Air Dog - auto follow quad copter

Thanks matm. This is brilliant product potentially isn't it? Completely removes the need to learn to fly the copter - perfect for me

It's a summer 2015 toy, not 2014 , alas.

I think ordering one early maybe gives you first mover disadvantage. You gotta believe these things will just get better and better after the first few hundred are sold, and the concept evolves. When I bought my dji phantom, they brought out better ones within a couple of months. Mind you I soon solved that problem by smashing and sinking mine

This Airdog will need a mode, for use on boats by folks who cannot fly it (as is the intention), where you can press a button and it lands 2 metres to the south (or whatever) of the air leash. It's no good if it lands at the take off location. I hope they include that feature

Thanks for the info
 
matm said:
Wonder if it swims? Solves the problem of learning to fly it to follow the boat!

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/airdog/airdog-worlds-first-auto-follow-action-sports-dron

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=IcEnThx2440
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Really like the idea of the Air Dog. :cool:

The development and production costs are gonna be high tho.
I think this needed military support otherwise, it's going to be an expensive toy. I'm pretty sure the landing location/proximity will be no problem at all when the time comes. Almost certainly a set up parameter in the phone App. :encouragement:

Looking forward to seeing it later.

RR
 
I agree, looks brilliant for the novice pilot. Wondering whether or not they'd code the recover mode in you suggest. They seem to be quite willing to look at new flight modes. I'll ping them and see what happens.

There's so much choice out there at the moment. Seriously considering a DJI Phantom Vision 2 with motorized gimbal etc and FPV. I guess it's just like any tech industry, you go with the best at the time (that's affordable) in the knowledge it will be superseded quite quickly.
 
jfm said:
Thanks matm. This is brilliant product potentially isn't it? Completely removes the need to learn to fly the copter - perfect for me

It's a summer 2015 toy, not 2014 , alas.

I think ordering one early maybe gives you first mover disadvantage. You gotta believe these things will just get better and better after the first few hundred are sold, and the concept evolves. When I bought my dji phantom, they brought out better ones within a couple of months. Mind you I soon solved that problem by smashing and sinking mine

This Airdog will need a mode, for use on boats by folks who cannot fly it (as is the intention), where you can press a button and it lands 2 metres to the south (or whatever) of the air leash. It's no good if it lands at the take off location. I hope they include that feature

Thanks for the info
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Did you get any video before you crashed? Or of the crash........?
 
longjohnsilver said:
Did you get any video before you crashed? Or of the crash........?
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Yep. This is the first crash - it had an autopilot fault and I had to download new software. It survived, but the next day it had another crash and landed in the sea with a fully charged LiPo and set itself on fire. I have video but haven't edited it yet. The camera was running on the seabed as smoke was pouring out of the copter. Will edit and youtube it sometime - it's quite funny

Anyone buying one of these - they aren't dead easy to fly. You need to practise quite a bit in a park or something. Don't take it to the seaside on your first ever go :-)

 
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matm said:
Seriously considering a DJI Phantom Vision 2 with motorized gimbal etc and FPV. I guess it's just like any tech industry, you go with the best at the time (that's affordable) in the knowledge it will be superseded quite quickly.
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matm, they're nice things but what I'd warn you about is that they take some practice to fly well. I was time-poor with mine so I clipped the camera on and took it to the marina for my first couple of flights and basically trashed the thing,. You need to invest a few hours practising with it at a big park or football pitch, so you can make a few mistakes. I didn't have time for that and paid the price. That's why I'm so interested in these AutoDog things that fly themselves
 
I imagine the price will be eye-watering.

It'll need GPS in the remote control transmitter as well as the quad, and it'll have to transmit the controller location to the quad, as well as from quad to controller.

The one innovation I'd like to see, is the ability of the quad to be able to right itself following a crash, into a position such that it can get airborne again without manual intervention. At least the ability to land and take off inverted would be nice.

I must have spent a hundred hours flying my little Syma X1 around the nearby football pitch, and I'm only just becoming a skilled pilot. I've lost count of the number of crashes. I've bent rotor blades; cracked motor pods off the mounts, split cowlings, I've had pcb screws fall out and bounce around inside causing the thing to fall out of the sky. When I can class myself as properly skilled, I'll buy something more expensive.
 
Thanks John, I shouldn't have laughed, but that was funny. Please post the final crash when you have time. Presumably you recovered the camera from the seabed?
 
I was at the isle wight festival this weekend and spied above the trees one early evening a quad copter looking at the main stage. Looked as if it was coming from free loaders bay. Anyone from here?
 
petem said:
HEXO+ is a similar gadget also getting good support on Kickstarter.
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Yep - second link on my post above.

