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  • MarcS June 25, 2011 at 1:52am

    Ben, considering fixed wing following moving target: there is a simple "follow" command implemented in Paparazzi, where you can follow another board (most times in a plane). You can set a distance and altitude delta. It´s just moving point following, which leads to the behaviour that if the follower catches up it does an undefined circle and goes on. I tried with two planes some time ago and it works nice to follow a faster plane :-)

    If you want to get good video all the time (especially of a ground target) you probably have to think about a clever logic to decide what maneuver to fly next. Would be a nice feature, anyway!

  • Mike June 25, 2011 at 12:44am

    Mikrocopter have had this working for more than two years! http://vimeo.com/2689601 and as Ben says UAVDB has the camera tracking working and for quite some time.

    Ben maybe the best solution would be to put the aircraft in loiter over the subject but the centre of the loiter circle would move with the subject. As the speed of the subject increases the aircraft will keep adjusting to the new circle and essentially fly a tangential path alongside the the subject. It might work with some very simple logic but it might also get very complicated!

     

     

  • Ben Levitt June 24, 2011 at 2:10pm

    Cool!  And great location!  (That looked a lot like the cable wakeboarding lake in East Coast Park in Singapore!)

     

    MatrixPilot can actually do part of this right now.  It can automatically follow another UDB with the camera, but doesn't currently automate navigating towards the other UDB.  Any suggestions for thenavigation logic for a fixed wing plane following a moving target?  Maybe if the target's speed is above some threshold then aim towards it and try to match the speed, and if below that threshold then try to circle around it?  And maybe preset an altitude delta to try to maintain above the target?

  • Jack Crossfire June 24, 2011 at 1:22pm
    He's good at showing the applications.  No-one else has shown the application of someone using a UAV to record themselves doing sports, but he still needed a safety pilot & it had to be quite far away.
  • hamish June 24, 2011 at 1:07pm
    Very cool !  I like the wakeboarding system too, never seen that before.
  • Sebastian Gralla June 24, 2011 at 12:47pm
    haha jason, I like how arducopter develops and beats MK with features (remember MK is alive since 4 years, follow me was implemented a few months ago, arducopter is alive since.. well 8 months?)
  • Developer
    Jason Short June 24, 2011 at 11:39am

    Yes, that's Awesome! We'll have "Guided mode" implemented soon (APM already has it). This is a Mavlink mode where you can point and click and the quad will just fly there and loiter. A small box like this could put the Arducopter into guided mode and send updates to the desired position to achieve the same result.

    Jason

  • Ritchie June 24, 2011 at 11:12am
    This is not the first time we have seen this and it was suggested by Johann well over 6 months ago when my first camera tracking code came out. Looks like we got some fun times ahead :)
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