Neighborhood watching with the Swinglet CAM high resolution flying camera

[TechMan]

http://www.gizmag.com/swinglet-cam-aerial-photography-drone/16892/

UAV powered by a Li-polymer battery for 30 minutes.  Operational range ~12.4 miles.  Top speed up to 30mph.  Pre-determined flight path based on up to 20 GPS coordinates, but can be remotely controlled.  12 Megapixel camera.  Capable of autonomous landing.

ETA: Apparently cost is $10,600 for just UAV.

[mtnbkr]

The current prez of my amateur radio club is into RC helicopters and amateur TV.  He has a video camera mounted on a helicopter that he can fly around and view the output on a terminal at ground level.

Chris

[AZRedhawk44]

Very similar to what I want to build.

My ideal is a vertical take-off, horizontal flight craft with similar GPS and surveillance capabilities, as well as simple enough AI to direct itself to land when the power reaches a certain threshold and it isn't within range of its objective GPS coordinates.

[HankB]

. . . Operational range ~12.4 miles. . . .

How close can one get to the main hangars at Area 51? 

[AJ Dual]

Anyone see a reason it can't be mass produced in some Asian country for a unit cost of $100, and instead of wasting weight on a camera, carry a 1/4lb block of C4 or Semtex instead?  

There's plenty of anecdotal evidence that the USSS and State Dept. Diplomatic protection service motorcades suppress cell signals, and also do so at public functions, but what about GPS?

Something like this does not need active control.

Hell, someone figures out a cheap-ass INU on-a-chip (Wii remote anyone?) it can't even be jammed.

Now instead of onesy-twosey terrorism or assassinations, imagine a cluster munition filled with a few hundred of these dispersed over a battlefield, and it's got a cheap IR sensor that looks for anything radiating at 98.6 deg. Hell, cell phone cameras have facial recognition, smile detection etc. The thing could even go looking for a specific person.

I'll be too old, and a few medical conditions threaten to make me classified as 4F, but should it come about in the next decade, they WILL NOT be able to draft me, unless I'm issued power armor.

[MicroBalrog]

"In the far distance a helicopter skimmed down between the roofs, hovered for an instant like a bluebottle, and darted away again with a curving flight. It was the police patrol, snooping into people's windows."

[RevDisk]

"In the far distance a helicopter skimmed down between the roofs, hovered for an instant like a bluebottle, and darted away again with a curving flight. It was the police patrol, snooping into people's windows."

Simple solution.  Highly directional EMP.

[Regolith]

Simple solution.  Highly directional EMP.

Simple(r) solution:

[zahc]

The current prez of my amateur radio club is into RC helicopters and amateur TV.  He has a video camera mounted on a helicopter that he can fly around and view the output on a terminal at ground level.

Interesting. I'm an RC/electronics hobbyist myself, and it would be easy to build a gps-guided device that records even HD video, but what I really want is a UAV. My comrade and I have gone over the possibility of building an RC ROV, basically, but the trouble was always the video. The ability to transmit video, for a decent distance (hundreds of meters at least), with low enough latency to pilot the vehicle, has always come up as an intractable problem. Do you know what kind of hardware your friend is using?

[Leatherneck]

There are so many small UAV development and acquisition programs going on right now in DoD that I'd be surprised if the commercial market wasn't full of spinoffs in a year or two.

a video camera mounted on a helicopter that he can fly around and view the output on a terminal at ground level.

Terminal at GL, or helo?

TC

[Matthew Carberry]

Don't need GPS, just use one with an IR laser to mark the target and an idling flock of explosive-laden ones can beam-ride into it.

[mtnbkr]

Do you know what kind of hardware your friend is using?

Not offhand, but I can ask.

Terminal at GL, or helo?

TC

ground level. 

IIRC, he first flew it a few years ago.

Chris

[seeker_two]

Simple(r) solution:

Skeet shooting meets Appleseed..... 

[rcnixon]

I think you might want to look at this:

http://hexacopters.com/

Built-in GPS and camera all for under 2 grand.

Russ

[lee n. field]

I think you might want to look at this:

http://hexacopters.com/

Built-in GPS and camera all for under 2 grand.

Russ

First thing that came to my mind. 

That site seems to think the same:

Imagine a swarm of these things descending on your location with a couple pounds of explosives strapped to them!! ...Might technology, once again, level the playing field for "rebels" fighting against much better-funded oppressive regimes? I'm guessing at least 5,000 radio / GPS controlled hexacopters could be purchased for the price of just one "conventional" attack helicopter. What could 5,000 hexacopters do to "pester an enemy?"

