Wireless Aerial Rig

Hi!

I am trying to send a rig up to the air via a kite (similar to Kite Aerial Photography), bout 60m - 100m. It will be equipped with a wireless camera to send back images/video back. The rig will have 2 modes: manual and auto targeting. The manual mode is whereby the servos will be controlled using the signals from a PS3 controller, while the auto mode will be via the OpenCV platform on my laptop to send signals to the rig to control the servos. All of these are achieved wirelessly.

  1. Are all these too much for the arduino to handle? I assume not since the arduino is only handling the wireless signals from the PS3 controller/OpenCV to control the servos?
  2. Are there any cheap wireless cameras that has a decent resolution/fps?
  3. What will be a suitable way to transmit wirelessly? Wifi/Zigbee? I'm ruling out Bluetooth cos I doubt even a class 1 will be able to transmit the distance required.

My first arduino project is similair, but just an altimeter, not a video link. I,ve got the principle working, although only tested at about 15-20 meters so far, and this is obviously sending far less data than a video link.

Texy

Hi,
I think most applications like this use a 2.4GHz camera and receiver, not too expensive.

Check out http://diydrones.com

For the Arduino link, maybe these would work: http://arduino-info.wikispaces.com/Nrf24L01-2.4GHz-HowTo

Thanks! I'll check the webbies out. :slight_smile:

Also if I were to require the servos to react fast (for eg. to adjust the camera so that it goes back aiming at the target asap), is this a software (C code) or a hardware (microcontroller/servo) issue?

Just realised it's probably a servo issue since different servos have different angle/second.

One more question, i am trying to control the servos via a playstation 3 controller that is connected to a laptop. Thus, the laptop will take the inputs from the ps3 controller and send them wirelessly to the arduino to control the servos. Is that possible?