Rough budget estimate for UAV

Hello everybody,

I've just started my UAV project and budget estimate seems to be not that small

Hope this will be useful for newcomers.

That's what you'll have to buy to get the full-functional UAV, assuming you already have something that flies:

ArduPilot Mega – $60
IMU Shield – $160
3×8 Angle Connector x 2 – $4
Servo cables x 8 – $12
GPS – $86
XBee-PRO 868 x 2 – $140
Xbee adapter x 2 – $50
XBee ground antenna – $11
FTDI cable for ground Xbee – $18 (really, too much for that simple piece of hardware)

Reasonable minimum. Without directional antenna, camera or FPV. $541 without shipping.

Would be good:

Airspeed sensor – $20
Tubes for airspeed – $6

Another $26.

Would be really cool:

Magnetometer – $45

sAbout $600 total. Quite expensive hobby, I'd say. Add another $100-$200 for shipping if you live somewhere far from the US. I'm in Russia and my shipping estimate exceeds $200 for airframe and ardupilot gear.

PIf anybody knows cheaper ways to do the thing, please, tell me.

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Comments

Alexey Burlakov November 16, 2010 at 7:50am

Thanks Chris, you are probably right. I discarded cheaper MTK because of my previous bad experience with this chipset (on the ground only, thoug). Is this U-Blox as good as it costs, or is it just the same as MTK one?

I chose 868 Xbee mostly because of the range. I assumed that advertised range is for perfect conditions and I wouldn't get expected 6-8 km on other XBees without high-gain antennas (which are expensive) and with RF-unfriendly environment near the city on electric plane.

I don't think I'll need anything more than 2-3 km in the beginning, but I'm also not sure if I want to buy another pair of XBees when I'll want to go beyond the 3 km range.
3D Robotics

Chris Anderson November 16, 2010 at 7:27am

There are a few obvious cost savings you could make. You chose the most expensive GPS for some reason, but the MediaTek, which is great, is just $37. You've also chosen expensive Xbee modules; the ones recommend are half that price. You can also use an Xbee adapter on the ground that has built-in FTDI, which would also save $20. So right there, if you just use our recommended gear it's $100 less than your total.

If you wait a year, prices will fall as technology improves and volumes go up. But I think it will be a while before a full-featured IMU-based autopilot with two-way telemetry/Ground Station like this will be less than around $400.
Alexey Burlakov November 16, 2010 at 7:27am

Actually, I'm going for something with wings, not quad, but generally you're right.

The only problem is this is starter kit, one of the cheapest options. And cheap aluminium bike costs only $300 (-:

I'm planning to shift to something bigger and gas powered later, and _that_ will be expensive, unfortunatelly.
ken wood November 16, 2010 at 7:24am

Well, compare your quad hobby to something like GOLF! In that activity you can eat up $600 before you get your bag full of clubs. Or, how about bicycling? The new bikes cost up to $8000 for the full tilt carbon-fiber.
And the list goes on: Skiing, boating, scuba, etc.
You get my point.
On a per hour cost of hobby this is cheap!

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