Just got into quads (and RC in general Sept of this year). I'm really intrigued by all that is possible with today's technology! I played with RC when I was a kid and the NiCad batteries were junk! I had to wait 3 hrs just to drive my slow RC buggy around the living room. But today we have incredible motors, incredible batteries, and incredible Rx/Tx, speed controllers, flight controllers etc.

So my question is this: What would it take to get my quad to autonomously fly from my place here to my friends apartment 4.4 mi away? Is this possible with the GPS solutions we have at the moment? As far as runtime/flying speed. My current quad I think has a batt life of 15 min w/ 3s 3000 mAh, so it would have to fly at a speed of 18 mph to get there before the batt died.

You are talking lots of money ... OR you need a lot of brain power to deliver you self the information needed to do such a ( DREAM FLYING RUN ) I know some thing like this will do what you want ...lol

http://www.aeryon.com/

I would love to do what you have said tho many many uses for it...

Originally Posted by timeman

I know some thing like this will do what you want ...lol

http://www.aeryon.com/

I would love to do what you have said tho many many uses for it...

Quite reasonably priced. Can't wait to get my hands on one.

use a plane for 4.4 miles

Originally Posted by FlyingMcCoy

Quite reasonably priced. Can't wait to get my hands on one.

Yeah right. So you have $50,000 to spend cus thats what they cost.

A pretty much standard mikrokopter flew 3,3 km in this video made by the creator:

MikroKopter - Mission:"Rheinbach" (12 min 55 sec)

I agree there's quite a way to 4,4 miles, but with some thinking it should be possible.

MK has a built-in software limitation of max 250m for GPS waypoints for security reasons.

Any other Quad system has GPS with unlimited waypoints?

Originally Posted by buffet

MK has a built-in software limitation of max 250m for GPS waypoints for security reasons.

Any other Quad system has GPS with unlimited waypoints?

Just edit the software For normal commercial having that limit is absolutely a good thing...

Originally Posted by wizprod

Just edit the software For normal commercial having that limit is absolutely a good thing...

It is actually coded into the Nav chip of the MK Nav board. Noone was able to alter it yet, AFAIK.

Hey,

I plan on doing something similar, except its 2 miles out, and 2 miles back. My quad uses UAVX, which is open source. The GPS waypoint nav is limited just like MK, however its easy to adjust this value in the source and recompile. Try doing that with MK Like I said I'll be using UAVX. Right now with a 5000mah lipo I get 21 minutes of flight time, and I just received a 2nd 5000mah, so I'll see what kind of flight time I get with that. My build log is at http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1280188 Currently I've spent about $1300. I also just got an EagleTree OSD, and a camera (VSN505), so it will have FPV capabilities. I'm just waiting on the Tx/Rx system.

I would say yes it is possible, but you'll have to optimize for flight time. Since you want it to be fully autonomous, you dont have to worry about an uplink/downlink (which might suck if you live in a city). You'll just need a consistent GPS lock (1575mhz) which should be easy.

Lastly flying at 18mph will be no problem. I've seen some quads clock in at 40mph+ Quads are most efficient while hovering near the ground (taking advantage of ground effect) But I dont know what the optimum travel speed would be. I imagine it depends on the quad parameters and would take some testing.

Originally Posted by buffet

It is actually coded into the Nav chip of the MK Nav board. Noone was able to alter it yet, AFAIK.

Ah, fair enough, didn't know that, makes that it is not in the FC.

Originally Posted by wizprod

A pretty much standard mikrokopter flew 3,3 km in this video made by the creator:
I agree there's quite a way to 4,4 miles, but with some thinking it should be possible.

Forum discussion on this one says only 35% of the battery capacity was used. I'm aiming to go roughly twice this distance, so it should be no problem. Also, they used 4S 3300mAh pack, so I could use even larger pack and make it no problem! Very encouraging. Now I just need to figure out which GPS options is best/cheapest.

Yeah it is very possible. Depending on weather of course. You might want to check out www.diydrones.com

They have a lot of good news on this type of stuff.

I wouldn't even argue that it is that hard. It would cost you a good amount of money ... that would be it....2k-5k-ish.

You probably couldn't land on a coffee table or go thru a window, but you probably could get it into a backyard 4.4 miles away with fairly good accuracy. You could get even better accuracy if you were to fly FPV at the end ... you really can go thru a window with an FPV bird, then you run into a lot of signal issues.