More time will be given to practice landing as we have develop our " semi auto " take off and APM auto take off command also pretty reliable now.

The training is divided into two part. Flight simulator and field practice with our Skywalker 2012 trainer equip with an APM 2. ( that is our first APM with build in GPS, should had travel thousand of mile and still perform like new ) In both flight simulator and actual flying, only 4 maneuvers are require to prepare the student for their first landing. That is left hand traffic pattern, right hand traffic pattern, low pass ( 20 meter ) and full power go around, horizontal figure 8.

A typical training session start with computer flight simulator. Once the student demonstrate he can somehow hover a heli, that means he had develop the eye hand coordination require to fly a radio control airplane, the instructor then fly a maneuver, say right hand traffic pattern for the student to let him see how to properly execute the said maneuver. Pay attention to maintain altitude and correct flight path. It is important to train them to fly in both direction as soon as possible so they will not bias to one particular direction.

A few hours of simulator training will usually sufficient for the student to try their first ever radio control airplane flight. Flying the same maneuver learned from simulator, they will feel the real thing is much easier, that is because we had them fly in FBW A mode. In this mode, the student will be concentrate to control the flight path and altitude ( about 100 meter ) while the APM keep the airplane stable. We try to limit the training to about 15 minutes per session. Longer flight time will counter productive as student will lost concentration.

Once the student can fly a reasonable traffic pattern with constant altitude, we can gradually reduce the altitude to about 50 meter and continue to fly a smaller traffic pattern. Pay attention to maintain a parallel flight path with the runway. Once the airplane pass the pilot, apply full power, full up elevator for go around. The final goal here is to be able to fly about 10 meter above the runway and a reliable go around. Because of engine or motor torque, the airplane may turn to the left side while apply full power at lower air speed, so one should prepare to compensate with aileron or rudder to avoid fly toward the cloud.

To set up for a landing, the student must be very confident to fly at low altitude, using throttle to control altitude and able to perform go around safely. Start from a downwind leg about 60 meter away and parallel to runway, student should gradually reduce throttle to lower the altitude, make a smooth turn for the base leg, continue the turn and adjust the bank angle so the nose will point directly into the runway for the final approach. Most student will be having difficulty at the initial stage to set up for a correct final approach, this is where the instructor come in to give verbal instruction and hopefully the student will follow. There is not much time to save the plane at this stage.

If the student successfully point the airplane into the runway, all he have to do is cut off all power and let it glide in for a landing. As training progress, student can learn to use throttle to adjust the landing point and using rudder to adjust the flight path so the plane will land in the centre of the runway.

Figure of 8 in both direction is the final maneuver for the student to practice. This maneuver will prepare for the student to be able to fly the airplane in all difference angle relative to him. He will have confident to take over control from auto mode in all position.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-U85kAZ0JZk

We have been fortunate enough to have talented students come for training. Most of them make their first radio control airplane landing in their first training day. While we cannot guarantee everyone can do the same but we are confident in the third training day, one should able to land it in one piece or this may not your game.

Mr Yoon from Seoul, Korea after a training session 

Fly by wire mode is really a game changer for radio control airplane training. A well set up plane such as our Skywalker 2012 is very easy and safe to fly. With Geofence enable, one is impossible to crash the plane during practice except mechanical or electrical failure. A training use to take a few months now can reduce to just a few days.  This has opened up the door for more researcher to implement UAV technology in their field work. There are certainly endless of potential for UAV, especially low cost and easy to use UAV system. But we feel that proper training is essential for effective and safe UAV operation. We share our experience here and hope for more input toward better training idea and method.

May the number of landing and take off always be the same.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b8I-VsKjkDQ

During our recent mapping mission for S.A.F.E. project near Tawau, I brought along my DJI F550 equip with a Gopro Hero 3 black edition and Tarot T2D brushless gimbal to take a aerial video of their current site building and the propose new.

Video was taken in a sunny morning with very little winds. We are flying in GPS mode and try to be as smooth as possible, but I think we should have been more careful with rudder input. My flight controller is DJI Naja M V2, using the stock motor and 8 x 4.5 stock propeller, the default parameter recommended by DJI work well. I do not need to tune anything to get a good solid flight. 

To me, my DJI F550 is just plug and play without any issue encounter. It is a good plate form to start learning and as I grow in confident I will try the Pixhalk controller. After all, it seems now the ArduCopter code is quite stable and offer a lot more function than a DJI. 

