Standard Features
Fun to fly and FPV/HD camera ready
Up to 3 camera mounting stations
Plug-in wing and winglet sections for easy transport
Powerful brushless motor with folding prop installed
Digital metal-geared servos installed
Carbon-reinforced, hollow-core construction with durable Z-Foam™ material
Lightweight design with a wide performance envelope
Vortex generators for better slow-speed stability and control authority
FrSky X8R Receiver
Bigaole Automatic Self-Leveling
FrSky Airpeed sensor
FrSKY High Precision Vario Sensor
FrSky Smart Port Lipo Voltage Sensor
Future Equipment will be a PixHawk 2.1 with
all the latest equipment.
Hybrid Quadrotor technology OFFERS SIGNIFICANT ADVANTAGES OVER EXISTING “RUNWAY INDEPENDENT” UNMANNED AIR SYSTEMS, INCLUDING:
Reduced operational footprint – no runway requirement, no approach obstacle issues, no launch/recovery infrastructure required.
Portability – by eliminating launch and recovery equipment, there are significantly fewer items to transport and ship.
Lower initial system cost – no launch and recovery infrastructure or expensive aircraft sensors required for VTOL capability.
Pixhawk 2.1 Autopilot
Pixhawk 2 has been designed by the Pixhawk open hardware community in collaboration with 3D Robotics and was first released as the autopilot of the 3DR Solo.
PIXHAWK2.1 is the latest iteration of Pixhawk, which is an independent,
open-hardware project. Aiming at providing high-end autopilot hardware to the
academic, hobby and industrial communities at low costs and high availability!
3D Robotics IRIS+
We use for Training
.The 3D Robotics IRIS+ uses the Pixhawk autopilot and has three different flight modes: Hover Mode (LTR) compose the iris+ drone hover in area – an ideal equipment for amateur, Standard Mode (STD) grant you to fly hand-operated, and Auto Mode (AUTO) allows you configure waypoints which this drone will naturally fly to. There are other flight modes beyond a few mentioned in the 3dr iris+ review, including altitude hold, drift and circle flight modes
Future of UAV's
Make your drone fly even farther
with a 4G network connection
NimbeLink, in partnership with Verizon’s ALO team and Sierra Wireless, is bringing to market another industry first: the UAV Skywire® modem, a fully end-device approved LTE modem specifically designed for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). Based on NimbeLink’s Cat 4 Skywire modem and using a customized version of the Sierra Wireless HL7588 module, this modem is custom built to be fully compliant with Verizon’s Airborne LTE Operations (ALO) program. Recognizing the vast potential of the UAV/UAS market, NimbeLink is introducing the UAV Modem as the company’s first application-specific member of its Skywire modem family.
As the smallest embedded cellular modems in the industry – 29mm x 33mm x 10.5mm and weighing just eight grams – Skywire modems are an excellent fit for providing 4g drone connectivity.
Problems with Networks
Network connection through 4G can be very unstable and the IP address of every UAV changes whenever it crosses into a new cellular network. We can’t locate the IP address of each individual UAV, but the IP address of server is static. So, the companion computer on each UAV sends its data (including the drone’s state, location, etc.) to the server continuously via the 4G LTE dongle.
Network delay is always a problem and it’s more important for controlling a drone. Real-time control via network requires good network conditions, ideally 4G LTE, but it’s practically impossible to promise that the network will always be that good.
My Opterra flying wing in R & D
A Future UAV VTOL land surveyor
Pixhawk Autopilot
ABOUT THE SOLO UAV
3DR Solo spec-sheet are twin 1GHz Linux computers: one in the drone, one in the controller. The idea is, the Solo has plenty of power for "smart" features, without taxing the core. Other key features include live HD (720p) streaming direct from a GoPro to your phone (or any display via HDMI) from over half a mile away, several cinematic flight modes, comprehensive autopilot features, and a modular / swappable "accessory bay."
The Solex App
screen shot
during a night
non - commercial flight
The Solex app is a replacement app for the stock app provided by 3DR. Solex is updated regularly with additional features and functions that improve the functionality of your Solo drone. In addition to more smart shots, Solex allows users to create custom profiles to allow for flight modes and to record battery use and other valuable statistics Only available on Android. Apps like Solex provide software updates that keep pace with current technology while hardware suppliers like mRobotics provide new GPS modules to improve the functionality of Solo.
