Blogs

The ONE is the latest design in UAV technology from X-UAV. They are using a high fibre material and it features a servo driven camera stabilization gimbal in the nose.

The is what X-UAV said regarding this new material :

We have strong confidence on this new material. Comparing EPO and EPP,it is completely changes in technology and function. Its density is between EPO and EPP, and 2-3times Rigid than the 35 density of EPO, more than 10 times toughness than EPO.
We believe that it is unlikely to be crashed for plane flying with low weight. In the near future we will use this new material for more planes

Please feel free to contact me on cvanvollenstee@cfaktor.com on quotes on these planes if you are interested in ONE.

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Hi,

U|g|CS 2.2 is out. Several nice features from our backlog have been implemented. Here is a list of changes:

IMPROVEMENTS
• Implemented support of multiple map layers
• WMS map provider now supports ESPG:4326 projection
• Telemetry player now displays commands that were sent to vehicle
• Route segment can be deleted by pressing "DEL" key on keyboard
• Added energy saving functionality for Notebook users
• Added demo missions containing most important functions
• Improved overall client performance in comparison to v.2.1
• Added camera trigger action for DJI based vehicles
• Client will now automatically check if a new version is available

FIXES
• Coordinate input improved in U|g|CS client
• Home location functionality fixed for DJI based vehicles
• Fully tested and supported ArduCopter version 3.2
• Fixed take-off action problems for DJI based vehicles
• Added Ubuntu 14.10 support
• Fixed ArduCopter based vehicle POI action on circles
• Fixed button for minimizing all windows open in U|g|CS client

To upgrade from 2.1 get 2.2 and start the installation process.

Stay tuned!

U|g|CS Team

Canada’s relatively favorable framework for commercial UAV operations is attracting interest among foreign operators who are frustrated with restrictions in their home jurisdictions. The following provides a breakdown of Canadian regulations affecting foreign commercial operators:

Canada’s regulations for foreign commercial UAV operators

I have recently learned of a piece of draft legislation soon to be introduced in the Colorado State Senate by Senators Linda Newell and Kevin Lundberg (who I interned for in high school ironically), which if passed as worded would effectively ban all recreational and commercial use of unmanned/remote-control aircraft in Colorado. The full text of the draft bill, which has not yet been formally introduced, is available here.

There will be a stakeholders meeting this Tuesday, January 13th, at 2PM in room SCR356, at the Colorado State Capital building to discuss the bill. Anyone in Colorado who has an interest in drones/UAVs/model aircraft should try to attend.

What the bill does is incorporate a vague and flawed interpretation of current FAA UAS regulations into state law. The new law would apply to ALL uses of unmanned aircraft of any size, whether commercial, hobbyist, or even toy class RC models. Because the bill's requirements are essentially impossible to meet, it would have the effect of prohibiting all uses of unmanned aircraft in Colorado, and make criminals of everyone from traditional RC hobbyists, to FPV enthusiasts, to commercial aerial photographers, to a 12 year-old operating a 5oz toy helicopter in his backyard.

The relevant portion of the bill states:

41-6-102. Nongovernmental use of unmanned aerial vehicles.
(1) A PRIVATE PERSON WHO USES AN UNMANNED AERIAL VEHICLE SHALL
MEET THE EQUIPMENT REQUIREMENTS APPLICABLE TO THE CLASS OF
AIRSPACE WITHIN WHICH THE UNMANNED AERIAL VEHICLE IS OPERATED.

(2) A PRIVATE PERSON WHO USES AN UNMANNED AERIAL VEHICLE
FOR RECREATIONAL USE SHALL COMPLY WITH ALL INSTRUMENT FLIGHT
RULES, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO FLYING THE UNMANNED AERIAL
VEHICLE WITHIN THE OPERATOR'S SIGHT, FOR NO FARTHER THAN THREE
MILES, FOR NO MORE THAN FOUR HUNDRED FEET ABOVE THE GROUND,
DURING DAYLIGHT, INSIDE UNCONTROLLED AIRSPACE, AND AT LEAST FIVE
MILES FROM AN AIRPORT OR OTHER LOCATION WITH AVIATION ACTIVITIES.

