Drone Flying 101 – An interactive tutorial for beginners • Hacker News Board

Re: Drone Flying 101 – An interactive tutorial for beginners

#101

Post by thadt » Thu, May 23, 2024, 4:51 PM UTC

smallerfish wrote: post #99

Does anybody fly Ardupilot? Last time I was really into flying I used DRonin, which sadly got abandoned. I have a real aversion to BetaFlight, though I know it's got 90% of the market; however, Ardupilot seems to have a reasonably active community. I don't really care about freestyling - I'm more interested in cruising over forest canopy, and having a reliable return to home function if radio signal gets lost. (I hav…

Ardupilot is quite good, but I would say it's kinda similar to Linux in terms of an operating system for your drone. It can be configured to work with a wide array of hardware and operations, but its 'off the shelf' interface isn't going to be as polished as some other more hardware specific systems. If you want to build your own, and have full control over your system, Ardupilot is a great place to start.

Re: Drone Flying 101 – An interactive tutorial for beginners

#102

Post by hylaride » Thu, May 23, 2024, 4:53 PM UTC

madhato wrote: post #96

matthew-wegner wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some replies to this already, but quick notes: * "Controller" isn't used much as a term, when you start looking around. You'll see things listed under "transmitter" or "radio" * The majority of FPV transmitters use OpenTX or EdgeTX software (EdgeTX is newer and a fork of OpenTX). Both of these support plugging the transmitter in to a host computer over USB, where it can appear as a HID joystick * ExpressLRS (ELRS) is…

ELRS is fine but Crossfire is considered by many to be the superior radio link. The TBS Tango 2 is a great transmitter and comes with Crossfire built in.

Ever since ELRS 3 came out, I haven't met many people that argue that Crossfire is a superior radio link. The fact that ELRS 2.4GHz has gotten to 100KM and even now ELRS 900MHz RX's and TX's are widely available still gives that option, too. The smaller antennas for 2.4GHz are so much more convenient, as well.

Also, ELRS has modes to go to higher refresh rates than crossfire in 900MHz (200Hz vs 150Hz for crossfire). ELRS is also being rapidly developed(https://github.com/ExpressLRS/ExpressLRS/releases/) and has Gemini dual-channel modes (including cross-band support that doesn't have hardware for it yet), whereas crossfire (or TBS in general) has barely done anything.

And ELRS is cheaper (as it's open source) because of multiple hardware vendors and is more widely available as TBS has always had rather poor inventory management (their site now shows as unavailable for many components).

Don't get me wrong, crossfire was an absolute game changer when it came out, but TBS has really stagnated over the past few years.

Re: Drone Flying 101 – An interactive tutorial for beginners

#103

Post by hylaride » Thu, May 23, 2024, 5:06 PM UTC

exar0815 wrote: post #50

fvdessen wrote: post #39

Not entirely unrelated, but FPV drones are now the main weapon of the Ukraine war. They started using them against tanks, then groups of soldiers, but have now found that they are cost effective enough to go against individual soldiers. The drone soldiers operate in small teams from underground bunkers close to the front from which they launch hundreds of drones a day, with different types of drones for different tar…

Drones basically have flipped the total modern artillery doctrine on their heads. With the proliferation of fire-finder-radar, modern artillery started to switch from dug in stationary guns to highly mobile "shoot-and-scoot"-tactics, in which a gun quickly fires half a dozen rounds in a time-on-target salvo and relocates to dodge the counterbattery fire. For this, modern Artillery systems like PZH2000, Archer, RCH155…

I'm not going to go into details of why I know (other than I'm an FPV pilot with a drone licence in my country and I have direct connections to pilots operating in a certain conflict), but you're more wrong than right. FPV drones have become a factor and like all new technologies, had an immediate impact that has since been blunted by adapting, eg EM warfare/jamming, "cope cages" around tanks, and the fact that it's still artillery killing the most soldiers.

FPV drones carrying anything more than antipersonnel grenades are heavy, with limited range and can have EW sensors track the control link signal sources that can then be responded with artillery.

Since a lot of the adaptions have happened, FPV pilots on both sides have become more about harassing the enemy than a strategic flipping of artillery doctrine (which was shifting to more mobile batteries before FPV drones came into the picture).

Re: Drone Flying 101 – An interactive tutorial for beginners

#104

Post by thadt » Thu, May 23, 2024, 5:08 PM UTC

05 wrote: post #46

fvdessen wrote: post #39

Not entirely unrelated, but FPV drones are now the main weapon of the Ukraine war. They started using them against tanks, then groups of soldiers, but have now found that they are cost effective enough to go against individual soldiers. The drone soldiers operate in small teams from underground bunkers close to the front from which they launch hundreds of drones a day, with different types of drones for different tar…

Bombs and artillery is the main weapon, FPV drones are a novelty and they're being limited by being tied to the remote pilot. Pilots don't really scale that well - it takes a long time to train, and they have to be relatively close to the drone, so they're vulnerable to counter attacks. Autonomous drones are supposedly already used for oil refineries (vision based navigation, to mitigate GPS jamming), once this tech…

Flying a drone from inside a bunker is, for all intents and purposes, playing a video game. Call of Duty and Flight Simulator have been training very capable pilots for years now. If you want to see the (near) future of warfare, hop on an open COD game.

As for optional, full autonomy on small drones - I suspect it's further along than many might expect.