I just start learning some basic video editing with Movie Maker and hope you'll enjoy it. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xmLRaBxcP6g

Recently I had an opportunity to get my hand on a FLIR Tau 2 640, a 9 Hz refresh rate version with optional 25 mm lens. This is a 10K USD gadget so I am extra careful to handle the test and recheck my gear several time before flight. 

Researcher Kimbery Fornace from London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine would like to use this camera to survey the population of marque monkey in her study site. This is parts of her study on Malaria, a disease commonly found in tropical country. Malaria causes symptoms that typically include fever and headache, which in severe cases can progress to coma or death. ( Wikipedia ). So you know she is not flying drone for fun but saving life. She is also the only lady who can fly a drone and successfully map a few area here in Sabah. 

The camera was mounted on an Alware servo base 2 axis gimbal. Power by a BEC which supply 5.2 v to the micro USB port found at the back of the camera. It output composite video which was connect to a digital video recorder and also a wireless video transmitter to give us real time video and OSD. I am using my tested DJI F 550, control by Naza M V2 and data link. With a 4S 6000 battery, all up weight is 2.7 Kg. It can fly for about 8 minutes.

This is the primary test just to make sure when all system are up and running, they will not interfere each other. I also want to confirm it can handle the extra weight. ( I am 200 gram over the recommended maximum weight ). Although I had the gimbal function enable, but the default gain setting seems too slow. I may want to increase it from 20 to 50 gain and see if thing improve.  

I will conduct a few more test before heading to the study site for actual survey mission flight a night. 

Graham, Myself and the pilot Ryan after the successful 100+ KM flight

It seems to fly for a distance of 100 KM with our electric air plane equip with APM or so is a norm now a day. Someone even suggest to rise the bench mark to 150 KM as the entry level for long range challenge.

A few months ago, I gave it a try with my Skywalker carry 2 piece 6S 5000 mah battery in parallel. It travelled some 80 km before the ESC cut because of low voltage protection. Although the attempt was fail, but I learn some lessons. The first lesson was, it is not as easy as I think.

Skywalker is a little draggy by design, facing a strong head winds, sometimes it's ground speed will drop to a few KM per hour. It is struggling in windy condition and unfortunately, this is the condition where we usually have to deal with in tropical area. With the two big and heavy battery in the fuselage, it is also very difficult to find space for our mapping camera. But don't get me wrong, Skywalker, especially the 2014 version is a very capable air frame for what I consider mid range ( 20 to 30 KM ) mission.

Recently I read quite a number of good report of the Zeta Science FX 79. Being a flying wing design, it has a lot of space for battery AND my on board equipment. The removable wing also make this huge wing ( 2 meter wings span ) become very easy to transport.

For this 100 KM challenge, my set up is :

Zeta Science FX79
APM 2.6 external compass
3.02 firmware
Analog air speed sensor
2 pieces 6S 5000 mah battery in parallel
T motor 3110-470
APC 12 x 8
CC Edge 50 A
attopilot current sensor
CC 10A BEC
Savox 257 servo
3DR 433 telemetry.
Futaba 10C radio system
All up weight : 3.4 KG

I start the flight in the afternoon in windy condition. According to APM, the winds blow at 10 to 30 KM per hour in east or north east direction. It is certainly not a favourable condition to go for the badge but I would like simulate the actual flying condition for our usual mission.

Launching a big and heavy wings need a little caution, I wear a welder grove to protect my hand from the hungry rear propeller. With my power set up, take off is quite easy with a little head winds. After some minor trim and it start the mission.

The flight path was planned along our local Sandakan Turf Club race track. The distance of the track is 1.4 KM. This will be easier for me to confirm the total distance after the flight. I also plan it to fly at 100 meter hoping for calmer condition at lower altitude.

APM 2.6 and the latest 3.02 firmware was rock solid throughout the whole flight. After 78 rounds and the battery voltage drop to below 20 volt, I terminate the mission. After some simple calculation, it was 109 KM and APM show slightly more. The whole flight duration was one hour and 57 minutes.

My next target now is 150 KM WITH reasonable extra payload. After all, no point for us to fly for hours and come back empty handed.

I would like to thank Prof LianPin Khoo, Prof Serge Wich, Simon and Brenden of conservationdrones for their encouragement and technical advise. I also want to thank Graham who came all the way from Medan, Indonesia to have a great time flying together and tune up his conservationdrones Maja. He make the two long hours a lot of fun. Special thanks to the Arduplane development team lead by Andrew Tridge. Without all their hard work, we are still confine to fly a few hundred meter from us for fun. Thanks guys.

