Advice needed: fixed flight path, send pictures real time

[grapes]

Hi there,
I am seeking advice regarding an application I have in mind. It is about monitoring road traffic using drones.

What I am looking for is a drone capable to fly unsupervised along pre-set flight path, at fixed altitude and send my software a constant feed of photos of the street exactly below it.

The drone must fly without any human intervention or supervision. I (or software I write) will be sitting at my office and expect to receive photos of the street as well as the location of the drone at the time the photo was taken.

So,

1) is there technology to achieve fully automatic taking off, flying on fixed path specified by a set of coordinates? Additionally, when battery is nearly empty automatically land at pre-set location for change of battery. After change of battery, take off and continue. Do that 10 hours / day.

2) Is there already some equipment for transmitting picture taken every 1 second to my office? What's the maximum distance, what kind of receiver should I have at my office. Is that via internet/public wifi/4G network or via build-in transmitter. We are in a city with public wifi available, 4G network also.

3) Can I or software that I write, control the drone from my office using my laptop? For example I may ask the drone where are you? And then tell it "OK move to this location now". I do not want to be below the drone or have visual contact with it whenever I give it instructions. Ideailly control of the drone and analysis of the photos will be done by software while I will be playing at the beach. What is the maximum distance for such communication?

4) Are there issues with security of communication and security of drone, i.e. hijacking it?

5) I envisage the drone to be at 75-100 metres high. That's higher than any other tall building in the area. And I also envisage the drone to land for recharging batteries on top of a high building (rather than on ground).

6) Is there some kind of robotic battery changer available? That is, the drone lands at pre-set spot, robot arm removes battery and places it in the charger, then takes other full battery and inserts it into the drone. Robot sends me signal that battery change is done and I (or my software) instructs the drone to take off.

First I would like to know whether the ideas above can really work in practice and if you can suggest specific drone models etc.

 

[brett8883]

Hi there,
I am seeking advice regarding an application I have in mind. It is about monitoring road traffic using drones.

What I am looking for is a drone capable to fly unsupervised along pre-set flight path, at fixed altitude and send my software a constant feed of photos of the street exactly below it.

The drone must fly without any human intervention or supervision. I (or software I write) will be sitting at my office and expect to receive photos of the street as well as the location of the drone at the time the photo was taken.

So,

1) is there technology to achieve fully automatic taking off, flying on fixed path specified by a set of coordinates? Additionally, when battery is nearly empty automatically land at pre-set location for change of battery. After change of battery, take off and continue. Do that 10 hours / day.

2) Is there already some equipment for transmitting picture taken every 1 second to my office? What's the maximum distance, what kind of receiver should I have at my office. Is that via internet/public wifi/4G network or via build-in transmitter. We are in a city with public wifi available, 4G network also.

3) Can I or software that I write, control the drone from my office using my laptop? For example I may ask the drone where are you? And then tell it "OK move to this location now". I do not want to be below the drone or have visual contact with it whenever I give it instructions. Ideailly control of the drone and analysis of the photos will be done by software while I will be playing at the beach. What is the maximum distance for such communication?

4) Are there issues with security of communication and security of drone, i.e. hijacking it?

5) I envisage the drone to be at 75-100 metres high. That's higher than any other tall building in the area. And I also envisage the drone to land for recharging batteries on top of a high building (rather than on ground).

6) Is there some kind of robotic battery changer available? That is, the drone lands at pre-set spot, robot arm removes battery and places it in the charger, then takes other full battery and inserts it into the drone. Robot sends me signal that battery change is done and I (or my software) instructs the drone to take off.

First I would like to know whether the ideas above can really work in practice and if you can suggest specific drone models etc.

First and foremost your ability to do this legally depends what country you are in and this is gonna be your most difficult part. There’s gonna be lots of red tape. If you are in the US the FAA requires that you have a part 107 UAV pilot’s license(relatively lower difficulty but requires week/weeks of studying, get an exemption to fly bvlos(beyond visual line of sight)(very high difficulty), get an exemption to fly over moving vehicles(high difficulty), and possibly other exemptions based on the area you are flying. You’ll also need to have a way to take control manually in case of emergency.

1) Yes pretty much all DJI products can do this. Having the “pit-stop” location be the same place as the take off location is the easiest and most intuitive place to have the battery change happen.

