Functions

Aerial Robots are useful for a range of applications. They are your eyes in the sky! Below is a list of some popular applications:

Professional film and photography - Cinema, Promotional packages
Surveillance - Survey your crops, development projects, Life Saving, Search and Rescue
Sports - Surfing, Sailing, Motor X, Skiing, Horse Racing etc

Multi-rotor platforms are capable of many tasks including:

Altitude Hold (Built in to the MK Flight Controller)
GPS hold (With the use of MK GPS, MK Navi and MK 3Mag Compass)
Autonomous flight (With the use of MK GPS, MK Navi, MK 3Mag Compass, XBEE Telemetry)
3D Sports Flight
Object Tracking (Point of Interest)
Roll and Tilt compensating camera mounts

With Aerobot, The Sky's the Limit!

First Person View

First Person View/Video (FPV) allows you to see what your onboard camera sees. Like you are sitting in the cockpit.

To use FPV, you need an onboard camera. This can be a small security camera, or any other camera with "video-out".

We recommend the use of a small FPV camera, with high resolution, and high light compensation response. It is important to be aware of your cameras capabilities in high and low light. During early morning / late afternoon flights especially, it is easy to be blinded if your camera does not respond quickly to change of light.

Also needed is a transmitter for your camera. The transmitter sends the signal to the Receiver (Ground Station) which can in turn send a video signal to either a computer, TV, screen, lap-top or goggles.

One of the greatest benefits of FPV is lining up your ideal shot. You can see what your onboard camera sees which can reduce the time it takes to achieve the perfect shot.

FPV can also be used for a second camera operator. While the pilot is watching the Aerobot, the camera operator can wear the goggles and control the direction of the camera, allowing for manual object tracking.

The beauty of FPV, is that you do not lose orientation. No matter where the nose is facing, the controls are always the same, unlike third person view where controls are reversed if you are flying "nose-in".

First Person View can have its dangers. It is paramount all batteries are checked before attempting flight. If even one of your batteries (Flight, radio, transmitter, receiver, goggles/laptop) is low, you may lose sight and crash possibly causing damage to others, yourself or your Aerobot.

Always remember - FLY SAFE!

Autonomous Flight

Aerial Robots can be controlled either manually, or autonomously.

With the use of Mikrokopter's GPS, Navigational Control Board and Compass, your aerial robot is capable of achieving position hold. Used in conjunction with Altitude hold, your copter can sit stably in the air. This feature is useful for photographers, videographers and surveyors.

It is also possible for you to program your copter's flight path using GPS, Navi and Compass, XBEE Telemetry, MK Tool and GeoMapTool.de

In a nut shell, find your location on googlemaps using GeoMapTool, choose your flight path, and update to flight controller. When you select "come home" on your radio, your copter will come home flying through the waypoints as programmed. It is possible to edit how long your copter should stay at any particular way-point, as well as flight duration.

Mikrokopter have also released their Point of Interest firmware allowing the copter to focus on a specific object and maintain vision. Please see this video by Mikrokopter for a demonstration:

Holger Buss of Mikrokopter demonstrating Point of Interest Firmware

Holger Buss of Mikrokopter demonstrating Follow Me Firmware

This feature has a multitude of purposes.

It is important to be able to regain manual control when using autonomous flight in case of an error.

Never rely 100% on autonomous flight!

Camera Mounts

This mount has been designed by Kimberly Atwell of Photohigher NZ.

It fits the Droidworx airframe gear rail assembly directly - although it requires the Droidworx extended landing gear assembly for clearance from the ground.