[Regolith]

First thing that came to my mind. 

That site seems to think the same:

I think it'd need to be some pretty high-grade explosives for it to do enough damage to be worth it.  I doubt those things have much of a payload.

In the end, rockets and mortars would probably be cheaper. Easier to make, too.

[Matthew Carberry]

Wait til he exits and fire off a little C4 semi-focussed with some BB's from a few dozen UAVs at close range.

[RevDisk]

I think it'd need to be some pretty high-grade explosives for it to do enough damage to be worth it.  I doubt those things have much of a payload.

In the end, rockets and mortars would probably be cheaper. Easier to make, too.

Just use a variation of the "Coffee Can o' Doom".  You take a can, make a cylinder of C4 which is in the center, pour in ball bearing or whatever.  Put a weight on the bottom to stabilize.  You have a nice donut shaped cloud of death.  If you were really clever, you'd just sling load the thing, release near target, use an barometric pressure sensor or IR sensor for airburst detonation (or impact for ground).  UAV is entirely reusable. 

Cheaper than rockets for sure, and with a lower signature.  Mortars, it'd be about dead even.  However, mortars are vulnerable to counterbattery fire which the insurgents in Iraq are learning can have a rather quick response.

[MicroBalrog]

I don't think you get how cheap rokkits can be.

[roo_ster]

I don't think you get how cheap rokkits can be.

Ready to fly RC airplane kits (usually powered glider) with good-sized airplanes:  ~$110.
http://www.nitroplanes.com/new4chdyhask.html

2.4GHz wireless camera made for RC aircraft: $30
(See above url)

Slight modifications such as more powerful motor to increase payload and lightening some of the more robust bits that don't need something so robust: negligible.

Slather C4 in & outside of plane and embed BBs/ball bearings.

See how high / far one of these puppies can get:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xW7UJIyg97g&feature=related

[HankB]

It was something over 30 years ago that I saw a "battle" between a scale model RC warship and an RC bomber . . . the bomber was dropping not the usual plastic or Nerf bombs, but I suspect chunks of some active metal (sodium or potassium) which made a satisfactory "BANG" on the lake surface. Another observer in the parking lot said his friend was flying the bomber, and he was playing a joke on the owner of the warship, who used to send his toy around the lake to annoy or amuse (depending on who you talked to) the fishermen.

I doubt the "bombs" fell within 30 yards of the warship, but if serious RC hobbyists were able to do this that long ago, I've no doubt that they're capable of a LOT more today. With today's computer control systems, mass-marketed RC gear which is FAR more capable will soon be available to the mass market - you won't have to be a serious hobbyist anymore.

Expect fed.gov to attack this the way they did model rocketry a few years ago.

[230RN]

A.J. Dual:

Anyone see a reason it can't be mass produced in some Asian country for a unit cost of $100, and instead of wasting weight on a camera, carry a 1/4lb block of C4 or Semtex instead?

 

Much of a thread on THR-US dealt with something similar to this back in early October.  The notion there was RC "model airplane" munitons to substitute for small artillery such as mortars. 

Sample:

http://thehighroad.us/showpost.php?p=5302447&postcount=34

That was my post, but much of the thread itself examined those possibilities including countermeasures, payload capacity, and costs. Note I give credit to ClayInTX, another poster there, for the original idea.

Page 1 of the original thread on thehighroad.us, if you're interested --see Post 7:

http://thehighroad.us/showthread.php?t=420658

Terry, 230RN

[Harold Tuttle]

http://ardrone.parrot.com/parrot-ar-drone/usa/


Live video feed on your iPhone screen

Get inside the cockpit of your AR.Drone! Even meters away, keep control with your video remote thanks to a Wi-Fi connection. Two cameras are embedded, one on the front and one underneath facing the ground.

The switch between both cameras is very easy thanks to the button integrated in the application running on the iPod Touch®/iPhone®.

[HankB]

Hmmmm . . . Mexican druggie launches a cargo UAV from one from the mountains 10 km south of the border and sends it north, his accomplice in South Texas or Arizona picks up the signal and assumes control . . . small craft, low radar cross section . . . not much chance of getting caught until the UAV lands.

What's a typical payload, and how much is that much coke or heroin worth?

[Harold Tuttle]

A buddy was on a team that built and flew a model aircraft across the Atlantic under GPS control

carrying weight is always an issue, maybe you could build an ROV zeppelin