Is this awesome idea possible?

SkyWizard · Jan 14, 2019

I drew this illustration of an idea I had that makes it unneccesary to go outside to fly.

What do you think

Test pilot · Jan 14, 2019

I LIKE THAT !

JDawg · Jan 14, 2019

Why are you messing with drones, you should be selling your drawings.

Simmo · Jan 14, 2019

Years ago we were doing the same.

RayOZ · Jan 14, 2019

Except you'd be flying BVLOS. And potentially taking off before getting GPS lock. Landing back on launch pad could also be tricky.

SkyWizard · Jan 14, 2019

Simmo said:
Years ago we were doing the same.

Thats exactly what I want to do. Im just wondering how the signal would be, and since your at home, how it could be possible to hook up a high powered antenna on your roof. I notice the video is very choppy on his TV as well, not sure what that means.

SkyWizard · Jan 14, 2019

RayOZ said:
Except you'd be flying BVLOS. And potentially taking off before getting GPS lock. Landing back on launch pad could also be tricky.

Sorry, what is BVLOS? What do you mean about taking of before getting gos lock.
I can land a Mavic on a 3'x3' piece of plywood better than Luke Skywalker can shoot womp rats in a T-16 Skyhopper. ;p

SkyWizard · Jan 14, 2019

What if you had somthing like this on your roof?

https://www.amazon.com/Amplified-Di...ble+signal+Amplified+HD+digital+outdoor&psc=1

AMann · Jan 14, 2019

SkyWizard said:
What if you had somthing like this on your roof?

https://www.amazon.com/Amplified-Di...ble+signal+Amplified+HD+digital+outdoor&psc=1

If I put something like that on my roof, a black car would pull up with some guy talking Russian to scope it out, and my paranoid neighbor would probably shoot at it by the following morning. Why are you looking up such wacky stuff?

cyeung · Jan 14, 2019

BVLOS means Beyond Visual Line of Sight. Whether you are flying commercially (without waiver for 107.31 and without a visual observer) or recreationally, you (or a visual observer) are expected to maintain sight of your drone.

The only time I've crashed my drone was because I failed to maintain Visual Line of Sight (VLOS). The drone was flying behind me when I sideswiped a tree.

On an unrelated note, an antenna sticking out on the roof is very attractive for lightning. You might want to stick in some lightning protection.

wimjongsma · Jan 14, 2019

The drone needs a two way communication.
From the controller to the drone, to tell it what to do.
From the drone to the controller, to inform about his status, location, and so on.
If one of both fails the RTH becomes active.

With this antenna the signal from the controller will reach farther, may be.
But the signal from the drone in the direction of the controller will not change.
The strength and the reach from the drone is decisive for the communication.

Nice drawing, nice try.

Kilrah · Jan 14, 2019

Been doing that nearly a decade ago with FPV planes, took the RF module out of the radio and installed it on the roof along with a video RX, and sent the PPM signal/video through a 20m long cable to the living room TV, was pretty cool.

It's a bit more of a pain with DJI stuff since you can't separate components so you have to use looong antenna extensions. Will probably require bidirectional amplifiers on the roof to compensate for the loss in the coax.

That said, Ocusync is good enough that you can already go quite a way when inside without any special installation. Did that to about 1km or so, screencasting the android phone to the TV. There's quite a bit of lag that way unfortunately, best would be HDMI.

wimjongsma said:
But the signal from the drone in the direction of the controller will not change.

That's totally incorrect.

flynsign · Jan 14, 2019

As long as you set your loss of signal setting to “return home” there shouldn’t be too much problem.

DanMan32 · Jan 14, 2019

wimjongsma said:
The drone needs a two way communication.
From the controller to the drone, to tell it what to do.
From the drone to the controller, to inform about his status, location, and so on.
If one of both fails the RTH becomes active.

With this antenna the signal from the controller will reach farther, may be.
But the signal from the drone in the direction of the controller will not change.
The strength and the reach from the drone is decisive for the communication.

Nice drawing, nice try.

Actually only RC to AC signal loss will trigger RTH. It happened to me with my P3A that I lost video and telemetry, waited 4 minutes for it to return. Analyzed logs, the AC had been receiving the whole time and sat there for 4 minutes, waiting further instructions. It final did RTH on low battery.

The Mavics may have improved on this where it is less likely to lose total downlink but good uplink, and possibly that even if you only lost downlink, RTH will be sent by RC or give you the option, just in case there's still uplink.