The sub-$1,000 UAV project

While I was at TED I had the opportunity to talk to everyone from Dean Kamen to Jeff Bezos about my 3D Robotics League idea. The consensus was that it's a great idea, but that $10,000 is too high a cost of entry for a competitive aerial robot. ($5,000 is considered the ceiling for school robotics teams, and I want to make this open to individuals, too). So the first order of business is to find a way to bring the cost down.

This summer my project will be to come up with a set of resources and instructions that will allow regular non-engineer people (and kids) to put together a drone for less than $1,000 that has most if not all of the functionality of this $10,000 beauty. The DraganFlyer autonomous helicopter platform shown above starts at just $2,400, and these guys seem to have made good progress on the essentials of a $500 helicopter UAV, although the commercial version sells for $16,500.  But my sense is that foam flying wings are the cheapest way to go, starting with basic autopilots available here.

Needless to say, this is going to take some hacking. Suggestions gratefully received.

UPDATE: 1) Hi, Valleywag readers! 2) What could be cheaper than a Lego autopilot?

Comments

[blooflame]

Hey, I'm no expert - my first model airplane with a motor cut my finger and I gave up after that - but you might want to chat with these guys:

http://tam.plannet21.com/

If they can fly one across the Atlantic via autopilot, I'm sure they have some ideas! Their website is a little out of date, but they say there was an update this month so someone must be around.

[Mike]

There are two big hurdles I would like to see overcome: range and duration. I want to be able to fly for 30+ minutes with a range of 1-10 miles from the base station. What about using 3G cell phone technology for the data link between vehicle and base station for more range? The duration aspect is tougher. I don't think you could get 30+ minutes using battery, it would have to be fuel-based.

[Dave]

30 minutes on a battery is hard for self propelled planes, but depending on the hardware a nice fast glider can fly for a really long time. if the autopilot is really good, you can probably manually take it up to a really really friggin high altitude by hand (we've had ours in clouds before, lost sight of it, had to nosedive just to find it again); then the autopilot's waypoints will dive it to pick up some speed, snap the pictures, and then turn the motor back on for a few seconds to regain a bit of alitude (the speed helps with climbing real fast)

the model that we use has 2 cameras, and doing aerobatics we can still keep it up over 25 minutes with 1 full battery. Doing lazy loops you can keep it up almost indefinetly, esp on a warm day. Gliders are DESIGNED for this sort of stuff. :-D

[Dave]

I meant lazy circles, not loops. we fly in about a 1/4th mile circle around a huge field, sometimes using only the cameras to fly it because it gets out of visual range. we have one camera pointed straight down, and one camera aimed forward at a 45 degree downward angle (or so, it might be only a 30 degree angle).

FYI we use 2.4ghz cameras, a cantenna, and a laptop. I've been bugging my friend to get a GPS for it, but he's into helicopters now, so the glider project is on standby. i am going to talk to him about teh lego autopilot though. :-)

[bharat bhushan sahoo]

i want to buy this please give me the details and the procedure to buy it

[Chinatronic.com]

Love it.
That's the world keeping you humble.

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[wow powerleveling]

it's the best and cheapest project i have seen.it's so lucky to own it :)
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[pelin]

thanks good comments

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[güzel sözler]

great, thanks..

[cam balkon]

Sounds like a good show, hope Sebastian found his crankyness again. He`s been slipping off the scale lately so Johns had to pick up the pace,and we all know he can do that very well. Great work!