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A Milestone: single-button UAV for photomapping - The Pteryx

Posted by Krzysztof Bosak on October 25, 2010 at 5:00am

Pteryx UAV photo mapping from Krzysztof Bosak on Vimeo.

After completing testign campaign and delivering the first examples we haverushed to publish a short documentary.
Pteryx is an UAV designed for civilianuse, together with its mission-oriented autopilot.
Our focus is in reliableoperation and single button interface. basically you have to put UAV on the
rails, select missions with rotary knobs, hold takeoff button until the
autopilot completes propulsion test, pull the bungee lock.
Pteryx can lift800g compact digital SLR in roll-stabilised head, providing superior quality
photography unachievable by other means: Better flying precision than manned
crafts, inaudible electric propulsion, very few parts to break (only 2 control
surfaces, folding propeller).

Endurance up to 120min, parachute landing,protected propeller.
Possible takeoff from hand and manual piloting.
By law,limited to visual range (some 500m) what yields 1km x 1km map.

pteryx, uav, photomapping

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Comments

brakar October 30, 2010 at 2:55pm

Krzysztof, can you show more of the the rotary knob functionality?
(Also interesting to see there are still people who are able to count both consonants and vowels. School is obviously continuing to do their job).
Alex Arevalo October 30, 2010 at 9:06am

Krzysztof: I think they are talking about the name Pteryx. The letters P, t, r and x are all consonants. The only vowels are e and y. The letter y sometimes is considered a consonant that behaves also as a vowel.
T3

Krzysztof Bosak October 30, 2010 at 2:56am

?!? What are you talking about?&?
SciFly October 29, 2010 at 9:45pm

4 consonants, y counts in this case.......
bGatti October 28, 2010 at 11:30pm

one button and five consonants. easy to use, ever so tricky to say. :)
Frederique Pivot October 28, 2010 at 10:28am

It's better with the complete sentence ;-)
Please, a little bit of respect for the pigeons... their elders served well during the WWI; I guess during that time, they did not care about environmental protection and they were just happy with whatever information the pigeons could bring back to them lol
T3

Krzysztof Bosak October 28, 2010 at 5:05am

" then we should use pigeons instead of UAVs"
I am sure you are not aware of th real costs of maintaining a network of pigeon stations and their environmental impact... Low mission readiness... Instable flight... Prone to disappear in wild areas... Inability to fly 30 times in a row over a field with exactly 50m spacing...
T3

Krzysztof Bosak October 28, 2010 at 5:02am

"but again nobody cares about georeferencing"
Not for this particual missions. My bad.
Yes GE georeferencing is pitful - we see 5-40m off here or there. But taking 19km photostrip and asking for georeferenced points explodes costs, while all they wanted was DOCUMENTED AREA OVERVIEW.

120min flight time is on several lipos in parallel. Something like 3S 14+/-1 Ah .
Yes L/D is good for a platform with a pylon bu the autopilot used is designed for endurance, after many calculations it turned out that statistically we fly halfway between optimal and minimal sinkrate airspeed.
Carlito Oliveira October 28, 2010 at 2:36am

Hello,

Coul'd u explain what configuration was capable of achieving 120min flight time?

Congratulations for your product, u must have a very high L/D.
Frederique Pivot October 27, 2010 at 10:38pm

And talking about Google Earth, the quality of their georeferencing is pitiful.