With the help of the Swinglet CAM you can create your very own local aerial map a la Google Maps, or monitor wildlife distribution in a given area, or maybe just get a feel for what’s going on in the neighborhood. The small, unmanned aerial vehicle can take off and land on its own and its integrated camera will snap high resolution images along a predetermined flightpath or as directed by remote control.
Swiss sensor manufacturer senseFly sees the Swinglet CAM high resolution aerial photography drone being useful for such things as traffic monitoring, security applications, mapping, crop monitoring and wildlife watching. It comes packed in a suitably-sized case, has a wingspan of 80cm (31.4 inches) and weighs 500g (17.6 ounces). Its Li-polymer battery will power the UAV for 30 minutes which is said to give it an operational range of up to 20km (12.4 miles) and a top speed of 30-50kph (up to 30mph).
Unfortunately, the price of USD 10,600 (not including laptop and other accessories and freight) is a little hard to take.
Too expensive, too little air time. goes to my own interests, but I’d like to see a small as possible, transparent as possible, dirigible. Fly it to the area of interest and then turn off the motor. Let it drift for hours over the target terrain undetectable from the ground.
I know, not expensive enough.
I want one.
Yer not gonna be able to use it in the city. Just wait til you bring down a news copter.
#2 – John, you should get a few and have them constantly circling Adam Curry’s house – it’ll drive him nuts. (I mean, more nuts.)
So how long before Al-Qaeda buys a couple dozen and starts strapping explosives to them?
I say we fly this around Alex Jones…it will totally freak him out.
I want one, too.
First off, the company that sells them says on their website that the buyer/user must first get FFA approval before attempting to launch the thing. If even a few people actually do buy and fly them here in the U.S., watch for Dept. of Homeland Security to ban them for security/terrorism risk reasons.
“Unfortunately, the price of USD 10,600 (not including laptop and other accessories and freight) is a little hard to take.”
Not for homeland security. They got LOTS of OUR money to spend on toys like this.
Completely illegal in the US by the Federal Air Regulations.
Thou shall not fly an autonomous air vehicle in the National Airspace System without a Certificate of Waiver or Authorization, or a Special Airworthiness Certificate – Experimental Catagory.
You ain’t gettin one.
Every police agency in the country will be lining up to get one.
If (when?) they go bust, I would love for them to open-source the schematics and firmware.
Completely illegal? Are you joking?
So is torture. So is holding people without trial for a decade. So is lightning war on foreign country without provocation (Mission Accomplished). So is President conducting war on Pakistan without declaration of war by Congress. So are a lot of things done by US government in violation of the Constitution.
Government is the omnipresent teacher. Crime is contagious. For good or ill it teaches the whole people by its example. Crime is contagious. If the government becomes a law breaker, it breeds contempt for the law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy.
I wonder if there are thousands of RC plane freaks breaking the law?
Much cheaper to do it yourself. My brother strapped a video camera onto to one of his rc planes. He was going pretty good until midair the plane buckled under the stress.
# 12 What a high horse you ride, it does not hurt when you fall off?
#1 I don’t know how much air time the plane has and in a way it doesn’t matter because of its other limitations.
The real issue to me is this thing flies a fixed route and takes pictures at given locations you can composite. You only get still pictures and only after the plane has landed. This may be adequate for archeology or the local zoning board but it isn’t going to work for keeping a location under surveillance.
If the plane was pale blue it would be much harder to see. Using a dazzle pattern of light blue and blue gray might be even harder to see.
Transparent sounds good but it can be refractive and might show up worse if you aren’t careful about making it kind of translucent with a tiny texture.
You will need to run an engine even with a blimp or the wind will carry it away on the other hand solar panels could provide much of the power.
Just attach a 808 camera to a R/C plane, amazing good video’s from it AND cheap to do
More likely it will be used by real estate developers, to show more up to date aerial shots of their recently developed housing. That site like Google Maps and Mapquest don’t for six months to a year (or more).
I believe I also read somewhere that local governments wanted to use these cam drones to spot swimming pools, that weren’t yet assessed, for taxing purposes.