AN UNMANNED AERIAL VEHICLE THAT IS USED FOR RECREATIONAL
PURPOSES SHALL NOT USE AUTONOMOUS OPERATIONS.

(3) IF A PERSON OR ENTITY WANTS TO USE AN UNMANNED AERIAL
VEHICLE FOR RECREATIONAL OR COMMERCIAL USE OR FOR UNMANNED
AERIAL VEHICLE RESEARCH, THE PERSON MUST OBTAIN AN EXPERIMENTAL
AIRWORTHINESS CERTIFICATE OR CERTIFICATE OF WAIVER OR
AUTHORIZATION FROM THE FEDERAL AVIATION ADMINISTRATION.

From this language it is quite clear the senators have absolutely no idea what they are talking about and have no understanding of aviation law. None of the requirements they mention are part of Instrument Flight Rules, which in fact require a person to hold a pilots license with an instrument rating, and impose numerous requirements such as filing flight plans and having certain kinds of navigational equipment on board the aircraft.

I cannot imagine this is what the Senators intend. Nor do I think they realize that the FAA waivers they are requiring are not even available for recreational users as Congress has expressly prohibited the FAA from regulating hobbyist model aircraft and therefore cannot require any kind of licensing or certification for them. And since waivers have been issued to only a handful of commercial UAS operators and impose excessive restrictions that make them utterly useless for most small businesses, this bill would force dozens of innovative small Colorado businesses that are already using unmanned aircraft to shut down.

The line of sight requirement and the prohibition on autonomous operation would prohibit FPV and most autopilot systems built-in to many popular models, and would ironically make RC aircraft less safe, since automated return-to-home systems would be prohibited. Prohibiting all RC aircraft within 5 miles of an airport would also shut down several established AMA model airfields in Colorado, including one at Cherry Creek State Park in Denver which is inside Centennial Airport's class D airspace and is only about 3 miles from the end of the main runways. 

It is critical that as many UAV enthusiasts as possible contact Senators Newell and Lundberg between now and Tuesday when the stakeholders meeting will be held, so that we can convince them to remove this disastrous language from the bill before it is introduced. You can email them at kevin@kevinlundberg.com, and linda.newell.senate@gmail.com.

Since the FAA has exclusive jurisdiction over airspace regulation, there is absolutely no reason why non-governmental use of unmanned aircraft should be regulated by state law, and any such law will be automatically preempted by federal regulations anyway. We need to act fast and hard on this to discourage future attempts by legislators to interfere with our hobby and livelihood, and to educate them about this safe and beneficial activity. As an example, you can read the email I wrote to Sen. Lundberg here.

"Golden Globes viewers may get to enjoy some unusual camera angles of the event this year.

A drone will be used to film celebs on the red carpet at the awards show Sunday at the Beverly Hilton Hotel. DJI Global is providing the drone."

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/golden-globes-drone-be-used-762555

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t9jstsJKme0&feature=youtu.be

Here is a video from our testing of SPECTER 360 prototype gimbal. Until now we have eliminated all those vibrations seen on video. I will be posting new test 3 video soon.

ABOUT

Specialy designed for UAV (Unmenned aerial vehicle) operations but can be used for many different purposes (mounting on a real helicopter, airplane for search and rescue, reconnaissance, military observations,... etc).

TECHNICAL DETAILS

1) STABILIZATION: 3 AXIS - 360 degree continuous yaw rotation, pitch +- 90 degree, roll +-30 degree

2) SYSTEM WEIGHT: appx 0.6 kg

3) CONTROL: RC INPUT (YAW AXIS, PITCH AXIS and ZOOM)

4) POWER SUPPLY: 3S LIPO

5) VIDEO OUTPUT: COMPOSITE

6) CAMERA SPECIFICATIONS:

http://atmolab.eu/uav-gimbal-specter-360.html

I'd like to share a story about an interaction I had this past week with a quadcopter/drone operator.

