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Drone Imagery for OpenStreetMap

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Re: Drone Imagery for OpenStreetMap

#31

Post by bigiain »

jamesaguilar wrote: post #25
b_emery wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure what you get for $12k, but know that it is possible to build an autonomous airplane, and a gopro for much less than that. Here's a friend's video for evidence: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rX3kFWoH17o&feature=c4-overvi... His cost is order $2000.

You can do it for less than that, even. A Naza M flight controller costs $200 ( http://www.uavproducts.com/product.php?id_product=21 ), and that's one of the more expensive controllers out there. The remainder of the components for a flying wing would run you $80-$120. You could replace the Naza M with a multiwii controller and write your own flight control program for much less. These are multicopter components but…

Yep - I've got some footage from ~$130 worth of gear here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/bigiain/5228554566/

I'd agree that you'd easily be able to replicate 95% of what they've done for under $600 (so long as you don't count the time you'd spend researching/building/learning - FWIW, I wouldn't sell one of these hypothetical $600 autonomous camera planes to someone else for less than a few grand - my time, warranty, and liability would easily add up to that.)

Re: Drone Imagery for OpenStreetMap

#32

Post by _delirium »

dougmccune wrote: post #15
ChuckMcM wrote: post #3

This is insanely cool, and a bit crazy too. 45 minutes to map 10km^2, so two of them, swapping out batteries, you're talking one person mapping 90 km^2 a day. So a city like San Francisco (121 km^2) in a couple of days? Or San Jose (467 km^2) in a week? That is pretty interesting. Make your own map with license to your own assets pretty reasonably I'd guess.

The laws would have to change to allow you to fly these over populated areas. There's a reason the blog post is about flying over someone's private farmland. As a commercial company you can't even charge a farmer to fly over his land, the owner of the land has to do it himself.

The need for it isn't quite as much in populated areas either, at least for OSM's purposes. Bing's aerial imagery is fairly high-resolution and timely over cities (at least cities in the western world), and they allow use of it as a layer to trace OSM features from: http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Bing

Re: Drone Imagery for OpenStreetMap

#33

Post by bigiain »

MPetitt wrote: post #6

I was really bummed when I read that one of these costs about 12k. But then I realized how much money you could make taking this around the country, mapping out cities and licensing the images out. Heck, just taking private gigs for colleges, estates, parks, and things of that sort could make you good money. I think i found a new side business.

Check your local laws first.

I see lots of $5k+ multicopter/camera setups for sale at _big_ losses here in Australia, when people obviously got all excited about starting their own aerial photography business – then bumped into the legal reality of flying these things commercially as opposed to being a hobbyist.

If you want to accept money for flying RC aircraft here, you almost need the same qualifications as a commercial pilot _and_ a commercial airframe mechanic. There are a few dozen companies who've got the required qualifications, and they're _very_ protective of their turf. You _will_ get "noticed", and the authorities (CASA here in .au) will come knocking.

Re: Drone Imagery for OpenStreetMap

#35

Post by hootener »

jamesaguilar wrote: post #25
b_emery wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure what you get for $12k, but know that it is possible to build an autonomous airplane, and a gopro for much less than that. Here's a friend's video for evidence: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rX3kFWoH17o&feature=c4-overvi... His cost is order $2000.

You can do it for less than that, even. A Naza M flight controller costs $200 ( http://www.uavproducts.com/product.php?id_product=21 ), and that's one of the more expensive controllers out there. The remainder of the components for a flying wing would run you $80-$120. You could replace the Naza M with a multiwii controller and write your own flight control program for much less. These are multicopter components but…

$600.00 is a pretty solid estimate for a DIY, autonomous, man-packable flying wing with relatively robust performance.

I've done it for around $1100, excluding the cost of a laptop to run some open source flight control software, but ~$600 of that was a 9-channel RX/TX controller setup. Overkill unless you're doing some really crazy stuff.

It's not all sunshine and rainbows, though. I've worked closely with scientists that have had problems with SenseFly units in the field, despite the high level of polish in the product. I've flown similar sized UAVs to the eBee (all self constructed) in great environmental conditions (low altitude ASL, favorable wind conditions, etc.) and had great success. However, get these things in less hospitable environments, and things go sideways real fast. So, while Joe Everyman is getting closer and closer to just throwing a small UAV in the air and having it work, we're still quite a ways from guaranteed success out of these things.

Observation: I've never had good luck using a GoPro for mapping tasks. My suspicion was the rolling shutter, but perhaps I was just doing it wrong.

