Quads can now call home...

ArmyVet

ArmyVet

Well-Known Member
Haha but seriously.
"Cellular-connected drones arriving fast:

More than 13 percent of drones will support embedded SIMs and advanced cellular connectivity by 2022 globally, a new report has said. Cellular connectivity would help in remote identification, tracking flight path and supporting law standards defined by regulatory bodies globally. (gadgets.ndtv.com)"
 
Interesting I did hear a lot about 'remote-id' in discussions about quadcopter regulations with the FCC recently. 2022 is 4 years out (2022 sounds like a far future date to me), looks like can run the 'particle electron' on about 6W of power https://docs.particle.io/datasheets/electron-(cellular)/electron-datasheet/ so with 1.3A*4*3.7 ~= 20Wh flying for about 5 minutes will consume 5/60 * 6 = .5Wh leaving you with 19.5Wh to fly with so I guess not so bad.
 
Tentoes said:
Not sure they don't now. At least the ones with apps.
Click to expand...

I'm assuming that the idea is the ability to control and receive telemetry across the cell phone network. So theoretically you can control your quad in Florida from Montana.

Probably not for us mere mortals. Non 107.
 
ArmyVet said:
I'm assuming that the idea is the ability to control and receive telemetry across the cell phone network. So theoretically you can control your quad in Florida from Montana.

Probably not for us mere mortals. Non 107.
Click to expand...
I hadn't thought about the remote control option but definitely doable with that microcontroller board, from what I heard was mostly about being able to locate and id the craft.
 
Maybe they should reserve a little battery power and after they crash, should wake up every hour or so and send you a text message with their gps location.
 
ArmyVet said:
Haha but seriously.
"Cellular-connected drones arriving fast:

More than 13 percent of drones will support embedded SIMs and advanced cellular connectivity by 2022 globally, a new report has said. Cellular connectivity would help in remote identification, tracking flight path and supporting law standards defined by regulatory bodies globally. (gadgets.ndtv.com)"
Click to expand...

Cellular? It must have something to deal with the Network i thinko_O
 
Tentoes said:
Maybe they should reserve a little battery power and after they crash, should wake up every hour or so and send you a text message with their gps location.
Click to expand...
This would be nice to have even just GPS data being reported back over text periodically but would require adding a GPS module to my build. Other down side I see here is when I crash there's a good chance I tossed the battery so would probably be good if it had its own independent power and all (suppose I could just strap an old android phone to it minus the screen :) )

My original Android MyTouch 3G was pretty tiny so might not be too bad weight wise especially if I strip it down to the main board itself and leave out any extra components.
 
Then there is this................

celluar-drone-nttdocomo-featured-image.jpg
 
ArmyVet said:
Then there is this................

celluar-drone-nttdocomo-featured-image.jpg
Click to expand...


Imagine the 30 miles thing is just the limit of the battery power so long as there is a tower within 8 miles (that's how far they're spaced and how far cell signals can typically get from what I gather). Only issue I see with something like this is using it out in the country/away from where there is good cell coverage would be an issue. Looks like they did what I was thinking though with regard to just strapping a phone on there.

I may try to activate my old phone on ting or some other pay as you go cheap plan where I can just pay for texts and see if I can get this working.
 
wafflejock said:
Imagine the 30 miles thing is just the limit of the battery power so long as there is a tower within 8 miles (that's how far they're spaced and how far cell signals can typically get from what I gather). Only issue I see with something like this is using it out in the country/away from where there is good cell coverage would be an issue. Looks like they did what I was thinking though with regard to just strapping a phone on there.

I may try to activate my old phone on ting or some other pay as you go cheap plan where I can just pay for texts and see if I can get this working.
Click to expand...

Is this really existing now? or it is just a study under experiment?
 
Tentoes said:
I do electronics and have a "Particle Electron" here. It has a $2/month cellular data plan and a pretty powerful processor. Include THAT in a home built drone.
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Yah I've use the "photon" the wifi only board from particle.io but it's pretty reasonable too. I think some guys I work with were considering using it (the electron) for sending images from a sail boat to see how the water is before going down to the pier, but I think the data cost might have been prohibitive so that might be something to look out for. Given we just need control signals and GPS updates periodically and most of the processing could happen on board it probably wouldn't be too bad. I had forgotten about the issue with cell towers only working relatively low in the air but I imagine under 500 ft it isn't so bad (I've only skimmed the links from @ArmyVet so far though).
 
For years, I've wanted to build an ocean-going sailboat that sails autonomously toward some GPS coordinate and regularly updates some web site with it's progress. Since I know next-to-nothing about boats and lived in Illinois, I never pursued it. I saw a few years ago that somebody had, but in day 2, the rudder broke and they had to go out and rescue it.

Punishment: The soundtrack for the killer whale movie was orcastrated.
 
natnatroswell22 said:
Oww thank you for this links but i was wondering how the data process in this situation and what will be the effect when signal is in traffic.
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No idea what you are asking here. The 'data process' for a cell signal is the same regardless. You would be using a higher level protocol for sending/receiving data such as TCP which will have checksums and allows the client to rerequest any packets it didn't receive (it gets a sequence number and uses a 'sliding window' buffer to keep track of what data in the stream has come in). Regarding 'signal in traffic' I imagine you are referring to interference but since the signals are digital and have error checking/parity bits it can be fairly clean of any sort of noise though it may be delayed as packets aren't always routed along the fastest path and may need to deal with network congestion (needing to resend packets many times, but the details all depend on the particular tower you connect to and traffic going into it)
 
wafflejock said:
No idea what you are asking here. The 'data process' for a cell signal is the same regardless. You would be using a higher level protocol for sending/receiving data such as TCP which will have checksums and allows the client to rerequest any packets it didn't receive (it gets a sequence number and uses a 'sliding window' buffer to keep track of what data in the stream has come in). Regarding 'signal in traffic' I imagine you are referring to interference but since the signals are digital and have error checking/parity bits it can be fairly clean of any sort of noise though it may be delayed as packets aren't always routed along the fastest path and may need to deal with network congestion (needing to resend packets many times, but the details all depend on the particular tower you connect to and traffic going into it)
Click to expand...

So which means Cell language can be converted into Binary numbers? Just like the process of how network sends and receives data...
 
natnatroswell22 said:
So which means Cell language can be converted into Binary numbers? Just like the process of how network sends and receives data...
Click to expand...
Yah basically you're working with digital packets and when you read the data you're getting it in an already parsed fashion with the particle electron.

https://docs.particle.io/guide/getting-started/examples/electron/

Search that page for "Particle.function" that basically registers a web hook so when you make a web request to a particle API it triggers the C++ function on the particle board and passes it a complete string payload of what was sent to the web request. After you check the string coming into the function you can send the appropriate PWM signals or possibly use I2C or sbus or a serial connection to the FC (I'm not familiar with what FCs expect in terms of control signals for navigation but the electron is pretty versatile).
 
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