  Where I work most everyone who knows me knows that I pilot UAV's and have done so for several years now. So when something in our area comes up involving UAV's they call me. Case in point happened one day this past past week.

I received a call from a co-worker asking if I could stop over at a location and speak with a guest who was flying, what I later found out was, a Phantom. I said of course and made my way to them.

Upon arrival I extended my hand and introduced myself. He, we will call him Joe, extended his hand as well and we shook hands.

 I asked Joe how his day was and what he was doing today. He said that he was flying his drone to get some video footage of our area for his own use. I said great, I operate them myself and have for many years. I asked if I could see his drone since at the time it was in a case. He opened up and it was a second gen Phantom.

I then asked Joe again what his purpose was and again he said it was just for personal use. He then started to tell me of his piloting experience, how many years he has been around R/C vehicles and piloting drones. That he has done x amount of commercial shoots as well as filming extreme athletes in action. And that he is a great pilot and he has never crashed or crashed in to anyone or anything, ever. And that he always operates with safety in mind.
I told him that I was very glad to hear that he is being safety aware when he is piloting. I then asked if he had any formal training or guidance with any of his RC equipment and he said no, just his own personal experience.

Now here comes the good parts.........I asked Joe to point to where he was flying and he did. The area he pointed to is place people gather when visiting our mountain resort. The area where he was flying is about the quarter the size of a football field and at the time he was flying there was aprox 150 to 250 people standing around. Guests talking to one another casually, most of them had no clue that Joe had been flying above them.

  *We initially received 3 calls from various guests who were in the surrounding area, not in the area in question, who were worried about it.  

I asked him if he thought that flying over unsuspecting people was a good idea, to which he said " Yes, I'm a good operator nothing would have happened "

I said "ok", "What if something went wrong with your Phantom?"

Joe said " Those things happen to other people who don't know what they are doing, it has never happen to me because I know what I am doing."

I then asked him, "but what if something did happen how would you react?"  To which he replied again that nothing would happen. Because, he said, he is a good operator and flies with GPS all the time. 

He said he always gets a good GPS lock and the Phantom has never had an issue. He stated that so long as he has GPS nothing can go wrong.

  *For everyone's info who is reading this, we have tall mountains surrounding us and I know for a fact that GPS lock (6+ SAT) is not 100% all the time everywhere here.

I then mentioned the possibility of a mechanical failure, to which he stated that it never has and never will happen to him because his equipment is always in great shape.

After a bit more about GPS and the likelihood of a mechanical mishap I asked if he was familiar with the any of the current guidelines surrounding UAV's. He said with a strong tone that yes, he is well aware of all the guidelines and so is his Phantom.

Those last few words made me pause for a moment. "he is well aware of all the guidelines and so is his Phantom."

I asked " what do mean when you say your Phantom is aware of the guidelines?" and he replied back "It knows where it can and cannot fly." "It wont allow me to fly it into certain areas."

I asked him if it came that way when he purchased it and he said yes.

Just to be clear I asked the question again, "Does your Phantom know where it can and cannot go without any input from you?"

He said yes.

Leaving that alone for a moment I moved on and asked if he was familiar with any of the other general guidelines for safe UAV operation. He stumbled around with his thoughts for a min or two but quickly came back to the fact that he was a good pilot and nothing would have happened and where he was flying was ok.

 *The area in question where he was flying over is USFS land.

Seeing that he was standing his ground I didn't want to just ask him to leave and be done. I wanted to make sure he would get some direction on safe flying. I make it a point to help educate anyone I come in contact with about the safe operation of their UAV's. I want this industry to grow and become better for all of us and if I can help one person then maybe they will learn and in turn help someone else down the road. 

I took out a pad and pen and gave Joe a few websites to look up when he got the chance. I asked him to spend some time reading through these sites to learn a bit more about UAV's and the safe operation of them. He said ok and took the piece of paper.

