Titan Antennas in near future for Yuneec RC's

[Dougcjohn]

Just a heads up of a product release for the Yuneec Radios.
I was speaking with one of the founders of Titan Antenna, CommandCase. They make several popular model control cases & amplified antenna in various Omni & Directional systems. They have a Yuneec ST16 RC and are developing a new amplified system focused on signal stability that will also improve distance.

I offered to send a spare ST24 and they were willing to examine & develop for both ST16 & ST24.

Inquired a timeframe to reach market, not a target date yet but looks like this year.

If you're looking for a antenna system (2.4 & 5.8) that can provide a much stronger signal for use in development areas with congested 2.4 & 5.8 routers & wireless, or structures that deflect signal, this might be worth a look.

What is very nice about their systems beyond the multiple options to configure are the the mounts. A mount fits the Radio and you can create the antenna structure by changing attachments. Use the same antenna system on multiple radios. Congested buildings, configure an Omni circular polarized, in the wide open country, configure a directional panel; Can't decide, configure both. In a small area, remove the amp and change different dbi Omni antennas for non-amplified.

Titan Drones, Inc.

 

[PatR]

That’s pretty good news. Perhaps you could talk them into looking into better external antennas for the CGO-4??? It’s something I’ve been thinking about.

 

[Dougcjohn]

That’s pretty good news. Perhaps you could talk them into looking into better external antennas for the CGO-4??? It’s something I’ve been thinking about.

That would be nice, although they didn’t seem to be too concerned for AC antenna, all their current offerings are RC and they’re getting more than double the distance before signal clipping. All a little Greek to me, I have the basics but certainly not a through understanding.

I did inquire about transmit vs receive and he stated all their amp systems amplify both transmit and receive signals, Their testing shows much stronger signal to the RC for both.

Their preliminary evaluation of the ST16 indicated the antenna transmission & reception were extremely poor and they were able to easily improve both the RC & Video in range, Omni stability around structures, pentatration through trees and distance for the guys that like to run strap packs and do extreme distance loops.

He provided much more detail and technical design where you understand but unable to disimulate. He sounded pretty excited, they examined all the current offerings which were non-amplified and most were narrow directional transmission that did little for the reception of receive signal. They have a circular polarized directional antenna that can achieve very stable signals well beyond VLOS, not meant to encourage FPV but to provide extreme reliable stable signal when flying by structures that get between RC & drone; power lines, etc.

 

[PatR]

It will be interesting to see how that all works out. If they work I'll be obtaining some. I don't pretend to understand how boosting antennas at the controller side will improve broadcast strength at the camera end. Then again, using amplifiers at a ground station directional antenna will provide extremely long range transmission and reception.

A little better range for the 920 would be a good thing, especially if video range was improved a little. As the 920 is a fairly large aircraft, maintaining LOS out to 2200'-2400' is not difficult to do as long as the video feed remains active. That's the only place I encounter any problems as mine at times experiences video "freezes" somewhere between 1200' and 1800' out. The aircraft remains responsive to control inputs but when the video freezes up on the -16 you lose a level of critical situational awareness. Perhaps that's due to the antenna locations on the CGO-4 as they exit the top of the camera and make contact with the gimbal mount plate in some camera positions. I'm considering obtaining another camera to determine if there's a way to re-orient the antennas and use short flexible dipoles exiting the bottom of the camera, similar to the antenna orientation on the 603. The only airframe restriction is antennas clearing the landing gear when the gear is down.