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The obvious distraction to drone flight control research - Aerial videography



So the notion of upgrading my already awesome (if I can say so myself) looking drone to aerial videography using a 3-axis gimbal has been bugging me for a while now. I mean, why not? At least that will get me to fly the drone alot more and use it for other purposes. The fact that I only need a gimbal and a landing gear (given that I already have the awesome Gopro hero 4 silver), should be providential enough to just spend the dollars required to make this happen.

But then one get's to think, why I am doing it for? I mean does my research of intelligent flight control ACTUALLY need aerial capability? One could argue that testing your software with a drone representative of an actual commercial drone could only enhance the validation/justification of the research. 

But the ultimate question is, how MUCH distraction will this capability introduce to the essence of what the doctoral research is trying to achieve? Will I gain more information given that I've got now not just flight log data but aerial footage? What kind of quality footage will it be if I'm doing aggressive maneuvers and system identification procedures. 

The one thing that I know will be beneficial is to record the rotor dynamics as the system identification process is done and how the intelligent controller takes that into account. But this does not require a gimbal as the camera will be positioned just about the rotor hub throughout the flight mission.

So whichever angles (and I'm sure there's many more) to look at it, the integration of gimbal and camera equipment on a drone used for flight control research is not aligned and could actually be called a distraction to the focus of the research and a potential enticement to flying the drone in undesirable conditions resulting in unforeseen and catastrophic crashes.

I'm sticking to my principle: Keeping it simple and keeping it focused.
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  1. Dubai Drone Videographer29 January 2021 at 05:42

    Nice post. I'm impressed by this blog. There is so much information about this topic. Thanks for sharing an amazing article like this. please keep posting. Dubai Aerial Videography

    ReplyDelete

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