I then politely said that flying where he was is not appropriate, we have guests that may be uncomfortable with the Phantom above them. I let him know that some people are not comfortable with a UAV's flying near them, especially when they are not informed of it prior to it being over their heads. And that since you were standing well off to the side, a good 200+ feet, from where the Phantom was above them, that they have no clue who is operating it or your level of piloting skills.  

He understood and apologized for his actions. Saying that he didn't think about that part. He did, however, mention again that he is a good pilot and that nothing would have happened.

I reached out and shook his hand and asked him to please not fly here again and to, more importantly, please take a moment to read up on the current guidelines for safe UAV flight. I said, it's our responsibility as operators to know how to fly safe and then help educate others do the same. In the long run it will help not only the industry but we as operators. 

Then lastly I asked him to become more familiar with the capabilities of his Phantom, mainly the "it knows where it can and can not go" function. To make sure he fully understood what the term "No Fly Zone" means and if, in fact, his Phantom automatically knows these areas. And he ok.

I watched has he put his Phantom back in the case and walked away. Hoping that what we talked about sunk in and that the next time I see him, if I do, that he will be flying safely.

ToddH.

Hey all,

I was in the middle of my latest Y6 build and realized that the GPS mast I had was not suitable to carry both my GPS and magnetometer. I do not have the latest 3DR uBlox GPS with compass kit (maybe this should be my next purchase).

Luckily, my neighbor just picked up a 3D printer recently so I decided to make a rough SolidWorks sketch of an adapter that would hold the GPS and compass and that would fit on top of the mast. 

This is the finished product :) The HMC5883L has a little tab on the side so I modeled the piece to have a cut in the protrusion you see to the right of the adapter. It is just big enough for it to fit quite snugly. I have to say that having a printer at your disposal is incredible useful as a tinkerer, hobbyist, engineer, etc. I can see a time in the near future when there will be one in every household. 

This article is part six in a series, describing some of the inner workings of an autopilot system - even though the description is specific for this particular system, a lot of principles are generic and can be used to describe a variety of auto pilot systems.

To summarise the previous posts we had:

Part 1 that introduced to overall concept of a decentralised autopilot, where the autopilot can reside on a remote server and/or guide several drones in a coordinated effort.

Part 2 about the overall software architecture and hardware interface.

Part 3 A detailed look into some of the software features.

Part 4 Flight testing the small vehicle UTV-3 to prove the basic concept in real life and explaining the wonders of PID.

Part 5 A description of the complete electronics that goes into the final vehicle including gas sensing hardware.

Today we take a look at the complete “guts” of the next test vehicle, how it’s set up for test and the fitting inside the actual frame. Also a short video from the 100% automated checkout and pre-flight sequence.

Intro

Last time we took a look at the analysis unit that hosts the gas sensors, arduino, IMU etc.. One thing I didn’t mention was the analog accelerometer (it arrived after the previous post).

The ADXL335 is outputting an analog voltage for each of the three axises. The idea is to measure two things;

1. Big and slow vibrations caused by either a feedback in the IMU causing wobble or a bad airframe design or misaligned cog

2. Small and fast vibrations caused by unbalanced props, loose motor mount etc….

To measure vibrations we have to sample the output of the ADXL335, x number of times each second and compare each sample to the previous one. Problem is that one x value is good for measuring case 2, and another for case 1.

After a lot of testing it seemed that case 2 gives good results when sampled at 380 hz, while case 1 is better at around 20 hz.

The Arduino that interfaces with the ADXL335 is therefore programmed to take a subset of samples from the 380 hz sample set, equivalent to roughly 20 hz. This way, we get two vibration numbers for each axis, one for small & fast vibrations and one for bigger but slower vibrations. The numbers are sent together with the values form the gas-sensors to the autopilot, and the watchdog will warn if either vibration measurement is above a certain threshold.

Testing rig

Before fitting the electronics onto the airframe, a test setup is made, where everything is connected and tested. This is much easier when the electronics is not yet placed in the airframe and the modularity of the electronics make the transition easy. I did however place the boxes in the airframe prior to testing, to make sure we had enough room for interconnecting as well as getting a good COG.

This is the complete electronics block diagram, that shows how everything is interconnected.