SOLO UAV IN THE VINEYARDS
First, I create a survey pattern over your target field using Mission Planner. With this pattern uploaded to my Solo, it can then fly over the field while the under-mounted NDVI GoPro takes pictures of the ground the entire time. During the survey, you need to maintain an uninterrupted telemetry connection between your ground control app (Tower or Mission Planner) and the drone. This will be important for post-flight photo formatting. I use a Company called Drone Deploy to format your photos for processing. Once your survey is complete, the photos need to be geotagged before they can be uploaded to Drone Deploy for processing. Once the upload to Drone deploy is complete, your photos will be stitched into a single image of your field in a matter of hours. After, you crop this image to your preferred dimensions, your final products will be generated within a few minutes.
Lesson Learned
1. Keep it simple
2. If it can go wrong it will go wrong
3. Preplan your mission, do a site visit or use Google Earth for site info
4. The higher you fly, the less images you need which means less processing time
5. The higher you fly, the larger the area you can map
6. Always check your images when in the field
7. Fly at solar noon to limit shadows from the vines causing NDVI image
8. Use an observer
9. Crop analysis is 20% flying and 80% data processing
10. Image processing takes lots of computing power, get a fast processor with lots of memory
11. High quality images equates to high quality crop analysis, poor images mean poor data
12. Aerial images and analysis needs to be correlated with ground data to be effective
13. Normal photographs and video in RGB is almost as invaluable as NGB to the vineyard owner
14. Drone NDVI mapping becomes effective with vineyards greater than 50 acres
ABOUT MISSION PLANNER
Mission Planner, created by Michael Oborne, does a lot more than its name. Here are some of the features
Point-and-click waypoint entry, using Google Maps.
Select mission commands from drop-down menus
Download mission log files and analyze them(Upper right corner) - How to connect the Mission Planner to your ArduPilot. Selecting communication devices and rates.
Flight Data - Information about what you see, and things you can do in the Flight Data screens.
Flight Plan - Information about the various aspects of preparing flight plans (Missions).
Initial Setup - Information about what you see and things you can do in the Initial Setup screens.
Configuration Tuning - Information about what you see and things you can do in the Configuration/Tuning
Help - About the help screen, and how to get help with your questions about Mission Planner.
Other Mission Planner Features -
A satellite navigation system with global coverage may be termed a global navigation satellite system (GNSS). As of December 2016 only the United States NAVSTAR Global Positioning System (GPS), the Russian GLONASS and the European Union's Galileo are global operational GNSSs. The European Union's Galileo GNSS is scheduled to be fully operational by 2020.[1] China is in the process of expanding its regional BeiDou Navigation Satellite System into the global BeiDou-2 GNSS by 2020.[2] France, India and Japan are in the process of developing regional navigation and augmentation systems as well.
Global coverage for each system is generally achieved by a satellite constellation of 18–30 medium Earth orbit (MEO) satellites spread between several orbital planes. The actual systems vary, but use orbital inclinations of >50° and orbital periods of roughly twelve hours (at an altitude of about 20,000 kilometres or 12,000 miles).
Here GNSS GPS module is the perfect fit for the Pixhawk 2. It was specifically designed and built to work with this world leading open source flight controller.
Indeed, it provides a precise positioning information by allowing multiple GNSS reception of the most popular and efficient current systems, including brand new ones (GPS, GLONASS, BeiDou and Galileo). Thanks to that, you benefit from the maximum satellite reception at all dense with this dense covering.
The HERE GNSS GPS module also benefits from a double 3-axis magnetometer for spacial orientation.
Technical specifications
Concurrent reception of up to 3 GNSS (GPS, Galileo, GLONASS, BeiDou)
Industry leading - 167 dBm navigation sensitivity
Security and integrity augmentation systems
Supports all satellite augmentation systems
Advanced jamming and spoofing detection
Notification RGB LED
Magnetometer: HMC5983 and LIS3MDL
6CM Ground plane
The Here+ RTK technology is the perfect choice to allow your drone benefit from all the advantages precision positioning can offer. This module was specifically designed to operate together with the Pixhawk 2, world class open source flight controller.RTK (or Real Time Kinematics) is the unmissable option offering centimetric precision positioning by allowing multiple GNSS reception of the most efficient and popular current systems, including brand new ones
(GPS, GLONASS, BeiDou and Galileo)
Technical specifications
CM-level positioning
Integrated Real Time Kinematics (RTK)
Barometer: MS5611
IMU: MPU9250
Compass: HMC5983
Diameter: 6.5 cm
Weight (with cable): 50 gr
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