[JC1]

The modem is a Xbee 2.4Ghz USB data modem (thought I put in the 900mhz). XBee Pro 60mW Wire Antenna - Series 1 - SparkFun Electronics . It works very well and distance, especially land to air) has been tested upto 1/2 mile.

The Multi rotor is catching on and the best one are the Mikrokopter. en/MikroKopter - Wiki: MikroKopter.de . MikroKopter started off as a project between 2 engineers in Germany and it grew from there. There are now 2 distributors in the US selling their stuff. Check out some of the videos on youtube and the Wiki page. They are amazing. More stable than RC Heli and more payload as well.

Ken

I need to dig into Xbee more, I hear it's Arduino friendly and all. The freewaves are good up to 60 miles Line-of-site, so probably a bit overkill. I talked a bit with a guy at the 2010 NEAT fair who had an octo and he was really happy with it. We shot some overlapping video of a particular warbird by accident and it worked out well.

Thanks for the information, this is one of the reasons I wanted to build a CNC router, to build interesting aerial devices, but I was so distracted with everything else invovled I forgot about it(!!). I might machine some arms and such for one of those super-simple tri-copters this weekend.

[BlueFin]

Not sure if you guys have seen these... Seems to be a pretty big demand ! If anyone here wants to partner up on a project like this I'm in.

This is the kind of stuff I am ultimately interested in doing, but from an industrial stand point. SAR, Fire Fighting, Inspection, etc. There are a lot of uses for this where sound does not matter like it would for surveillence, thus gas engine is my interest with large rotor disk attached. Basically a remote sensing transport unit, you could have color visual, audio, thermal imaging, radio frequency reception/transmission, gps mapping, small item transportation, etc. I see a huge and growing potential use in the industry that I work in. And yes, costs are high, but so are the costs of the real thing that get paid to do the same things that could be done remotely. The biggest use I see would be in thermal imaging large forest fires at night with GPS plotting of certain info when the real ships can't fly. We pay people to walk with handheld FLIR units looking for hot spots all night long, they might get a half mile or better done in a shift, a helicopter could do miles of line per shift. Real ones can not fly at night in Oregon, only IFR ships fly at night in California.

[apeman88]

60 miles!! Wow. The XBee is said to have a few miles of range... but I only tested it to the range of my radio which is a little more than 1/2 mile.

Look into the Quad MikroKopter... I have the Hexa... but if I had to do it again... I probably settle ion a quad as it's smaller and I think is a better platform. Good luck!

Ken

I need to dig into Xbee more, I hear it's Arduino friendly and all. The freewaves are good up to 60 miles Line-of-site, so probably a bit overkill. I talked a bit with a guy at the 2010 NEAT fair who had an octo and he was really happy with it. We shot some overlapping video of a particular warbird by accident and it worked out well.

Thanks for the information, this is one of the reasons I wanted to build a CNC router, to build interesting aerial devices, but I was so distracted with everything else invovled I forgot about it(!!). I might machine some arms and such for one of those super-simple tri-copters this weekend.

[apeman88]

One of my client is LE and they are very interested in a Quad for Surveillance. Problem is... with any kind of Surveillance, including SAR, Fire Fighting and etc, they are still NOT approved to use them. FAA still have not defined what can or cannot be used. Last paper published by FAA a few months ago states a max of 5.5lb is being "considered" for LE use and there are a lot of complaints as most birds will be closer to 10lb or more fitted with thermal or zoom cameras. A new ruling is suppose to be released in Q4 of this year but with the feds pulling funding on FAA projects... I have a feeling the ruling will get delayed. For now... LE or SAR can use them but must get a permit from FAA for every single use under "experimental use". There are about half a dozen companies in the US and Canada working with multi rotors for LE and military use and the best one I've seen so far are the Draganfly and Aeryon. Check them out below.

Aeryon Labs Inc.

Draganfly.com Industrial Aerial Video Systems & UAVs

This is the kind of stuff I am ultimately interested in doing, but from an industrial stand point. SAR, Fire Fighting, Inspection, etc. There are a lot of uses for this where sound does not matter like it would for surveillence, thus gas engine is my interest with large rotor disk attached. Basically a remote sensing transport unit, you could have color visual, audio, thermal imaging, radio frequency reception/transmission, gps mapping, small item transportation, etc. I see a huge and growing potential use in the industry that I work in. And yes, costs are high, but so are the costs of the real thing that get paid to do the same things that could be done remotely. The biggest use I see would be in thermal imaging large forest fires at night with GPS plotting of certain info when the real ships can't fly. We pay people to walk with handheld FLIR units looking for hot spots all night long, they might get a half mile or better done in a shift, a helicopter could do miles of line per shift. Real ones can not fly at night in Oregon, only IFR ships fly at night in California.