Re: Drone Flying 101 – An interactive tutorial for beginners

#105

Post by lm28469 » Thu, May 23, 2024, 5:13 PM UTC

is_true wrote: post #90

consumer451 wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ukraine already does the mothership thing using a larger multicopter, and there is a company working on the autonomy part. They are supposedly close to releasing the product. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40428492

it's "cool" tech but unfortunately not in the industry I would like

There are only two forces of creation in tech, the porn industry and the military

Re: Drone Flying 101 – An interactive tutorial for beginners

#106

Post by topspin » Thu, May 23, 2024, 5:18 PM UTC

05 wrote: post #46

fvdessen wrote: post #39

Not entirely unrelated, but FPV drones are now the main weapon of the Ukraine war. They started using them against tanks, then groups of soldiers, but have now found that they are cost effective enough to go against individual soldiers. The drone soldiers operate in small teams from underground bunkers close to the front from which they launch hundreds of drones a day, with different types of drones for different tar…

Bombs and artillery is the main weapon, FPV drones are a novelty and they're being limited by being tied to the remote pilot. Pilots don't really scale that well - it takes a long time to train, and they have to be relatively close to the drone, so they're vulnerable to counter attacks. Autonomous drones are supposedly already used for oil refineries (vision based navigation, to mitigate GPS jamming), once this tech…

> once this tech trickles down to smaller drones

That is here now. Small drones are appearing in Ukraine that target vehicles and infantry using machine vision and thermal imaging. This is driven by RF jamming that limits FPV. Also, the terminal phase of a small drone attack is often where the attack fails and automating that improves effectiveness even when FPV is possible. Less skill is necessary when a fighter can just designate a target and hit the 'kill' button, so this is a force multiplier.

An interesting story on this is found here[1]. Quantity serial production is underway and it will be in wide use very soon, as in the next couple weeks. One thing they've done is secure the software to prevent reverse engineering.

[1] https://mil.in.ua/en/news/drones-with-machine-vision-are-bei...

Another thing that stands out to me in that article is the claim that production is limited by component availability. An obvious thing to do is further enhancing these drones by converting them from suicide drones to bomb delivery vehicles so they can be reused.

> Bombs and artillery is the main weapon

That's a generalization that overlooks a great deal in Ukraine. It's like selecting some organ in the body and calling it the "main organ." These drones frequently provide precision forward observation that enables artillery and precision missiles. It's a system, and without FPV observation, FPV interdiction and other contributions Ukraine wouldn't be performing as well as it has.

Re: Drone Flying 101 – An interactive tutorial for beginners

#107

Post by yardie » Thu, May 23, 2024, 5:38 PM UTC

fp64 wrote: post #13

DeathArrow wrote: post #10

Too bad in most parts of the EU is illegal to fly drones. You can do it if you are far from populated areas but you need to go trough a complicated bureaucracy and obtain a permit before each flight.

I am a registered pilot. Had to do an online course and learn about restrictions, took an hour and was free and is valid across most countries in EU. Most stupid restriction is that for FPV, a spotter is required. But if I stay away from people/buildings I am permitted to fly up to IIRC 6kg drones

It's crazy how the US is almost the opposite. Flying in populated areas is permitted with some restrictions (airports, ports, defense) but flying over unpopulated national parks or BLM land is illegal or restricted.

Re: Drone Flying 101 – An interactive tutorial for beginners

#108

Post by sizzle » Thu, May 23, 2024, 6:01 PM UTC

bambax wrote: post #22

There are two big families of drones: FPV and non-FPV (sometimes called cinematic). Flying non-FPV, GPS stabilized drones (like the DJI Mavic family of drones) requires almost no training, you just put the drone in the air and it stays there, waiting for your instructions. Flying FPV (in acro mode) has a steep learning curve (but is, arguably, much more fun). The way to learn is to use a proper simulator. The most ve…

Curious, do pilots learn to fly using sims?

Re: Drone Flying 101 – An interactive tutorial for beginners

#109

Post by MrFantastic » Thu, May 23, 2024, 6:03 PM UTC

bambax wrote: post #22

There are two big families of drones: FPV and non-FPV (sometimes called cinematic). Flying non-FPV, GPS stabilized drones (like the DJI Mavic family of drones) requires almost no training, you just put the drone in the air and it stays there, waiting for your instructions. Flying FPV (in acro mode) has a steep learning curve (but is, arguably, much more fun). The way to learn is to use a proper simulator. The most ve…

Velocidrone $20 is the most popular sim with the pros. It's designed to be the most accurate at as cost of graphic detail.

They have open races every week.

I can place in the top 300 sometimes.

You can see the FPV of any of the races. The fastest pilots fly so fast it's insane. It's hard for me to comprehend how they can even comprehend what they are seeing.

They will fly though a 3 gate ladder(aka corkscrew) in 1.5 seconds.

Re: Drone Flying 101 – An interactive tutorial for beginners

#110

Post by Karrot_Kream » Thu, May 23, 2024, 6:09 PM UTC

sizzle wrote: post #108

bambax wrote: post #22

There are two big families of drones: FPV and non-FPV (sometimes called cinematic). Flying non-FPV, GPS stabilized drones (like the DJI Mavic family of drones) requires almost no training, you just put the drone in the air and it stays there, waiting for your instructions. Flying FPV (in acro mode) has a steep learning curve (but is, arguably, much more fun). The way to learn is to use a proper simulator. The most ve…

Curious, do pilots learn to fly using sims?

Private Pilot training tends to be in aircraft but when training for expensive, hard-to-book aircraft which require special certifications to fly there's often sim training involved. Sim training is also useful if you're about to fly an aircraft that's similar but not the same as an aircraft you're familiar with.