2) The Inspire 2 is perhaps the best “ease-of-use/advanced function ratio of any DJI product. The Inspire 2 has several of your required items as well as things you don’t know you need but you will. The inspire is meant as a broadcast/cinematography platform and is able to live broadcast high resolution video via sat uplink. Other DJI drones can’t transmit higher than 1080p at best. DJI also has said there will be a way to control the Insipre 2 via LTE network though I haven’t heard any update on this. Inspire 2 also has a detachable main camera for taking photos but also a built in front facing 2 axis camera used to navigate while the main camera looks down. You’ll need this.

3) there’s no way the FAA or EU will let you be at the beach while your drone is flying over a city. Not gonna happen. Best case and it’s a real stretch, you might be able to be at your desk watching the drones flight and be ready to take over manual control if there’s an emergency. The DJI Matrice series is DJIs industrial platform which has the features of the Inspire but also has an onboard SDK which gives you the ability to write your own firmware onto the drone itself. In this way if you have the skill you can make it do whatever you want. Matrice series starts at about $8000 USD and up to sky’s the limit depending on the sensors and cameras you want to install. Average is maybe in the $10000-$25,000 range. It’s a fully customizable platform. Thermal, Lidar, IR, radar you name it you can buy it. Matrice is designed for heavy industrial use in its built quality and redundant fail-safes.

4) the government can hardly do this at this point but always something to keep an eye on.

5) that’s fine

6) I have not heard of an automatic battery swapping machine or like a wireless charger but that’s right around the corner if not already availible for a hefty sum

The technology is mostly there for what you want to do but your biggest obstacle will be with regulators. This is a long shot and be prepared to drop big bucks

 

[grapes]

Thank you very much for the informative reply brett8883 and please pardon my ignorance and naivety. It's in an EU country but I now realise the red-tape is big. As a very newbie to this area, I can see that the idea is sound but there are a lot of things to sort out still.

I am also aiming at lower priced drones rather than the industrial ones. At least when building initial proof-of-concept. Wasn't it the same with wireless sensor networks?

So as an example, let's say I get DJI's Mavic or similar (at around 1000$ incl. camera). Can this or similar drones be remote-controlled over IP (internet) or a direct radio link? For the latter, what is the max distance approximately (I mean is it like 2,3,10 Km or a few hundred meters)?

I do not need many frames per second, I need perhaps 1 frame per second of good quality. So the bandwidth is not that much. But it is crucial I know the exact location of the drone and that the drone gets coordinates from me and flies wherever I tell it to or takes a shot whenever I tell it too via programmatic API via radio link. That's my most urgent requirement right now: real-time, over distance, full control of the drone by issuing commands from my command line in linux or such. Can you confirm this?

I thought you guys would appreciate the robotic battery swapper! With a little bit from DJI battery recharging/replacement can be fully automated with such a system.

Many thanks,
Andrea

 

[brett8883]

Thank you very much for the informative reply brett8883 and please pardon my ignorance and naivety. It's in an EU country but I now realise the red-tape is big. As a very newbie to this area, I can see that the idea is sound but there are a lot of things to sort out still.

I am also aiming at lower priced drones rather than the industrial ones. At least when building initial proof-of-concept. Wasn't it the same with wireless sensor networks?

So as an example, let's say I get DJI's Mavic or similar (at around 1000$ incl. camera). Can this or similar drones be remote-controlled over IP (internet) or a direct radio link? For the latter, what is the max distance approximately (I mean is it like 2,3,10 Km or a few hundred meters)?

I do not need many frames per second, I need perhaps 1 frame per second of good quality. So the bandwidth is not that much. But it is crucial I know the exact location of the drone and that the drone gets coordinates from me and flies wherever I tell it to or takes a shot whenever I tell it too via programmatic API via radio link. That's my most urgent requirement right now: real-time, over distance, full control of the drone by issuing commands from my command line in linux or such. Can you confirm this?

I thought you guys would appreciate the robotic battery swapper! With a little bit from DJI battery recharging/replacement can be fully automated with such a system.

Many thanks,
Andrea

Hey Andrea the Mavic series has to be controlled via direct radio link. The distance varies depending on many factors but in an urban environment it could be a few hundred meters to a couple km. The radio link can always be amplified with wi-fi boosters. It uses an encrypted propriety protocol that is similar but different from wi-fi. I have not heard of anyone decoding it yet so we don’t fully understand how to works but we do know you have to have a DJI remote to encode, decode the signal.

