Far too many drone companies have been involved in a journey that has been characterised by a short honeymoon. From an African standpoint, the journey was always delayed.  Most African drone companies have been involved in training initiatives , environmental initiatives and consumer journalism .  But the bulk of the drone development was performed in Asia , USA and Europe .   So it's no surprise that Venture capitalist invested mainly in Asian and American companies.  But given the recent reports and the foreclosure of big startups last year , the drone landscape has changed.  So a question needs to be asked, what would happen to up-coming drone manufacturing companies based in Africa? Below are three key aspects that we believe drone manufacturers need to take into consideration going to the next 3 to 5 years. Focus on Functionality One of the biggest elements when it comes to drone development is the ability to focus not just on the e...

Yeah that's right. Everywhere you go, including some intern projects at my company, quadcopter drones is the current trend. The marketing success is simple. It's a lot cheaper and less complex and than a comparable RC helicopter. They're virtually no mechanical moving parts (expect the platform itself). And it's perfectly suited for camera attachment. So hot combination has spawned the quacopter drone revolution. I've always been against following a trend just for the sake of it. But considering that I need perfect weather test fly my flight controller only makes sense to start modifying my code to accommodate for a quadcopter. The controls are pretty straightforward and the design is incredibly simple. Another design dev coming up!

So the game space has changed. The South Africa CAA ( SACAA ) has come out guns blazing drafting regulations regarding remotely Piloted Aircraft/System (RPA/RPS). One thing was clear, this massive chaos that growing in this country had to come to an end. Already, the general population of stakeholders in the civilian airspace have a very nonchalant attitude when it comes to safety and security. So the introduction of aviation regulations towards the growing market of drones is a much needed intervention.

So I've been battling to establish a simple method in mimicking rc control inputs during a sustained or coordinated turn of the aircraft. This is quite important as it's not the same as stabilizing controller which reacts to dynamic events while having a static reference. A coordinated turn has a dynamic reference which is coupled to the turn rate experienced which directly related to the speed and the roll command inputs. But since the turn rate of the aircraft can be extracted from the gyroscope measurements, it can be stated that post processing of these signals (using a low pass filter) should give an indication of whether such method can be used alongside a stabilizing controller. This is such that once a coordinated turn can be achieved even in adverse weather, waypoint tracking is closer to being realised. Amendment 15/1/2015: It was found after careful analysis of the flight dynamics of a simple aircraft that gyroscope measurements was not a fool-proof way of ...

So I had a brainwave the past two days in how to test various aspects of the autopilot modes without having to land and flash new software. It became very frustrating that for each morning, I had to land the aircraft 5-6 times and increase the risks crashing and even worse loosing the instrumentation on board the glider. This approach could potentially allow me to analyze various options of flight modes and optimize which one best suited for that function. The ultimate goal is of course, the speed at which each flight modes can tested. So I manage to devise a method that allows me to use a switching mechanism such that I can switch between each programmed flight modes by using transmitter only. The code was tested and seems to work just fine. Now it's just a matter of testing in flight.

Depicts a traditional PID controller. (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) I'm such an exciting right now. It's been over a year of putting this UAV glider with custom autopilot and electronics together and now we're at the pivotal stage. In-flight testing of autopilot and GPS waypoint tracking!! Decided to go for a flight test on Sunday morning before church (around 7am) eventhough I was performing the church band that morning (crazy I know). It was bitter cold but decided to push through. I must say that I realised that I need a small collapse table/stool to setup the instruments instead of the wet/moist ground. I was great to see that the transmitter code works as expected. There was no lag in the transmission of signals from transmitter -> autopilot -> servos. The turning of aircraft with rudder and elevator control was smooth and consistent. It was refreshing to see that the filtering algorithm worked well. Decided to test the roll autopilot first, this...

An aircraft separation incident between an unmanned aerial vehicle and crop duster highlights the challenges with having a diverse mix of aircraft operating in the same airspace. On 12 September 2013 the pilot of an Ayres S2R commenced aerial agricultural spraying operations on a property near Horsham, Victoria. At about the same time, the operator of a UAV, Sensefly eBee 178, arrived at ‘Iluka Echo’ (Echo) mine site to conduct an aerial photography survey of the site. After completing his pre-flight preparation and risk assessment of the operation, the operator heard an aircraft operating about 1 – 1.5 km away on a neighbouring property.