( 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
Comments
http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2046042 has picture of the battery compartment reported dimensions of 153x54x26 mm only the second cell you quote would fit at 141 x 41 x 23 mm.
HZL
This was from an earlier posting at rcgroups http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2046042&page=10
1. If the IRIS is operated with a 4s battery, a 12V uBEC is mandatory for the TAROT GIMBAL, which is designed for 2-3s.
2. The TAROT GIMBAL sts. comes with a Video/Charger cable for the GoPro, but its not recommended to use the 5V out of the TAROT GIMBAL, since its getting hot.
A cheap 5V uBEC will do the the job much better.
HZL
hmm I just got the IRIS.. and its clearly up to a 4S LIPO.. and the above poster does state to hook in parallel the batteries he is pushing resulting in only a 4S voltage to the curcuitry and that being said a quick run though xcoptercalc.ch quickly reveals that its a vanishing returns problem after about 5000ma as the extra weight from 2 batteries will not net you flight times like you are expecting.
BUT I will indeed look at any and all 4S solutions as I will be carrying aloft a LOT of extra crap... like gimbel gopro or public labs webcam and beaglebone black and navigation lights up 1 meter strip of 144RGB led per meter UBEC for 8 amps for same(solid white all lamps light max), OR Blue Electroluminescent panels on the bottom OR an RM-80 radiation assay sensor OR OR... plus telemetry boards + lidar unit(planned).
Maybe I should just get the Gryphon Dynamics DuoDeca on order right now :)
HZL
ps that battery compartment is quite limiting
Great job! I like your cap Keeyen ;)
Hi Keeyen,
Reading the specs of the IRIS from 3DR, I think to safe you should get this lipo batteries,
Revox Pro 4S 3500mAh 35C Nano Tech Li-Po Battery
4S will give the burst of power when you need it. Again, I suggest you should get 2 pcs. 4S 3500mAh can connect in parallel. You will probably get more than 2x of your current flying time.
BTW, could get this type of lipo batteries in KL or Medan? Any shop in KL and Medan that sell FPV / UAV stuff?
Would it be possible to post photo on where the current lipo battery is placed right now? Is possible to put 2 lipo batteries in IRIS?
how are flight times with a 5A 3S compared to the stock battery?
Yea.. I was wondering what he was smoking! :)
the zippy packs I am using now fit quite well. They are rated 5000mah and measure 145x52x25mm. There is room on either side, so this dimension would even grow, but the height of 25mm is about perfect for the battery compartment. the 145mm length is about tops though as the wires still need space to be tucked away.
The above posts look like blog spam. The iris' engines are rated 4S max, propellers are probably optimized for 3S. Don't use these batteries, it is very possible that you will damage the iris.
Best
-S
are you flying your iris on 5s?
Mine came with a 3s3500 pack (and not a very good one) but I have been flying it with a $22 20c 3s5000 zippy pack. this gives a substantial increase in flight time and the pack still fits inside the battery bay, which is nice. I didnt really notice any difference in flight characteristics either....
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