Drone Recovery

[Scijohn23]

This is for those of you with big boy UAV’s. Has anyone considered or tried sending a light cell phone up with your uav? I could see 2 benefits to this. One, you could fashion a custom gimbal for the phone to live steam and observe the flight from a tablet or other connected device. Two, should the unfortunate happen and you loose control or the uav crashes, you could use something like AT&T family map to locate it quickly. Obviously you have to be in cell range, but with good coverage nowadays and affordable phones I would see this as viable.

 

[AeroJ]

Don't wanna rain on your parade, but I suspect there are valid reasons why this isn't tried more. Firstly, most existing recovery / tracking devices are lighter, smaller and considerably cheaper than a mobile phone, and obviously we want to be putting up the least weight and cost possible, especially when we are talking about any payload the craft is not designed to support. Secondly, the quality of any footage you'd get from the phone would be limited to one fixed view, and very inferior unless you had found a way to entirely isolate it from the mechanical vibrations produced from a craft in flight.

 

[Scijohn23]

I’m in agreement on going up with the least amount of weight possible. I was under the impression a larger craft wouldn’t have a lot of vibration. I was only thinking of possibilities since I saw a few videos of idiots lifting ridiculous things, to include live animals with their expensive UAV’s/“- toys in their case. I’m looking to purchase the q500 myself. As far as fixed view, I would have it looking straight down. I know the q probably wouldn’t carry a phone but something capable of a 3 mile light range might. Think something small like a Sony Xperia or Samsung mini.

 

[AH-1G]

There are tons of folks who have thought of this, kudos to them. Just be happy what you have!