Fly An R/C Plane With an iPhone

An anonymous reader writes "Ever wished your iPhone could do more than just play some cool games? How about using it as a spread spectrum transmitter to fly your R/C Toys around, complete with using a Linksys router as a receiver?"

Comments

I'll stick to my r/c radio, thanks

[syousef]

Those of you that don't fly should know that even minor glitches can lead to the total loss of your plane. If you do it right - get a simulator, get some training with an instructor, learn to build planes correctly - you minimize your losses but exceedingly few r/c pilots have never lost a plane. (I've lost one in 4 years or so of flying but I don't fly anywhere near as much as I'd like). You can think about where you want to put your plane but you have to get to the point where you can instinctively move the controls to do any maneuver you think of in under a second. If you can't it's called getting "behind the plane" which is bad (ie your thinking and planning to move your plane needs to be ahead). It's not rocket science but it's probably comparable to learning to ride a bike or ski or surf for the first time only if you get it slightly wrong your plane is history.

The last thing you want to do is risk your plane with an unreliable hack on the plane (or flight surfaces, or anything holding the plane together). It could cost you hundreds of bucks, days of work, and if your plane is gas powered or heavier than a few hundred grams it could hurt someone. (Fatalities are rare with smaller planes but not unheard of).

Also depending on where you live controlling your r/c plane with a radio that isn't designed and certified for it might not be legal even though the part of the spectrum you're using may be free to use (eg. 2.4GHz).

Frankly I haven't even gone to 2.4GHz. I know from having other devices on those frequencies that it's a noisy part of the spectrum. At the moment it's still quite new tech which is cool but I don't fully trust it yet for anything critical.

Re:I'll stick to my r/c radio, thanks

[Guysmiley777]

From experience, landing an R/C plane is a lot harder than landing a real light aircraft. You rely on your peripheral vision a LOT in a real plane, you don't get the same innate sense of sink rate when looking up at an R/C plane.

Why not turn it into a UAV?

[Plazmid]

Why not put the iphone on the helicopter and use it to control it. Use the accelerometer data to stabilize the helicopter, the wifi geolocation ability to figure out where it is(for the most part...), and the camera to avoid obstacles using some sort of optic flow algorithm. Maybe even use google maps imagery to figure out where it is even better.

Re:Why not turn it into a UAV?

[CompMD]

Because that stuff is really, really hard. I am an aerospace engineer and a pilot. Helicopter controls are HARD. GPS is great, but only accurate to a few feet at best, wifi RSSI measurement and triangulation is atrocious...how do you hover if you don't know where you are? You need a full 6DOF model of the helicopter, 3-axis magnetometers, 3-axis acclerometers, and Kalman filtering to assist with GPS. Photogrammetric navigation is also not trivial and is the stuff of graduate engineering research projects. For obstacle avoidance on a small helicopter UAV, sonar and lidar are what you need. Obstacle avoidance and automated landing are similarly difficult tasks. Use a gumstix or PC104 computer, it will do this kind of work, and be easier to program than an iphone.

Ever wished...

[caitsith01]

Ever wished that every tech website and commercial orgnisation didn't assume that you are an Apple drone with an iphone? I refer to the summary, which uses the phrase:

your iPhone

Hey! I have an iphone? I didn't know. Could you send it to me? Thanks!

I have a perfectly good mobile phone which works well with platform independent software and includes accelerometers, touch sensitivity and other amazing innovations. Yet my phone and my custom are of no interest to the majority of tech websites or businesses.

Similarly, it pisses me off that 90% of music docks are ipod-only, rather than being compatible with something crazy like a standard mini-jack.

Cue moderation to -1000, mild criticism of something tangentially connected to Apple.

Re:Ever wished...

[geekboy642]

Guess why your (not an i-)phone doesn't get featured on the front page of slashdot?
YOU'RE NOT FLYING A FUCKING HELICOPTER WITH YOUR PHONE.