Re: Drone Imagery for OpenStreetMap

#36

Post by jamesaguilar »

hootener wrote: post #35
jamesaguilar wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can do it for less than that, even. A Naza M flight controller costs $200 ( http://www.uavproducts.com/product.php?id_product=21 ), and that's one of the more expensive controllers out there. The remainder of the components for a flying wing would run you $80-$120. You could replace the Naza M with a multiwii controller and write your own flight control program for much less. These are multicopter components but…

$600.00 is a pretty solid estimate for a DIY, autonomous, man-packable flying wing with relatively robust performance. I've done it for around $1100, excluding the cost of a laptop to run some open source flight control software, but ~$600 of that was a 9-channel RX/TX controller setup. Overkill unless you're doing some really crazy stuff. It's not all sunshine and rainbows, though. I've worked closely with scientist…

> Overkill unless you're doing some really crazy stuff.

Especially considering you can buy a 9XR + FrSky module for like $130 nowadays. This wasn't always the case though -- Rx/Tx solutions have become a lot less expensive since 2008 or so, as I understand.

Re: Drone Imagery for OpenStreetMap

#37

Post by jamesaguilar »

bigiain wrote: post #31
jamesaguilar wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can do it for less than that, even. A Naza M flight controller costs $200 ( http://www.uavproducts.com/product.php?id_product=21 ), and that's one of the more expensive controllers out there. The remainder of the components for a flying wing would run you $80-$120. You could replace the Naza M with a multiwii controller and write your own flight control program for much less. These are multicopter components but…

Yep - I've got some footage from ~$130 worth of gear here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/bigiain/5228554566/ I'd agree that you'd easily be able to replicate 95% of what they've done for under $600 (so long as you don't count the time you'd spend researching/building/learning - FWIW, I wouldn't sell one of these hypothetical $600 autonomous camera planes to someone else for less than a few grand - my time, warranty, a…

Honestly I would strongly recommend you avoid flying these without umbrella coverage. Odds of something bad happening are pretty low, but the financial costs could be catastrophic if it did. Read your umbrella policy to make sure it covers this type of loss as well (mine doesn't cover aircraft liability, but it defines aircraft in such a way that anything too small to carry a passenger is excluded, and thus covered).

Re: Drone Imagery for OpenStreetMap

#38

Post by bigiain »

jamesaguilar wrote: post #37
bigiain wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep - I've got some footage from ~$130 worth of gear here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/bigiain/5228554566/ I'd agree that you'd easily be able to replicate 95% of what they've done for under $600 (so long as you don't count the time you'd spend researching/building/learning - FWIW, I wouldn't sell one of these hypothetical $600 autonomous camera planes to someone else for less than a few grand - my time, warranty, a…

Honestly I would strongly recommend you avoid flying these without umbrella coverage. Odds of something bad happening are pretty low, but the financial costs could be catastrophic if it did. Read your umbrella policy to make sure it covers this type of loss as well (mine doesn't cover aircraft liability, but it defines aircraft in such a way that anything too small to carry a passenger is excluded, and thus covered).

It's definitely worth considering – but for me with that toy, I've considered and chosen to accept and ignore any theoretical "catastrophic" consequences, much the same as I ignore the risks of dying in a car accident on the way to the park to fly it.

The plane in that video weighs 128g (~4.5oz) thats ~20% lighter than a baseball (or cricket ball) and ~30% lighter than a frisbee. Sure, it's got a powered spinning propeller on the front, but it's pretty low powered (sub 6A draw at 7.2V - 45W tops) and more importantly I've got _much_ more control of it than people throwing balls or frisbees have - at least once they've left their hands.

I'm happy enough to accept the personal risk of flying this "toy" with the same sort of common sense rules that I'd use if chucking a ball or frisbee around with friends. Don't be reckless, don't "buzz" people, try to be obviously taking safety into account. Yeah, there's some risk - but a little bit of self control can easily reduce that risk to near-enough-to-zero (and I'm prepared if required to throw myself on the mercy of a court and argue that I'd considered and taken prudent precautions to avoid an accident in the case of a truly tragic incident.)

A bigger/heavier/more-powerful plane like the one in the OP would affect my decisions about when/where were sensible places to fly - but keep in mind the eBee in the article only weight "less than 700g" - that's less than 50% more than a football. Personally, I suspect there'd be a lot of times/places where other people occasionally kick footballs around that I'd happily fly a one of them - not without a little extra caution, but given suitable circumstances I'd fly a ~700g eBee on the same cricket ground as that video of my Mini Swift.

Re: Drone Imagery for OpenStreetMap

#39

Post by xgad »

Wow, as a big multicopter and fixed wing enthusiast/hobbyist, I find this to be super awesome. It also literally hit home for me because I noticed that it was captured only a few miles away from where I grew up, haha. These technologies look very promising for things like mapping agriculture and providing recon in environmental disasters.
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