Blogs

Colorado's High Peaks - The SenseFly Option

Posted by Stephen Buck on February 9, 2014 at 4:00pm

3689573740?profile=original

The most straightforward option is the out-of-the-box solution provided by the SenseFly eBee. The system is easy-to-use, well-tuned and specifically designed for this sort of application. The recent 3D mapping of the Matterhorn using this system was the original inspiration for this project. I have contacted SenseFly and hope to have information to share soon. Does anyone have experience with this system?

www.sensefly.com

E-mail me when people leave their comments –
Follow

You need to be a member of diydrones to add comments!

Join diydrones

Comments

  • Richard Antonio July 24, 2014 at 12:09pm

    Here in Brazil is not so cheap, he comes to us for $ 160,000, not counting training, travel and other expenses.

  • Stephen Buck February 18, 2014 at 9:37pm

    I haven't been able to determine what type of radio is used for control. The specs mention that the package contains an "up to 3 km radio link" and a 2.4 GHz modem for telemetry. Does anyone know more about the radio specs?

  • Stephen Buck February 16, 2014 at 7:19pm

    Here's a link to the main blog post: 3D Mapping of Colorado's High Peaks

  • Stephen Buck February 10, 2014 at 2:01pm

    Thanks for the link John. Here's a link to the longer 3D mapping video:

     

  • John Githens February 10, 2014 at 10:03am

    Here is a related DIYD blog post.

  • Jarrett Totton February 10, 2014 at 9:52am

    Hi Gary, Where is this elsewhere that they cost around $12000? Thanks Jarrett

  • Justin Stiltner February 10, 2014 at 8:52am

    I have been to a demo of one of these and it is very user friendly, it was pretty windy that day and it did a great job of flying the track that was determined.  At the end of both flights the craft landed within 8 feet of the launch point.  It sets up to land and descends at a pretty steep angle spinning the propeller in reverse to slow its self.

    I thought it was neat that the wings plug onto the fuse via 2 carbon rods, with no wires to hook up.  There is a fork and pin arrangement for the elevons so the servos can be mounted in the fuse.  The box was very nice that it came in and the plane felt similar to the bixler/sky surfer type foam I think.  Overall a very polished system that requires you to know nothing about flying aircraft or programing autopilots.  For the guys that just want to do air surveys and get a system that just works, I give this one the thumbs up.

  • cmiser February 10, 2014 at 8:09am

    Hey guys.  I saw this post a few days ago.  First of all I am biased and own Falcon UAV which I would recommend for this.  I have seen both gatewing and sensefly fly and know their price tags.  In both cases I'd recommend Falcon as we are a lower or equal cost system and certainly more suited to this mission.  But I am not here to sell aircraft.  What I can say is that I am here in Colorado and have been wanting to do a 14000 ft flight.  Doing these peaks is non trivial for given altitude, takeoff/landing options, and wind considerations but I'm up to give it a try on Pike Peak when it reopens.  This is a harsh mission and I don't think you want to be doing this with foam flying wing aircraft which all of the previous options are.

  • Moderator
    Gary Mortimer February 10, 2014 at 6:17am

    They are $12,000 elsewhere Christiaan and that includes the post production tools. South Africans are ripped off far too easily. Just look at the price of cars.

  • Flying Buddha February 10, 2014 at 6:14am

    After everything was said and done, I think we paid around 30k, but Ive seen some reports on the internet of around 20k. 

    @ Christiaan van Vollenstee I agree with you, but my 7 year old who has never flown anything, can pull the pin on this thing, shake it and though it in the air. This is made for people who just want to map something. 

This reply was deleted.