I know this is a bit risky to propose a new platform for a UAV, but I think it could be a very good platform.The system are slow, stabel, won't brake if a crash should happen, easy to operate, ok payload.How about having ArduPilot installed on a RC Paraglider.I hope you all can se the opportunities with this kind of systems.See more here RC ParagliderI hope to here some comments from the creates.
I recently talked to a geography professor about this and he really would like to see one. OTOH, he already did pay some companies to create an autopilot and they failed. The task was normal ardupilot stuff: keep height, fly over waypoints. Problems he cited:
- There's a big delay (2-5 secs.) between turning the servos and a reaction by the glider. This makes it hard for the system to see if a change in sensors was caused by wind or was desired.
- That reaction time varies depending on if you're flying against the wind or with the wind.
- Airspeed is slow and he said that that made determining the direction difficult (which is silly, imho, get a compass).
- The glider itself often is not aligned exactly in the way the drone is moving.
BUT I will probably get to work with his existing system, which is a little larger than which is shown, I think. I'm bad at guessing sizes, but it carried a 5,5 PS engine and could've carried a fairly heavy payload (I'm guessing up to 3 or 5 kg). So I will need to work on those problems, and I hope together we can solve them :)
Feel free to contact me if you want to get together and exchange thoughts. And normally my English is better, I'm in a little rush right now.
It's just a matter of having it come up enough times that someone finally does it. People require a certain critical mass to finally accept an obvious idea. A pocket paraglider keeps getting mentioned.
At this moment I got the prototype flying and starting to order the autopilot items.You can actually use the simple ardupilot version as the paraglider is automatically stable. The site needs some updating with media. But youtube is filled with PPL (powered paragliders) - I teamed up with another bloke from The Netherlands from www.aircatcher.com . Will be flying ardupilot in a month or so.
It would work, and Rob's link is proof. But my experience flying full scale powered paragliders in the early 90's was that they are very intolerant of wind. Anything over about 10 mph and we landed. It's hard to imagine them deploying them safely at 25,000' from a cargo plane as the link describes.
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I recently talked to a geography professor about this and he really would like to see one. OTOH, he already did pay some companies to create an autopilot and they failed. The task was normal ardupilot stuff: keep height, fly over waypoints. Problems he cited:
- There's a big delay (2-5 secs.) between turning the servos and a reaction by the glider. This makes it hard for the system to see if a change in sensors was caused by wind or was desired.
- That reaction time varies depending on if you're flying against the wind or with the wind.
- Airspeed is slow and he said that that made determining the direction difficult (which is silly, imho, get a compass).
- The glider itself often is not aligned exactly in the way the drone is moving.
BUT I will probably get to work with his existing system, which is a little larger than which is shown, I think. I'm bad at guessing sizes, but it carried a 5,5 PS engine and could've carried a fairly heavy payload (I'm guessing up to 3 or 5 kg). So I will need to work on those problems, and I hope together we can solve them :)
Feel free to contact me if you want to get together and exchange thoughts. And normally my English is better, I'm in a little rush right now.
http://www.iheartrobotics.com/2009/05/uav-paraglider.html
http://www.iheartrobotics.com/2009/05/space-balloons-and-parachutes...
The control loops may be a little difficult to get working but it seems do able.
http://www.verticallimits.nl/?page_id=235
At this moment I got the prototype flying and starting to order the autopilot items.You can actually use the simple ardupilot version as the paraglider is automatically stable. The site needs some updating with media. But youtube is filled with PPL (powered paragliders) - I teamed up with another bloke from The Netherlands from www.aircatcher.com . Will be flying ardupilot in a month or so.
Early post here at DIYdrones: http://diydrones.com/profiles/blogs/slightly-of-topic-ardupilot
BTW - nice site you mentioned in your post
But it would be interesting to try it.
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