The Mavic series can be controlled via the mobile SDK for Android or iOS. You can’t DIRECTLY control it via your PC but you could make an app using DJI’s mobile SDK for either platform and control it that way. DJI provides a lot of documentation and APIs to do this and they encourage that kind of thing.

There are already applications that allow you to input autonomous flight commands though. With Litchi you can map out a route with pre defined actions along that route and the drone will fly itself completly. If you do lose radio contact with it it will just continue the mission and come back when it’s done. It doesn’t need commands from you to run that kind of mission.

There’s another app called auto-pilot that allows you to set up your mission before hand but will allow you to change the mission parameters mid flight ad-hoc. Obviously you have to have radio contact to update parameters.

 

[grapes]

brett8883 that's great! Thanks! This is what I was looking to confirm.
bw,
a.

 

[Racin8de]

I would say for the amount of money to do something like that, how bout hiring a satellitel company to do what you ask of..

 

[JakeRobinson]

Litchi is your best bet to have a preplanned flight... once you build your mission and save it. load it. hit play.

I will have to say i laughed out loud when you asked about robotic battery changers (not LOL cuz i really did)

Not thinking that is gonna be a thing. Of course, when we're new we always have illusions of grandeur about what we can do with our drones... I flew my first Litchi produced mission today and it was waaaay cool. You can sit at your desktop/laptop and create the mission (your AC does not need to be connected) you can tweak altitudes, speeds from one waypoint to the next and if you want you can manually pause the mission, zoom in, change altitudes, take closer look and once you hit play, it will go back to programmed altitude and pick up where it left off...

 

[grapes]

I would say for the amount of money to do something like that, how bout hiring a satellitel company to do what you ask of..

Racin8de, this is where I come from. Realtime (ok every 30,60 secs) Satellite images cost an arm and a leg if you they cover your area. Sure I can get one per 24h for free but i want to monitor traffic.

 

[grapes]

Litchi is your best bet to have a preplanned flight... once you build your mission and save it. load it. hit play.

I will have to say i laughed out loud when you asked about robotic battery changers (not LOL cuz i really did)

Not thinking that is gonna be a thing. Of course, when we're new we always have illusions of grandeur about what we can do with our drones... I flew my first Litchi produced mission today and it was waaaay cool. You can sit at your desktop/laptop and create the mission (your AC does not need to be connected) you can tweak altitudes, speeds from one waypoint to the next and if you want you can manually pause the mission, zoom in, change altitudes, take closer look and once you hit play, it will go back to programmed altitude and pick up where it left off...

That's more or less what I want. Litchi sounds good.

I did not understand (due to my english lang skills) what do you think about the robotic batery chargers. Do you think it is sci-fi or can happen or you did manage to create one?

For one, I think the drone manufacturer can make this procedure really really easy, like planes refueling in the sky so to speak, it can be a lot more practical if plane manufacturer assists. How about the drone just sits in a charging pole then no robots needed. Just like going to the toilet really. I mean if a startup gets funding (millions?) to make a wireless drone recharging pad (which looks like it failed) then anything goes.

It's not visions of grandeur (I am not that young), it's LAZINESS. I am a unix person, I need to sit at the beach while my computer does work for me. I can not keep clicking with my mouse 8-hour shifts!

Yesterday I was reading a thread in this (excellent) forum about drone AWOL because of magnetic interference. How many lost drones do you think a setting like I am proposing, with Litchi (say) and 10 drones flying 12h/day will have? I mean can this go to zero or accidents will be frequent even with good skills and no magnetism during flight, and magnetic sensors at landing/take off points.

Thanks for the insight!

 

[Keule]

Andrea,

what area should one aircraft cover? Are we talking about, let's say, 1 sq. mile? more?
Is it more a lengthy road to follow? How long? A larger area? How large?
Have you thought about one ore more tethered aircraft equipped with a zoom lens like a Z30?
Have you thought about fixed wing aircraft (drones) to do the job?

For controlling and watching multiple drone operations look at UgCS for Command centre

Depending on the available budget, there is of course a way to develop a robotic device capable of changing batteries. (but rethinking the aerial platforms to be used for this kind of specialty)

But before digging to deep into this detail, all the legal stuff must be cleared first.
All other topics you mentioned in your OP, can be done with more or less effort.

 

[Racin8de]

Racin8de, this is where I come from. Realtime (ok every 30,60 secs) Satellite images cost an arm and a leg if you they cover your area. Sure I can get one per 24h for free but i want to monitor traffic.

