[Hackupy-discuss] Aerial camera platform

Fri Nov 25 22:20:22 CET 2011

I heard people talking about the need for an aerial camera platform
before I saw this thread and came up with some ideas for a balloon.  I'm
going to persue the balloon idea but I really like the pole climber as
well.  Here's a few thoughts on various things related to an aerial
camera platform:
  The link from Jaochim is great, but has the one big drawback that the
flight time w/o camera is listed as 12 minutes.  I had seen this
purchasable quadcopter in a store recently:
http://ardrone.parrot.com/parrot-ar-drone/usa/
It is $300 and so outside of the price that people are interested in.  I
was thinking of buying one for immediate deployment anyway while I and
others hack on a cheaper solution, but it also has the drawback of only
getting 10-15 minutes of flight per charge (and over an hour charge
time).  The big bonus with this commercial thing is that it it supposed
to be very stable even in the wind (including an autopilot mode) and has
two cameras with live streaming a built in option.  I think I'm going to
pass though because of the short flight time.

  I know that a balloon is going to have trouble being stable in even a
very light breeze, and it will need to be a pretty large balloon to lift
much of anything, but I'm going to give it a shot.  I bought one of these:
http://www.amazon.com/Spy-Gear-Video-TRAKR/dp/B003AZZSQ8

so for $60 I got a RC tank with built in video camera.  I'm going to
take it apart and mount the electronics and camera on a balsa wood
board.  I'll then take the two drive motors and put propellers on then
to be able to move the thing around.  Also this thing was specifically
built to be hacked.  It can even supposedly boot from SD card (it has SD
card and usb host and slave connections).  There is already a small
hacking community involved with the trakr:
http://www.trakrhakr.com/

 The biggest problem I see with this thing so far is the video.  The
camera is supposed to be able to capture vga at 30 fps.  It currently
only transmits 1/4 vga resolution at something like 15 fps though.  As
far as I can tell no one has gotten the full video capability from the
device yet and no one has gotten the video to stream from the remote to
a computer (the remote has an LCD screen).  The full source code for the
vehicle and remote were slated to be released, but then the company
dropped the product and stopped releasing info.  So anyway there are
some challenges.

I have some mylar balloons on order, so I'll have something flyable
soon, but I don't know yet how it will perform.

