Using Flying wings for aerial mapping
Hello forum,
First of all some background...
Having spent a good 2 years playing about with an Skywalker, Ursus and a Canon camera running CHDK, and designing my own uav, which actually flew recently ,I have come to the conclusion that flying wings may just be the best type of platform for short range aerial mapping tasks to create DEM, DSM models for GIS purposes.
The Skywalker was okay (but quite fragile, and now in pieces!), but I think it is too small to fit a roll gimbal on it. And I've found that if pictures are taken on a slight angle, it is very difficult to use software to tile them up nicely. this is my best effort, but far from perfect. The roads on the right do not line up as the camera must have been on a 45 degree angle when the picture was taken. (click for larger resolution) - It was taken using an ixus80 attached to an URSUS Airframe
Realizing that I need to use an airframe that can accommodate a stabilized roll gimbal, i started to design and build my own twin boom design. It took 6 months from initial design, to first test flight. It has a wingspan of 2.4m - AUW of 5kg, and a flight duration of around 30 minutes with 2 x 5000mah packs. However it needs a heck of a lot of room to take off and land, something i don't have in the areas i need to take photos.
Picture of twin boom plane...
What are peoples experiences with using flying wings for this reason? I have the following types of flying wings, and wondering which one is the best to begin with?
- jp-si 48" span Zagi
- Scaled up 60" span jp-si Zagi (hot wire cut by myself)
- x8 2m wing
I have been using the 60" wing to test the APM2 and 3dr radios. And was using the URSUS (now in pieces after a nasty crash!) as a test platform to practice with the Canon CHDK Kit.
Here's a few pictures of the wing and camera....(click images for larger version.)
My question is how straight forward do you think it is to fit a roll stabilized gimbal to any of the above airframes?
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Dwgsparky -
Hi Andy
My X5 wing has Turnigy TGY-113MG Digital metal gear servos and they work really well, fast and strong and cheap. (9$) over 20 flights with no issues other than they chatter a little like most digital servos. I really like the strong servo arms that come as standard with them.
I have total movent on my elevons of about 1 inch ? I only use it all after a bad case of pilot error!!
Good luck
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Permalink Reply by Valerio
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Hi Richard!
I follow your post for a long time. I want to build a UAV for aerial photography and after render DEM models.
So i see your result with various airplane but always you use free software for building image.
Have u never tried to build models using a pro service for example dronemapper.com or pix4d?
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Permalink Reply by Richard -
Hi Valerio, a friend of mine has processed some photos using Agisoft Photoscan, he had a trial license. However due to the cost of the processing software, I have not purchased anything yet. I am still in the r & d phase with regards to the aircraft and aquiring decent images. I will move on to post processing the images when I am happy with the aircraft and flightpaths....
r
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Permalink Reply by Andy -
I have read about the software solutions everyone is using on here to orthorectify and georeference their images. There is a free solution that is available called Optiks. Another low cost option is to get a home license for ArcGIS for $100/year. While they might take longer, you will have the ability to overlay other data on your imagery or use the elevation data collected from a point cloud to analyze. Just my two cents as a GIS guy.
Andy
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