UAV Helicopter Project

[ochriso]

Hey all im new to RC Helicopters, im looking to turn an RC Helicopter into a UAV. Its part of a project that im doing. Can any one give me suggestions of good, affordable RC Helicopters that could do this. Bearing in mind it would need to carry extra payload for all the sensors, camera, transmitters and recievers.

And do any of you have any spec sheets from the manufacturer tht give all the details instead of the limited details some websites give. I have a budget of £3000-4000 but obviously this includes other equiptment alongside the Heli. So prices would be helpful too preferable in Sterling.

I'm looking around websites but hoping you guys that know more than me can help me out. Thanks

[imprez55]

It would first help if we knew your experience with helis. From the sound of it you have never flown, or at least not much, a r/c heli. There is a project similar to your idea, except not fully unmanned, called the ArduCopter (arduino controlled heli http://www.arduino.cc/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1194413232.

In it he uses a Sabre (a micro heli) which has a rotor diameter of 510 mm and a weight of 285 g. I do not know if it has ever actually been flown but it should work. And if it does, theoretically any micro should work.

On the cheap side you could get a Honey Bee fp for around $100 (520 mm rotor diam. at 290 g). You would want to upgrade the tx and rx though if you are trying to uav it.

So in short, you have a lot of options. You could go for cheap, or really high end, its your choice. Hopefully this info helps, maby the link will give you some ideas too.

[Jack Crossfire]

The TRex 450 is the jeep of helicopters but is hard to fit all the gear into. The TRex 600, Joker 2, & Bergen explorer have given the most successes in autopilot and are ubiquitous.

Your main problem is fitting the gear with vibration isolation on a small airframe. Below 700mm rotors, U can't pack much foam & the dynamic effects on the IMU are harder to control without DGPS. Adaptiveflight.com is the only one who's documented fully functional TRex 450 autopilot, with DGPS of course.

[ochriso]

OK skipping the actual helicopter problem. I need an interface which i can use with a laptop because obviously i need to use a flight simulator to program the UAV and also so i can control the helicopter in reality if i need to. Any ideas please?

[Tuner]

here is some helpful info.
Rotomotion has adapted the open source autopilot to heli's.
paparazzi.enac.fr
They have run with the open source autopilot and have a nice package that does not support helis but has everything else you could need. The original open source autopilot has been used for heli enogh that I think it would not be a fare stretch to add this functionality to the paparazzi project and Im sure the group would support this as I have heard people talk of future heli support

Another great sounding product is the HeliCommand. mscompositusa.com has this product. read more at www.helicomand.com

[air]

Carvec has been successfully installed on a Trex 450 also but there isnt much capacity left for other equipment as it's a bit heavy.

[manin]

OK skipping the actual helicopter problem. I need an interface which i can use with a laptop because obviously i need to use a flight simulator to program the UAV and also so i can control the helicopter in reality if i need to. Any ideas please?

You have pm