servo controlled camera mount

[nealbloom]

Hey, I'm new to aerial photography and I was wondering what some different designs are for camera mounts for rc or uav planes. I'm looking to make the mount always point down by servos. Anyone have any pictures or ideas? Greatly appreciated thanks!

[mrbaseballny]

Isn't this the same question you posted over in the aerial photography forum??

[kd7ost]

You don't always have the same guys in the UAV forum as the AP forum though. The AP guys barely climb out of the toy category some times. Many of those guys are foam and plastic tape builders. Thats OK for the level of what they do but hardly denotes a great skill. You have different skill sets available in the UAV area.

I have a few suggestions. This is only if you want to do it right though.

1. Build a pan and tilt unit for your camera. Have some part, preferably the top, extend out through the top of the fuselage. Use a Co-pilot with it's thermopiles set on that pan and tilt. As you fly the plane while putting in gradual easy does it roll and pitch, the co-pilot keeps your camera pointing down.

Given some shortcoming in the co-pilot as far as temperature and ability to work in all conditions you might try a more advanced method.

2. Making a pan and tilt like above but you don't need to have it extend out the top. Using a Pico Tilt from UNAV do the same thing but you don't have to calibrate it or have it exposed to the outside. http://www.u-nav.com/picotilt.htm from http://www.u-nav.com/product.html

3. Leave the camera mounted in the plane looking vertical and use similar devices as above, but use them to flatten out the plane flight. Keep the roll and pitch out when taking pictures with co-pilot, Pico alt, etc. Steer with rudder. That works well.

It depends on your application as well as your budget.

Dan

[danstrider]

Co-Pilot on a tilt-tilt works wonders and is about the simplest route. You could go GPS, IMU, magnetomer, and massive piles of coding ... or spend $200 and you're done.

Dan

[Jodoc]

go to visit this page :

http://www.airship.aero

May be usefull -:)

Jodoc

[Jeanseb]

Hello,

This is a newbie question: what are the current low cost gyros and accelerometers used for UAV auto pilots?

Thank you in advance.

Edit: sorry, this is my first post - will move this to the proper location