replacing Solo with Intel Aero development drone?

[PSprague]

Got two Solo, but after two weeks of trouble-shooting an ailing drone thinking of replacing them. My use case is forest survey.

Looking at Intel Aero development drone: RealSense - Intel® Aero Platform for UAVs | Intel® Software

• After tearing down Solo a number of times, want a drone that is built to be worked on
  
• Want/need all open source so I can tune the software for my needs
• Need to be able to mount assorted cameras that trigger off a PWM signal
• Prefer to be able to keep my current workflows that include Tower
  • It can be "upgraded" to ardupilot from PX4
    May be able to continue to use with PX4 Pro via Mavlink
• Need to be able to add & tune future image processing hardware/software I'm building

Been doing a bit more reading. Issues that have sprung up:

• Wonder about the range, Spektrum DXe is a close range economy controller [Step 28: Full Systems Check | learn.parallax.com]
• Likely have to upgrade to a longer range controller and on-board transceiver
  
• Because of the variety of terrain and canopy spacing, likely quad-copters are still my best option. Biggest limitation with any UAV is legal line of sight unless get exemption
  
• Using PX4 gives possibility to use advanced sensors like lidar

Thoughts, ideas, feedback

 

[pyrate]

I don't think the aero is flying pixhawk and not open source
could be wrong

 

[Maxheadspace]

Got two Solo, but after two weeks of trouble-shooting an ailing drone thinking of replacing them. My use case is forest survey.

Looking at Intel Aero development drone: RealSense - Intel® Aero Platform for UAVs | Intel® Software

An impressive looking drone; competitively priced comparable to a Phantom 4, and a beefy brain. Plus it comes with a Spektrum TX/RX package.

Although you're sort of comparing apples to oranges, in that the benefit of a Solo is that you get a very smart quadcopter for less than $300. And if yours is ailing, just buy two more Solos and you'll still be less than the Aero Platform.

The issue with the Solo for surveying/mapping is lack of GPS tagging. It may be the same for the Aero Platform, but not sure since it seems the camera is not included. As the GoPro 5 has geo tagging, you could probably fix that on either drone and get the tagged photos. Don't know about the PWM triggering, though.

If you are doing large tracts of forest surveying, you're probably better off going with a fixed wing.

 

[PSprague]

I don't think the aero is flying pixhawk and not open source
could be wrong

You are correct, uses its closed-source board with PX4 which is open-source. It can be changed to Ardupilot: Intel Aero RTF — Copter documentation

 

[PSprague]

• The issue with the Solo for surveying/mapping is lack of GPS tagging. It may be the same for the Aero Platform, but not sure since it seems the camera is not included. As the GoPro 5 has geo tagging, you could probably fix that on either drone and get the tagged photos. Don't know about the PWM triggering
  
  [*]If you are doing large tracts of forest surveying, you're probably better off going with a fixed wing.

Geotagging is built into the new MapIR cameras which I will be transitioning to. While a pain, I geotag during post-processing with present Survey2 cameras. Fly with 2 cameras that are synced/fired from PWM signal.

Fixed wing are great for fields, but have issues when down in the canopy flying off an old log landing. I see testing/using them in select circumstances.

 

[Maxheadspace]

Geotagging is built into the new MapIR cameras which I will be transitioning to. While a pain, I geotag during post-processing with present Survey2 cameras. Fly with 2 cameras that are synced/fired from PWM signal.

Fixed wing are great for fields, but have issues when down in the canopy flying off an old log landing. I see testing/using them in select circumstances.

I'm using a Survey2 as well, along with the post-processing geotagging. What new MapIR camera are you referring to? I just looked at their site and the Survey2 is still showing as their latest. Do you mean the Kernel array cameras that use external tagging?

 

[PSprague]

I'm using a Survey2 as well, along with the post-processing geotagging. What new MapIR camera are you referring to? I just looked at their site and the Survey2 is still showing as their latest. Do you mean the Kernel array cameras that use external tagging?

Yup

 

[madprofessor]

Mission planner (and others I believe) can geotag your images.

 

[Maxheadspace]

Mission planner (and others I believe) can geotag your images.

Yes. That is what most everyone does now. But it's more of a manual process.

 

[broody]

Aero is a drone meant to be "worked" and hacked on. The airframe is fully open sourced with mechanical CADs available for you to add/modify components. There is an onboard FPGA which can be configured to support multiple interfaces including PWM, I2C, ADC, & GPIO. The companion computer is a quadcore 2.5Ghz atom based processor with 32G flash, 4G ram so plenty of horsepower for post processing images.