Space-drone

A challenge to send an autonomous drone as high as possible

View project onGitHub

Welcome to The Space Drone Project

This is a competition between two friends to see who can

  1. Send a drone to the highest altitude
  2. Take the best photo in the process
  3. Land it as close as possible to their landing spot

Space Drone Project Summary

Why

Daniel and I are both geeks, who recently finished Graduate school in Nanotechnology. We also like crazy projects. I decided that taking a picutre from the edge of space would be cool, but it is a lot of work to get the picutres back. Inspired by a project we saw about sending a remote plane to the edge of space, Daniel and I decided we could do better.

We will send a drone to the edge of space, have it take photos, and then gracefully (hopefully), glide back to safety and deliver us the goods.

The Competition.

Judging

The competition is simple. I (Moe) live in Canada, Daniel lives in Switzerland. Therefore we both have to do this on our own. I think I am better at this than Daniel, so we are making it a bit of a competition. The goal is to see who can win on the most of three judging criteria:

  1. Highest Altitude (measured by GPS)
  2. Landing distance from our home (or desired mission control point)
  3. Best Photo (voted by an impartial group)

Prize

If Moe wins, Daniel has to go on a hike for two days without a shower. Daniel's prize remains to be determined.

How?

Altitude

We will be getting to altitude using a basic weather balloon. Helium, or hydrogen.

Drone

The drone will be ARDUINO based, using the Arduplane project as a basis.http://diydrones.com/profiles/blogs/ardupilot-mega-home-page.

Communication

All communication will be done through a Cheap-as-hell ANDROID phone. Therefore, once the drone reaches a high enough altitude, it will be in radio silence. While there is a communication link, the mission control will be able to wire directly into the ANDROID camera for live video, and GPS information.

Control

The GPS, gyroscope and communication will be conrolled by the ANDROID phone, while the drone motor GPIO and balloon detachment will be controlled by the ARDUINO. The two will be connected using the AMARINO toolkit.

Photos

The actual photo devices will be decided by each team.

Who?

Moe Adham (@moeadham) and Daniel Ferrari

When

Launches are planned for Summer 2013.

Support or Contact

Feel free to contact us using GitHub if you are interested. New entrants into the competition are welcome!