Here is the link for the tlog.

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0BwRKGgIOJSELWEFXd1dhblNuYjg/edit

2014-05-10%2014-41-38.tlog.kmz

One of the early drone develop by conservationdrone.org still actively fly in Aceh for forest monitoring. This is a repost video from conservatiodrones. It is good to know that low cost drone bring great benefit to conservation body. Thanks Fauna & Flora International Aceh Program sharing the video and I hope you'll enjoy it.

( Our new Iris with video team from Al Jazeera Earthrise series )

Recently we try the Iris equip with Gopro Hero 3 in front to monitor the progress of forest restoration in North Sumatra National Park.

The beauty of this system is its full automatic capability. Pilot or the forest restoration manager just need to program a series of waypoints and the desire altitude according to the resolution require. Then the Iris will take off by itself once it was commanded, slowly accents to altitude and fly in a constant forward speed. It also navigate the grid line well.

This system also provide a very important and essential properties because of it's capability of vertical takeoff and landing. In tropical rain forest, one almost impossible to find a good landing spot for plane base UAV. Parachute recovery may end up hanging the drone on top of tree canopy because of changing winds direction.

The only drawback of this system currently is the flight duration. With a Gopro on board, we can only program for a 7 to 8 minutes flight which travel a distance of about 2 KM. It will be great if 3D robotic will upgrade it to fly for at least 20 minutes. With a longer arm, low kv dish type motor and a big propeller and battery, I think it is not too difficult to get there.

But even with the current set up, one can easily monitor 20 to 30 hectares of forest in less than 10 minutes. 5 fully charge battery will enable the forest manager to cover more than 100 hectare in less than 2 hours. Compare to ground survey, a few forest ranger may take weeks to complete the same task.

As the Iris is relatively new to me and the fact that I am also new to arducopter firmware, I will need to accumulate more flying hours with it and explore different functions the powerful Mission Planner can offer. I already had a very good start thanks to the Ready to Fly Iris. I do hope to discover more ways to use the system for various conservation, research and agriculture work.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0LtpnuP3shI

Talking about stability, how about this?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nqjImLGDYrM

First and foremost, I have nothing to do with 3DR but is regular customer.

I order the Iris on Nov 2013 and just received it last week. After a few flights with it, I think the waiting time is well worth of it and we have a winner here. 

The Iris simply lift off and settle in a VERY stable hover on my first flight in Alt hold mode. after flying for a few minutes I switch to loiter mode and it hold position and altitude well. left and right pirouette are also very good. Unlike DJI Phantom, it simply spin on the spot while the DJI will wonder in a radius about 2 meter when perform the same maneuvers. 

I also try a few auto mission and the default setting is just fine. Navigation is good which track the grid line very well. Until now, I have not touch a single thing in the parameter list. I am really appreciate all the hard work done by the developers and the beta testers. Now we just enjoy flying it without any hassle.

The Iris package is also truly ready to fly. If you have a/c power source at your flying field, you simply install the propeller, install transmitter battery and charge the included 3S Lipo battery with the included charger, an hour or so you can have your maiden flight with it.

So far my Iris will fly about 13 minutes before the LED light flashing. Flying distance is about 3 KM without load. With a Gopro Hero 3 in front, I have flown 1.7 KM with plenty of reserve. I think 2 KM is well within it's range.  

I will bring the Iris as my back up unit to Medan, Indonesia tomorrow for a Al Jazeera documentary video shooting by Banyak films, UK. If the Iris appear on TV, I may contact Chris for some advertisement appearance fees.........well, just kidding. 

Anyway, I'll highly recommend anyone who want to try multi rotor with mission planing capability, you will not disappoint with the new Iris.

Luke Evan, a Phd student of Cardiff University, England has beentrying very hard to look for crocodile nest for his research in the region of Kinabatangan river, the longest river in Sabah, the land below the wind in North Borneo.

Over the past two years, he has been explored lot of area with small boat or simply walk in the field, hoping to find some crocodile nest which is essential for his research. Unfortunately lady luck seems shy away from him all this while.  Even though this talented young English man work so hard, he just did not encounter any one nest which he is longing for.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RJ7gJ4M-PLs

Through the connection of Dr Benoid with conservationdrones, eventually they acquire a Maja type drone system. The hardware is there, but no one can operate it. After some e mail and a visit to the study site, Danau Gilang Field Centre, As Asia team member of conservationdrones, We offer to do a trial mission flight with our own equipment, a reliable Skywalker base UAV.

