A Crazy Idea (3G Remote Control Plane with Camera)

mk6705

Hello. I've just come up with a crazy idea. I've never had an rc plane before, but I think this is possible and if done right shouldn't be too expensive.

It started when I was thinking about a James Bond film. Can't remember the specific one, but he had a full sized car, for which he had a remote control, with a camera and trackpad. He controlled the motion of the car from the trackpad. I am quite confident I could develop a similar app for android. I thought about an rc car, but a plane makes more sense to me. So essentially, what I want to do is develop an rc plane for which I can fit a camera, control remotely and which flies for at least 10 minutes.

I have no idea whether this is possible for me to do or not. It's definitely possible, of course.

This is a list of things I think may work (still a few loose ends here.)

Firstly, a touchscreen phone (This is the remote control)
and...
- An rc plane (need to re-jig things a bit here...)
- A 3G modem (Has to be light, and would probably be switched to EDGE only to keep latency low)
- Many failsafe mechanisms (In case signal is lost etc, but there's only a certain amount that can be done.)
- A small VGA camera
- A method of encoding the camera feed, sending it over 3G and translating incoming instructions (Possibly the most difficult part, especially keeping weight low)
- A high capacity, light battery (Might be expensive, but pretty much essential here)
- Possibly a solar cell, for extra power, depending on how the weight effects things
- GPS (A luxury, probably too heavy)

Could this be done? Any advice? If it's not possible I'll definitely do it with a car, but this would be much more fun if it could work.
Thanks.

coolwings

Modified phone technology has been used by modellers for RC aircraft in Ukraine/Russia.
A search should find something.

Irish_Elect_Eng

coolwings,

Your idea has already been done and can be bought on the highstreet in the USA ($300 @ Brookstone I think)

AR Drone

I have played with one myself.

A nice executive toy.

Bruthal

Adro947 wrote: »

Hello. I've just come up with a crazy idea. I've never had an rc plane before, but I think this is possible and if done right shouldn't be too expensive.

It started when I was thinking about a James Bond film. Can't remember the specific one, but he had a full sized car, for which he had a remote control, with a camera and trackpad. He controlled the motion of the car from the trackpad. I am quite confident I could develop a similar app for android. I thought about an rc car, but a plane makes more sense to me. So essentially, what I want to do is develop an rc plane for which I can fit a camera, control remotely and which flies for at least 10 minutes.

I have no idea whether this is possible for me to do or not. It's definitely possible, of course.

This is a list of things I think may work (still a few loose ends here.)

Firstly, a touchscreen phone (This is the remote control)
and...
- An rc plane (need to re-jig things a bit here...)
- A 3G modem (Has to be light, and would probably be switched to EDGE only to keep latency low)
- Many failsafe mechanisms (In case signal is lost etc, but there's only a certain amount that can be done.)
- A small VGA camera
- A method of encoding the camera feed, sending it over 3G and translating incoming instructions (Possibly the most difficult part, especially keeping weight low)
- A high capacity, light battery (Might be expensive, but pretty much essential here)
- Possibly a solar cell, for extra power, depending on how the weight effects things
- GPS (A luxury, probably too heavy)

Could this be done? Any advice? If it's not possible I'll definitely do it with a car, but this would be much more fun if it could work.
Thanks.

It probably would be possible, its all possible already using the standard radio control systems to 3 or 4 km`s, or long range radios to far further than that, and also using a video transmitter, and flight navigation system. On board GPS with automatic return to home is widely available and very light in weight. There are videos of them in use on youtube. Have one or two up myself too.

Irish_Elect_Eng wrote: »

coolwings,

Your idea has already been done and can be bought on the highstreet in the USA ($300 @ Brookstone I think)

AR Drone

I have played with one myself.

A nice executive toy.

This uses a wi-fi setup probably. Where as the original question was about using G3 broadband for the link, for longer range prpbably. But if it can be done on wi-fi from the phone, then G3 should be possible.

civdef

http://diydrones.com/ is probably the best source of ideas for things like this, e.g. http://diydrones.com/profiles/blog/show?id=705844%3ABlogPost%3A211658&commentId=705844%3AComment%3A211736

The arduino based "ardupilot mega" has the facility to connect GSM modems, and if the plane is being flown on autopilot, you could probably work up a way of just sending it lists of waypoints, rather than direct control.

filip sardzoski

Hello,

I'am thinking on making a RC car, and I would like to control it via 3g, I can put a 3g modem in the car and control it via PC (lap-top), can anyone tell my what king of gear will I need to make this work...

I am aware that I need the car and the computer to be connected to the internet, but I need help with a software to control it..

Please help me,
Filip

SLIM19198

filip sardzoski wrote: »

Hello,

I'am thinking on making a RC car, and I would like to control it via 3g, I can put a 3g modem in the car and control it via PC (lap-top), can anyone tell my what king of gear will I need to make this work...

I am aware that I need the car and the computer to be connected to the internet, but I need help with a software to control it..

Please help me,
Filip

Just buy a spykee robot and mobile WiFi access point, tape the access point to spykee and remotely log in to control him from anywhere ;-)

fenris

check out Diy Drones - lots of info on building drones, so there are a lot of recommendations on cameras, downlinks, telemetry etc.

http://diydrones.com/

fougachap

could you use those things for spyin on the neighbours