Power consumption of the electronics, without servos and motor was measured to roughly 0.35 amps, which means that the computer and sensory would be able to run a full 14 hours on a 5000 mAh battery -  not bad.

Software packages

We will test two different software packages, one being the autopilot software described and used in the previous posts as well as a combination of “The SIXPack” and ALF.

The SIXPack (Scientific Instruments Xpander) is a universal software to gather data from various sensors (cameras, gas sensors etc.), process the data and send it in near realtime through a GPRS connection. Together with the ALF (http://diydrones.com/profiles/blogs/in-a-tight-spot-where-would-you-land) the system will be able to capture footage from the onboard cameras, analyse them and send the result on to a computer on the ground - all in near real time and the reciever can be located anywhere as long as it has internet connection! Pretty Sweet!

Testing

There are several things we'd like to check while the hardware is mounted on the test rig. Most important is ofcourse that the systems that need to talk to eachother, are in fact doing so. This includes the sensory platform, that through I2C sends data from gas sensors and the analog accelerometer to the onboard computer. The IMU also sends a lot of sensor data the same way, through a serial connection. After some hazzle with level shifters, I got all data fed into the onboard computer, and also got the GPRS modem to send pictures and telemetry to a client on my laptop (no wires).

I'd also took some measurements of how hard the main computer CPU was pushed while just receiving and processing telemetry and sensory data. After approx. 30 seconds the average CPU load was on 19% which gives us plenty of headroom for image processing or guiding other drones from the main drone.

Mounting

With everything working on the test bed, it's time to put the two boxes (sensory+IMU and onboard computer) back on the airframe. With the boxes in place, the battery can be mounted on top of them and placed for optimum CG.

Total weight is 1.33 kilo grams, which should be fine for this airframe.

More Testing

So with a lot of work put iton diagnostics, the final checkout is pretty easy to perform. If the craft completes the automatic checkout and preflight check, everything should be good for the first real flight. Everything is controlled by the statemachine and only a 100% pass will lead to the craft going to READY state.

The preflight check makes sure that:

1. Commands can be sent from the autopilot software to the IMU and acknowledged by the IMU

2. The telemetry link between IMU and onboard computer performs perfectly (in terms of datapackets and signal fidelity)

3. The primary flight sensors deliver stable numbers

4. Servos and engine is responding

Below is a video that show the startup and run of the preflight, checkout sequence. The laptop client receives overall info from the onboard computer and reads them aloud. This is also convenient when flying, because you don't need to look at a screen while the bird is in the air.

The preflight sequence was performed 10 times in a row without a glitch. The Autopilot client can be run on any java capable device and receives telemetry data and statuses from the onboard computer. 

So were does that leave us?

Right, so a summary of the vehicle looks like this;

UTV 1 - Flying wing with additional sensory system and onboard computer for auto piloting and data analysis.

Sensory consists of two on board cameras (one normal and one NIR), two gas sensors (Monooxide and Methane) and a analog vibration sensor.

Communication and data down/up link through a GPRS modem using the XMPP protocol (means that control and monitoring can be done anywhere, as long as there is an internet connection).

Range safety and vehicle performance auto monitoring with capability to shut vehicle down or land if problems occur.

Flight testing the ALF system for automatic landing spot detection.

Manual flight through 2.4 gHz radio.

All in all, pretty cool :-)

Next time

Next time we’ll take the UTV-1 for it’s first test flight - pretty exciting.

TURN UP THE VOLUME!!! THE AUDIO IS QUIET!!!!

For the last few months I've been working on vision assisted landing for ArduCopter. The hope is to provide a means of landing a multirotor in a precise matter which is currently not attainable with GPS based landing supported by ArduCopter.

The development of this software was stimulated by Japan's recent effort to increase the use of UAV's for Search and Rescue. More can be read about that here!!! This sub-project of the S&R is being funded by Japan Drones, a 3DR retailer, and Enroute, also a 3DR retailer and a member of the DroneCode Foundation. 

