4 ms·

> I'm not sure the stuff shown on the Lily video where you track a presumably radio transmitter from a small device is actually a thing that exists. There are

by GVIrish 10y ago

> I'm not sure the stuff shown on the Lily video where you track a presumably radio transmitter from a small device is actually a thing that exists. There are a couple of companies with a camera tracking system like this, Soloshot is one I've seen in the press a couple of times: https://shop.soloshot.com/ https://shop.soloshot.com/ That said, it looks like they're not shipping the second version anymore and are taking preorder money for the 3rd version so this company could be under duress as well. But the tech exists and is at least somwhat commercially viable.

tim333 10y ago
Ta. The soloshot seems to be a tracker and camera both have gps receivers solution. The tracker has to sit with a view of the sky for 8 mins presumably acquiring sattelites https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OBtTwWtlYO4&feature=youtu.be&t=20s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OBtTwWtlYO4&feature=youtu.be... Also it seems to just rotate a camera tripod mount and so doesn't have the altitude problem. Having mucked about with gps the lat and long are fairly accurate - typically off by 10m whereas gps altitude is often off by 200m which is easily enough to send your drone into the ground. I guess if it did differential timing between the two gps's that could work or they could measure ground altitude some other way. Dunno if Lily cracked that. Conventional aircraft in fog use barometric altimeters corrected for weather conditions. And that's only accurate to ~100ft. I didn't quite crack the finding kids in a shop problem. Satellite gps wouldn't do it but I was thinking maybe ultrasonics - radio signal makes the tracker beep then you could use loudness / timing to a few microphones a few inches apart like human hearing locating sounds. Not sure if anyone's built something like that. Update: Googling, it seems cheapish full differential gps is becoming available from Reach gps http://www.directionsmag.com/entry/finally-affordable-high-precision-gps-for-drones/470208 http://www.directionsmag.com/entry/finally-affordable-high-p... and has been used in a one off island mapping with a fixed base station http://gpsworld.com/l1-receiver-uav-help-discreet-survey-of-private-island/ http://gpsworld.com/l1-receiver-uav-help-discreet-survey-of-... dunno if that sort of thing has been got working in a Lily type setup though. And it's still $600+
- joshu 10y ago
  You cannot use gps alone. You use gps + IMU + a Kalman filter for fusion. But this is a great deal better.

by GVIrish 10y ago

tim333 10y ago

Ta. The soloshot seems to be a tracker and camera both have gps receivers solution. The tracker has to sit with a view of the sky for 8 mins presumably acquiring sattelites https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OBtTwWtlYO4&feature=youtu.be&t=20s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OBtTwWtlYO4&feature=youtu.be... Also it seems to just rotate a camera tripod mount and so doesn't have the altitude problem. Having mucked about with gps the lat and long are fairly accurate - typically off by 10m whereas gps altitude is often off by 200m which is easily enough to send your drone into the ground. I guess if it did differential timing between the two gps's that could work or they could measure ground altitude some other way. Dunno if Lily cracked that. Conventional aircraft in fog use barometric altimeters corrected for weather conditions. And that's only accurate to ~100ft. I didn't quite crack the finding kids in a shop problem. Satellite gps wouldn't do it but I was thinking maybe ultrasonics - radio signal makes the tracker beep then you could use loudness / timing to a few microphones a few inches apart like human hearing locating sounds. Not sure if anyone's built something like that. Update: Googling, it seems cheapish full differential gps is becoming available from Reach gps http://www.directionsmag.com/entry/finally-affordable-high-precision-gps-for-drones/470208 http://www.directionsmag.com/entry/finally-affordable-high-p... and has been used in a one off island mapping with a fixed base station http://gpsworld.com/l1-receiver-uav-help-discreet-survey-of-private-island/ http://gpsworld.com/l1-receiver-uav-help-discreet-survey-of-... dunno if that sort of thing has been got working in a Lily type setup though. And it's still $600+

joshu 10y ago
You cannot use gps alone. You use gps + IMU + a Kalman filter for fusion. But this is a great deal better.