As the field centre is surrounded by thick tropical rain forest, we can not find any suitable landing area. But since the area of interest is all by the river side, we think we may able to land the plane by the river bank or some tall grass by the river.

Eventually about 10 missions have been flown with thousands of high definition images acquire by the on board camera. These images then  stitch together to generate geo reference othomosaic and digital surface model of difference study site.

Upon download raw images from the camera, Luke go through each images carefully with his trained eyes. This time the lady luck is with him, very soon his sharp eyes identify a few possible sign of crocodile nest in the images. Since each image is geo tag and the fact that he know the area very well, he visit the site the very next morning and true enough, there is a crocodile nest and the rest is history.

We are very please to learn that conservationdrones help yet another researcher to facilitate his study of crocodile and the drone can operate in this type of challenging environment.

Just a short video to share some difficult situation we are facing when flying mission in Highland area.

In this kinds of situation, you really need to use throttle to control the altitude and elevator to control air speed. The touch down point must be accurate to avoid overshoot which may cause damage to the air frame.

cockpit view of the landing, Gopro Hero 3 black in front of the nose

Hope you enjoy the video

I have been quite successful to perform general aerial mapping, producing othomosaic and digital surface model for our local plantation company. Our Skywalker base UAV power by APM is a very reliable tools for acquire aerial images. Currently for a typical mission we fly at 300 meter altitude and resulting ground sample distance is about 9 to 12 cm per pixel using Canon S100 GPS. 

I am very excited to learn that Agpixel is providing a way to transform Near Infra Red images to NDVI, which may become a very powerful tools for the agronomist or the plantation management personnel to zoom in the problematic area as soon as possible before more severe damage or losses occur. This type of information will be crucial for the agronomist in their recommendation of fertilizer input, which account for 60% of the overall cost of production for oil palm plantation.      

Normal RGB Othomosaic image

To acquire NIR image, I am using Maxmax modify NDVI Canon S100 GPS camera. The images quality is very good. Agpixel has maxmax modify camera setting ready to use so the user no need to tweak parameter like imageJ. A few click later, some beautiful false color image can be generated for viewing or export to various format.

Here come the tricky part, while the false color image is very attractive but how to adjust the parameter so the information presented in the false color image will be accurate and useful to the user has yet to finalize. More research will be needed. It will not serve the purpose to supply an eye appealing NDVI false color images and only to found out that the data is not accurate or misleading.

According to Mark Lanning, the CEO of Agpixel, the program is under massive update and I hope the final product can deal with cloud shadow issue, support large ( Gigabyte ) file and output geo-reference images. For the mean time, this program may be targeted for researcher and the professional from remote sensing field. I can not find a manual or tutorial on how to use it. In my opinion, a comprehensive and detail manual plus video tutorial is crucial if this product is target for general mass market. Most of the farmer or even agronomist may not well train in remote sensing subject.   

With the hard work of Mark and his team, I hope Agpixel will become a leading software for precision agriculture and ultimately help the world to produce more food in the most efficient way.

Near Infra Red Othomosaic image

Agpixel Green NDVI

False Color Composite image

Recently Lianpin Koh suggest to me to try out the Microsoft ICE. It is an advanced panoramic image stitcher. The best part : It's a freeware.

Being just completed to map 20000 Ha of oil palm land for a local plantation, I have huge data set on hand to try out if it is suitable for general use. This is a pure images stitching program, so the end result is not geo reference.

The result is simply amazing. I just load all the images and wait for the program to finish the work. No editing or intervention what so ever. Depends on the number of images, my i5 8GB ram notebook take 15 to 20 minutes to finish a 350 images data set. I'm very impress with the stitching quality, the final image looks like it was taken by a single shot.

I do encounter some problem with area cover by thick tropical rain forest. MS ICE had difficulty to stitch those images and most of the time it just ignore it and leaving the area empty. I think this is a common problem for all UAV base photogrammetry program. 

The total area of this mission is about 250 Ha. The above image show smaller area because I have crop it. My Skywalker base UAV take about 30 minutes to cover the whole mission at 300 M altitude. The ground sampling distance is about 11 cm per pixel.

For those of you who just need an aerial photo of a big area, I think MC ICE can do a good job especially if the images contain many features. APM and Mission Planner is a real winning combination for aerial mapping. The system is robust and reliable. Give it a try, I'm sure you'll not disappointed.