Ben

On 11/25/2011 01:12 AM, Joachim Pedersen wrote:
> Fully documented tricopter build for less than $200 that has the
> capacity to carry 2 go-pro cameras or smartphone etc...
> http://www.rcexplorer.se/projects/tricopterv25/tricopterv25.html
> -Joachim
> ------------------------------
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> On Sun, Nov 20, 2011 at 15:47, Joachim Pedersen <joachimp at gmail.com> wrote:
>> FYI Did a quick brain dump copy paste to http://hackerspaces.org/wiki/OccuCopter
>> Discuss!
>> -Joachim
>> ------------------------------
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On Sat, Nov 19, 2011 at 16:24, ian <ian at sonic.net> wrote:
>>>
>>> I thought about steering...  rather than having a steerable robot, it could
>>> just orbit continuously around the pole as it drives up and down, like a
>>> screw.  Then, aiming it is just a matter of driving it up or down a foot.
>>> Looking at some poles today, I was also imagining something that has two
>>> modes, turn around and go straight, and has a pole-clamp that doesn't reach
>>> all the way around.  Such a device would have the ability to bypass some
>>> signs attached to the pole, which would be helpful.
>>> Magnetic wheels could be nice for something that doesn't have to wrap around
>>> at all, but not all poles are steel...  around here at least, many of them
>>> are concrete.
>>> Solar could be handy...  remember, we'll use these in the daytime too.  We
>>> don't have the same low-weight constraint as with a UAV, so options like
>>> that (or a big fat battery) are conceivable.
>>> -Ian
>>> On Sat, Nov 19, 2011 at 1:54 PM, Tomm <tomm.fire at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Hi Ian,
>>>>
>>>> I like it!  I designed pipe crawling robots long ago, and a challenge with
>>>> them is that if the weight isn't distributed quite right, they tend to
>>>> wander and this makes them hard to steer.  Putting most weight towards the
>>>> bottom of the crawler will help keep it aligned.  We used differential
>>>> (tank-like) driving.
>>>>
>>>> Magnetic wheels are great, but be careful when putting the robot on the
>>>> pipe.  The really strong magnetic wheels are brittle, and I saw a number of
>>>> shattered wheels over the years.  Spares highly recommended.  Also, magnetic
>>>> wheels will leave marks on painted surfaces - just something to keep in
>>>> mind, as coating the wheels would reduce the adhesion significantly.
>>>>
>>>> Here's an magnetic pipe crawler that shows a good aspect ratio for a pipe
>>>> crawler:
>>>> http://images.yourdictionary.com/images/computer/_MAGPIE.GIF
>>>>
>>>> Since the robot will be on a light pole near a huge honkin' light, it
>>>> might be a good idea to put a solar panel on the top of the unit.  Not only
>>>> is it light shielding for the camera, but there's enough lux that you might
>>>> get the rated panel output, and a 4" x 6" panel can deliver 100 mA.  That
>>>> should be enough to drive a phone for several hours a day, and perhaps even
>>>> most of the time.  Seems like a good idea for long-term occupations as you'd
>>>> only have to install the robot once.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> http://www.jameco.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/Product_10001_10001_228072_-1
>>>>
>>>> Happy to meet in person,
>>>>
>>>>    Tomm
>>>> (also just subscribed)
>>>>
>>>> On 11/19/11 12:06 PM, Ian Baker wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> Hey! Just subscribed. I've been thinking about this aerial camera
>>>>> platform thing for a while... Helicopters, balloons, airplanes, etc.
>>>>> Each machine has it's issues, along the lines of stability, cost, ease
>>>>> of compromise, runtime, lack of anonymity for the person controlling
>>>>> it, etc.
>>>>>
>>>>> What I want is a solution that's cheap, easily replicable, requires
>>>>> little operator skill, holds the camera still, works in wind, runs for
>>>>> a long time, is easy to aim, is easy to move to another location,
>>>>> shields the camera operator from identification by police, and makes
>>>>> the camera itself hard to capture. If it meets these goals, it could
>>>>> be broadly scalable... Everybody could have one.
>>>>>
>>>>> Last night I think I figured it out: a simple robot that can climb
>>>>> tapered metal poles, and carries a gimbaled camera platform. Clamp it
>>>>> to a lightpost, drive it to the top, recover when
>>>>> necessary/convenient.
>>>>>
>>>>> Not quite as hard to catch as a helicopter, but also more stealth.
>>>>> Doesn't get quite as much altitude, but I don't think we need much.
>>>>> Doesn't have any of the issues that balloons do. Runs all day, and I
>>>>> bet it could be built for less money than the smartphone we strap to
>>>>> it, from flat-pack laser-cut parts and bits of r/c car, in an
>>>>> afternoon.
>>>>>
>>>>> My housemate and I are working on designs. Ideas, cad models, etc
>>>>> welcome! :)
>>>>>
>>>>> -Ian
>>>>>
>>>>> The touch keyboard: ensouling wit since 2007.
>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>> Hackupy-discuss mailing list
>>>>> Hackupy-discuss at lists.hackerspaces.org
>>>>> http://lists.hackerspaces.org/mailman/listinfo/hackupy-discuss
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> Hackupy-discuss mailing list
>>>> Hackupy-discuss at lists.hackerspaces.org
>>>> http://lists.hackerspaces.org/mailman/listinfo/hackupy-discuss
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Hackupy-discuss mailing list
>>> Hackupy-discuss at lists.hackerspaces.org
>>> http://lists.hackerspaces.org/mailman/listinfo/hackupy-discuss
>>>
>>>
>>
> _______________________________________________
> Hackupy-discuss mailing list
> Hackupy-discuss at lists.hackerspaces.org
> http://lists.hackerspaces.org/mailman/listinfo/hackupy-discuss