This specific feature, precision land, is a very small part of the large project and is designed for Multitrotor recovery. The idea is to fly a Multirotor to a disaster zone, survey the land, and relay intel(such as pictures) back to a base station. The base station may be a couple of miles away from the disaster location so precious flight time, and ultimately battery, is used to fly the copter to and from the disaster location. Multirotors are not known for their lengthy flight times, so the more battery that can be conserved for surveying and not traveling is critical for a successful mission. 

That's where the precision land comes in. The idea is to station rovers, or unmanned ground vehicles, near the disaster location. These rovers will have a landing pad on top for a Multirotor. That way a Multirotor can use all of its battery to survey an area, land on top of a rover, and hitch a ride back to the base station on the rover.

The specifics:

Autopilot: Pixhawk with ArduCopter 3.2

Companion Computer: Odroid U3

Camera: Logitech c920

Vision algorithm: OpenCV canny edge detection, OpenCV ellipse Detector, my concentric circle algorithm(real simple)

Performance(on four cores): Process images at 30+ fps in good light and 10 fps in low light. Performance is limited by camera exposure not the Odroid's processing power!

The future:

1. I hope to have my first live test in a week or so. More testing needs to be done in the simulator to check all the edge cases and make the landing logic more robust.

2. Integrate the code more closely with ArduCopter code. Currently the companion computer takes control of the aircraft when it is in GUIDED mode. The hope is to have the companion computer take control in landing modes(RTL).

3. Check the performance on other companion computers: Intel Edison, BeagleBoneBlack, Raspberry Pi(maybe).

The code:

The code can be found on my github. Be cautious!

Thanks to Randy Mackay for helping me integrate the code with ArduCopter. 

Daniel Nugent

Hi,

I wanted to share with you the build log of my last quadcopter dedicated to low riding and fpv racing.

Goal :

- Less than 500g

- Cheap (less than US$250)

- Powerfull

Flight time is 8-9min with 1300mah battery.

You can view the entire build log on my blog : http://www.dronebench.com/how-to-build-a-fpv-racing-drone-for-us240/

I report some of the work that I/We did, within a Open Project, on a removable Pitot Flange. 

After some "design-fix-test" iterations the new removable Pitot flange passed the pressure test; test pressure was 8 barg.

You find the free downloadable 3D models on GitHub.

Have a look to the following general arrangement drawing.

Figure 1 FF-8-500 - Front Flange for 8 mm Pitot- Assembly – 20141025

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=aab_1420744280&use_old_player=0

Sorry I cant embed media code.

Go home and land in safe mode sometimes need a little attention.

Don't know the this swimmer.. but I guess I would do the same thing. :-)

Drama:

I'm desperate.

I'm really despreate and drinking unclean water now...

I got you...

Happy ending with a smile and a good feeling - I did it...

Seems familiar

http://www.engadget.com/2015/01/07/3d-robotics-ceo-chris-anderson-interview/

Gesture based control, the thing we were chatting about way back in 08 or so. Mention of Tango again as well, that's my most exciting thing coming up that I want thing.

I've just updated a little set of Android Apps that are useful in many telemetry related issues. The main reference page is http://www.basicairdata.eu/mobile.html .  

The apps are free and open source, part of BasicAirData Project. Calculations algorithms documented.

GPSLogger; It is a straight forward GPS Logger; It corrects the altitude measurements with NASA EGM model.

http://www.basicairdata.eu/android-gps-logger.html

Air Properties; calculates air density, viscosity, compressibility factor, vapor pressure, speed of sound for moist air.

http://www.basicairdata.eu/android-air-properties.html

Android RTD ; Converts resistance reading into temperature value for RTD temperature sensors. Uses Callendar-Van Dusen equation.

http://www.basicairdata.eu/android-rtd.html

At your disposal for any issue

  "Bonne année" is "Happy new year" in French.

We took the IRIS+ out for some light painting, everything went pretty well. We did a first mission at 40 meters (130 feet) that was too close, second try 100 meters (330 feet) was fine and every letter fit in the frame.

