I had this crazy idea to use an iPhone to transmit video back to a PC, ideally using the cellular network. At the same time, manual control data could be transmitted to the helicopter for input the UAV dev board that Bill and John are working on. This would provide a means of manual as well as automatic navigation all done from a PC that has a simple Internet connection.

A block diagram of how I envision the whole thing working is posted here.

Per Bill's suggestion, during development the cellular subsystem and Internet units should be replaced with a direct 802.11 connection, which an iPhone supports, to ensure fast response to manual control. If we get it all working with 802.11 it shouldn't be too much work to switch to using the cellular network instead.

I'm going to first start on a proof of concept by getting my simulator controller hooked up to a PC application that can accurately read input from it's 4 channels.

Bill and John are continuing to work on a vibration problem that causes a heli to become unstable under power. Once those issues are worked out and we know the best board to use we can work on iPhone integration.

Hopefully others will take interest in this portion of the project!

Justin