Yes they are ridiculously expensive, just to have a image made of a certain area on a certain date in expensive... I did some research on almost the same thing you're interested in but there were so many variables involved that I gave up.. So all the power to you, the good thing is technology is advancing so fast these days that you more than likely won't have to wait long to seeking your answers.. Good luck to you !!

 

[Racin8de]

Andrea,

what area should one aircraft cover? Are we talking about, let's say, 1 sq. mile? more?
Is it more a lengthy road to follow? How long? A larger area? How large?
Have you thought about one ore more tethered aircraft equipped with a zoom lens like a Z30?
Have you thought about fixed wing aircraft (drones) to do the job?

For controlling and watching multiple drone operations look at UgCS for Command centre

Depending on the available budget, there is of course a way to develop a robotic device capable of changing batteries. (but rethinking the aerial platforms to be used for this kind of specialty)

But before digging to deep into this detail, all the legal stuff must be cleared first.
All other topics you mentioned in your OP, can be done with more or less effort.

I never heard of this site before... It has some pretty interesting stuff in it as well...Its something to check out when I have more time... thanks for sharing that!

 

[JakeRobinson]

well, I am certain in the US the overall idea wouldn't fly in today's legal requirements (you must always be in VLOS) and sitting at the beach with an unmanned, unobserved drone is illegal, isn't it?

as far as battery changing robots... there's no such thing as unachievable goals, just unachievable time frames (or expense)

maybe some DIY makerspace guru could figure it out with a low budget method.

 

[Racin8de]

well, I am certain in the US the overall idea wouldn't fly in today's legal requirements (you must always be in VLOS) and sitting at the beach with an unmanned, unobserved drone is illegal, isn't it?

as far as battery changing robots... there's no such thing as unachievable goals, just unachievable time frames (or expense)

maybe some DIY makerspace guru could figure it out with a low budget method.

If the beach is empty it and the area meets all the other requirements then sure it's legal, but technically we're not supposed to fly over anyone, beachgoers.. Lots of people do it and as long as an pilots is considerate then most wil probably not complain, but with anything all it takes is one person.. Then the beach patrol kick you off the beach ...

 

[Meta4]

First I would like to know whether the ideas above can really work in practice and if you can suggest specific drone models etc.

No ... this is not possible with current technology andthere are lots of major problems you would have to deal with.
Fixed cameras on poles or buildings are going to be simpler, cheaper and better im most ways.

 

[JakeRobinson]

If the beach is empty it and the area meets all the other requirements then sure it's legal, but technically we're not supposed to fly over anyone, beachgoers.. Lots of people do it and as long as an pilots is considerate then most wil probably not complain, but with anything all it takes is one person.. Then the beach patrol kick you off the beach ...

I think you misread his comment. He said he wanted his Drone to be flying in a different location while he's down on the beach enjoying life while his computer in his house is tracking the drone whereabouts and results. My point was you can't be away from your drone and certainly away from your controller just because you have some way to automate it - it's not safe

 

[grapes]

Andrea,

what area should one aircraft cover? Are we talking about, let's say, 1 sq. mile? more?
Is it more a lengthy road to follow? How long? A larger area? How large?
Have you thought about one ore more tethered aircraft equipped with a zoom lens like a Z30?
Have you thought about fixed wing aircraft (drones) to do the job?

For controlling and watching multiple drone operations look at UgCS for Command centre

Depending on the available budget, there is of course a way to develop a robotic device capable of changing batteries. (but rethinking the aerial platforms to be used for this kind of specialty)

But before digging to deep into this detail, all the legal stuff must be cleared first.
All other topics you mentioned in your OP, can be done with more or less effort.

It's an urban environment, small city, more or less rectangular grid of roads. The main avenues are 5 or 6 and stretch to max 4 km (2.5 miles). I only need to monitor along the main roads, I do not need to cover residential areas. It will be interesting to see how the legal and technology challenges are solved. 1 dji's mavic or phantom should be enough to do initial experiments.

The UgCS link is great solution.

 

[grapes]

well, I am certain in the US the overall idea wouldn't fly in today's legal requirements (you must always be in VLOS) and sitting at the beach with an unmanned, unobserved drone is illegal, isn't it?

as far as battery changing robots... there's no such thing as unachievable goals, just unachievable time frames (or expense)

maybe some DIY makerspace guru could figure it out with a low budget method.

I get it thanks.