The picture was taken by a Canon Rebel T5i on a tripod, bulb mode, aperture 5.6, ISO 200, 4 minutes exposure.

IRIS+ and DroidPlanner really make this kind of automated flight a breeze to plan and fly.

The mission was created with Droid Planner 2, hand drawn, 70 spline waypoints, WP_NAV_SPEED : 4m/s, flight time : 4 minutes.

That would be nice to have a mass/batch edit feature in Droid Planner to change the altitude of all waypoints at the same time for example.

Does anyone know how to insert a WP in the middle of a mission with Droid Planner ?

My local community newspaper had this somewhat positive UAV story on the front page this week - I thought it to be very interesting from the operator side of things.

The full article can be read in the online edition here: Wentworth Courier

Although technically not a very complicated task, and you would definitely want a HD transmission back to your ground station such as DJI's Light-Bridge, to see any shark like objects in the water, there are still the usual safety and privacy concerns and public acceptance considerations also. One Councillor interviewed in the article thinks the same, although mainly about UAV's primary public obstacle, Privacy:

Cr Betts also said concerns over the legality of using the drone technology had to be addressed.
“We do not want to just go out and sort of say we’re going to use a drone and then be attacked for invading people’s privacy.”

My main concern comes from the fact that the Mayor says she is in "negotiations with a drone operator". To me, that indicates an authorised UAV Operator company that is on CASA's List of UAS operator certificate holders. I have tried to do some research to determine who the prospective company may be to see if they are on the list and allowed to perform UAV flights commercially under Australian aviation rules. Also, having studied up and gaining my UAV Controller Certificate last year, I would love to get in contact with the company to see if I could get involved.

“We have had one little test with drones and we’re talking to the operator,” Cr Betts said. “We’d quite like to be a trial site for them.”

Although the article does not mention the name of the company they are discussing this "Shark Watch" program with, it does have an aerial photo supplied from "Robert Kaley". 

It's a nice shot and it could be by our own member here on DIYDrones Robert Kaley?

I have dropped him a message and eager to find out!

A google search reveals that Robert works for BoxStudio where their website video's are linked to Wellcom's vimeo channel. At the end of one of the video's, it also mentions StudioZoo as a member of the Wellcom group.

One of the other contacts on most of these company pages is Bob Street. Unfortunately the CASA List of UAS operator certificate holders does not have Bob, Robert, BoxStudio, Wellcom or StudioZoo on the approved list.

So it looks like we find ourselves in a position where a council is unaware of licensing requirements, have already had "tests" and I fear could turn this positive use of drones story into another "rouge operator" spying on beach goers field day.

Ofcourse I could be completely wrong in my assumptions here, and I haven't had a response from Robert yet, I will pass on any information as it comes to light, but even if the above is hypothetical, surely it shows that the general population is simply unaware of the rules and this has to be addressed - by who?

What are peoples thoughts on unauthorised company's seeking UAV jobs, especially in such a public location as Bondi Beach? Being a company, not a hobbyist or ignorant phantom flyer just getting a few happy snaps while back packing from Europe, surely should change our expectations of compliance?

How can both the customer (in this example a council) and the operator (for example a promotional business that see a good use for their tools and a new market outside of their daily business) be informed about the right way to do things and seek the proper approvals/licenses?

I upgraded my 3D printed crossfire with a Boscam transmitter TS351 and a all-in-one monitor RX-LCD5802. The FPV camera is a GoPro Hero 3. Simultaneously a Sparkfun GPS LS23060 was added. This implied adding code for reading, parsing and processing nmea data. I have chosen a complementary filter approach for fusion of accelerometer data and GPS data. I managed to implement the additional code in my DIY flight controller with a 8 bit PSoC 3 from Cypress running at 45 MHz. In order to minimize the magnetic field from the power distribution print, mu-metal shielding was applied. At the moment the code is being debugged and tested for GPS position hold applications. Speed & position detection is ok. Magnetic interference is reasonable. Flight tests are scheduled in the near future. In the mean time test FPV flights were carried out (see video), showing the Boscam-GoPro setup works satisfactory.