Hi,
In Belgium, our local "FAA", the so called "DGTA" (as painful as in the US) has just passed last week a law regulating the use of drones. They defined a number of categories among which the "all-up-weight" of the ship is a criterion. Among the categories, a ship under a kilogram does not require a pilot certification nor all of the administrative burdens & associated costs. They allow you to fly a sub kilogram ship (except in public spaces) up to 10 meters (basically it is considered a "toy" under a kilogram).
So, this was my motivation to try to build a "Subonekilo" ship, based on Arducopter (with all the goodies including autonomous flight capability), embarking a full HD camera on a 2 axis gimbal. All of it, battery included, under a kilogram.
The ship built in this video does just that, with a flight endurance of 33 minutes @850grams without camera. It weighs just about a kilogram with a Mobius installed on my previously designed 45gr 2-axis Alexmos Mobius gimbal (see video here :45g Mobius gimbal ).
Forrest Frantz, we all know here, is the inspiration of the antivibration "struts" I'm using in this build, which is a way to isolate the frame from a platform holding all of your electronics, flight controller and battery (for maximum weight and thus minimum vibration amplitude) resting on anti-vibration isolators/dampeners. As a result, I get extremely low vibrations on all three axis X, Y, Z (see end of video for chart).
Last but not least, a big thx to our divine Ardupilot DEVs to provide such an excellent autopilot. Note that the flight shown in the video is done with the latest APM:copter 3.3.3 out-of the-box without any tuning , standard params (it wobbles a bit as the ship is way overpowered, hovering at 35%-40% => I have to lower Roll/Pitch P rate and maybe a bit D also).
A part2 will come once I've some nice video footage to show with the gimbal+Mobius (some fiddling still needed + ship tuning).
Cheers,
Hugues
Comments
@Randy, Leonard thx to you! yes , just 10 meters, not much but at least enough to test new ships. I'll get a certification anyway but that will take some time.
@Max, you know you really interest me ? Do you hire un Uruguay ? Maybe time to flee out of the old Europe to new America !
well, in Uruguay, we are more likely with our new law. There is no limit (well, below 25 kg) but if you fly for business, you need to get a licence. And a private pilot licence for more than 260 kg. We are going to make a drones base for international companies looking for a nice place to test their machines.... (we have huge place, nice weather (except today), lovely beaches and good engineers..
Well done!!!
Thanks for the ardupilot plug :-).
So the altitude limit for flying without a license is just 10m? My goodness, that is a really low altitude!
Welcome to the club Cala ;)
Coollll!!! this year we entered to regulated club too :( ; here is ANAC ; so I'm assembling a racer to have something little but them the challenge is going to be decent flying time and carry something to take photos :)
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