Anyhoo, not sure these follow me things are the silver bullet. I've got limited attention span as it is and after one successful test flight in the garden, I'm sure I'd drown the thing on its next outing at the marina whatever the technology.

REALLY want so see the second video please JFM, I still watch the first one regularly to remind me not to buy one just yet!
 
matm said:
Yep - second link on my post above.

Anyhoo, not sure these follow me things are the silver bullet. I've got limited attention span as it is and after one successful test flight in the garden, I'm sure I'd drown the thing on its next outing at the marina whatever the technology.

REALLY want so see the second video please JFM, I still watch the first one regularly to remind me not to buy one just yet!
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I sort of am hoping they are the silver bullet. I do not have time to learn to fly a copter myself, but would love to own the sort of footage you see the experts take, eg michaf's on this forum

So the only solutions are to hire a guy to come and do it, which is fine but not spontaneous, or get something AirDoggish. I'm really hoping Airdog does what it promises, therefore. (Incidentally I've never know a dog follow - they drag me along stretching their leads, buts let's not worry about that)

I'll try to sort out that other footage where the dji Phantom died and get it onto youtube. It is quite funny and others have reminded me I need to upload it.
 
jfm said:
Yep. This is the first crash - it had an autopilot fault and I had to download new software. It survived, but the next day it had another crash and landed in the sea with a fully charged LiPo and set itself on fire. I have video but haven't edited it yet. The camera was running on the seabed as smoke was pouring out of the copter. Will edit and youtube it sometime - it's quite funny

Anyone buying one of these - they aren't dead easy to fly. You need to practise quite a bit in a park or something. Don't take it to the seaside on your first ever go :-)
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Hmmm. Bought a Phantom Vision. After two trial flights I thought I could fly it. On it's third, I drowned it in Beaucette Marina. Just bought another (Vision 2 Plus). Now I'll take jfm's advice and practice and practice some more.
 
Can I share a short video I took last weekend of the Solitaire du Figaro yachts when they stopped over in Plymouth..

 
Very nice vid.

Pro-flying takes some real skill.

This is one of the guys in the Caribbean recently. My bro was on the V70 "Monster Project".

http://player.vimeo.com/video/88720486


Air Dog are up to $380k now and I've asked the question:


Hey Helico,

Congratulations on "launching" an interesting opportunity. My understanding is that Quads are notoriously difficult to fly in certain circumstances esp sports etc. I'm therefore assuming you're after the people, like me, that don't have the time to learn to fly these things properly but can understand what they want, GPS, altitude, distance from target etc?

So - question. Boating. I have a motor boat in the UK that will will do c. 30-32kn. My requirement is to launch the airdog off the back of a boat at a low speed, film some decent video given constant speed, a few turns etc.

Here's the catch, I'd like to then recover it, when I want (or battery) at low altitude etc. I'm sure it can't swim but go back to my original point of being easy to fly - YouTube is full of people expertly flying quads over yacht races and then employing someone in a bikini to recover it.

I can get the bikini - just not the skills to fly it in the first place.

Please help!

Thanks

Mat :-)
 
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Got this back, haven't had time to digest, prob a bit auto-response:

Helico Aerospace Industries US LLC says:
Hi Mat,
Thank you for your interest in AirDog!
- AirLeash range from AirDog up to 1000 feet (300m).
- AirLeash uses high precision GPS.
- There are six different Follow modes that you can configure and control with your AirLeash and smartphone app.
One of them is Auto-follow mode.
AirDog in Auto-follow mode will follow your boat repeating exactly your movement trajectory while maintaining its position in preset distance and altitude from you. It will follow you at speeds up to 40 mph (35kn.).
- Takeoff and landing is completely autonomous
- We’ve worked hard to implement many safety features. One such feature is battery monitoring. We use an intelligent dynamic battery monitoring system that actively monitors electricity consumption and battery capacity under particular conditions. The monitoring system calculates how much time AirDog has remaining in order to continue flying or to return to the takeoff spot. The AirLeash display begins warning you when AirDog has reached 30% battery capacity. Additionally, the AirLeash provides a warning to when you should stop your run in order to allow AirDog to complete safe landing. If you are operating with remote takeoff and landing settings, AirDog will fly back to the takeoff spot and land automatically.
- Landing is guided by AirLeash, so basically you are able to point AirDog to the landing place.
- You can press "pause" button on tracker and it will hover in one spot. Then reduce altitude to level where you can reach it and drive your boat to that place and catch it by hand.
Feel free to ask any other questions you might have and we hope to see you among our supporters soon!
Sincerely,
AirDog Team
 
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