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Best Way To Build A DIY UAV?
Shojun writes "I am very interested in building my own UAV. Not just one that can fly around happily, but one that I can program to say, take photos every second as it does a barrel roll under a bus (ok, that part may be a pipe dream). I have enough embedded programming experience — it's the hardware which I'm uncertain about. I can go the kit way, and then build the remaining stuff, or get some Dollar Tree Foam boards and build it all. I'm in favor of ease, however. Once the plane is built, buying a dev board seems like a possibility, but I wonder whether it's overkill. Alternatively, if there was a How-to-build example on the net for such an activity that I could adapt, to the degree that I could then program in even completely hardcoded flight instructions, I can certainly take it from there. Thoughts? Has anyone here tried something like this before?"
I hope you have a few spare thousand dollars.
From your post you clearly know nothing about r/c aircraft. Learn to fly an r/c aircraft well without crashing. Go find a club and an instructor who'll teach you. Also get hold of a good simulator unless you want to spend thousands. That'll take you at least 6 months, probably closer to a year. (Longer if you don't have any aptitude for it). Flying r/c planes takes more practice and skill than you might think. It'll also cost more than you think. Once you have an appreciation for the difficulties of flying R/C you might stand half a chance programming one with a robotic interface. You'll also want to be able to take over manually from time to time when you're programming the thing so if you get something slightly wrong you've got some chance of saving it.
You could also learn about the robotics more simply with an r/c car. R/c cars can move slowly without any risk of falling out of the sky. Some of what you learn will translate to air, other parts won't.
If you want something off the shelf, I did read about robotised r/c helicopters for commercial applications like security but I think they cost in the 10's of thousands. I think you STILL need to know how to take over manually.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
Best to make sure you won't get shot down/at.
The Feds? No. Even the Feds don't have the power to stop a populace from flying their UAVs. Shooting down a model plane is more dangerous than the plane itself, so I don't see it becoming practice. What you are going to see is laws prohibiting *ownership* of UAVs and parts to build them. Most likely, these will come under the blanket of anti-terrorism laws.
Just callin' it like I see it.