DVF vs FPV

Hi all,
I received some mails asking me to explain better the differences between the flying techiniques I mentioned in the previous post.
I think that the two videos you can see below are better than too many words to describe this topic. The clips were registered durig our last aerial archaeological project, thanks to the help of Walter Morelli (the pilot).
 
In this movie it is possible to see the normal way to fly with a quadcopter (Direct Visual Flight). The pilot simply uses the radio-command looking directly the drone, correcting the flight from his point of view. It is the basic flying techniques, but it can be difficoult when the UAV is far away from the pilot. In fact, in this situation, it is not simple to understand where is the front or the back of the drone.

In this other (very) short movie we can see the FPV technique (First Person View), in which the pilot, thanks to special glasses, has the same point of view of the drone. This way to fly is optimal when a low-altitude flight is not enought and it is necessary to send the drone far away from the pilot.   

I hope it was useful. Bye

UAVP (Universal Aerial Video Platform)

In 2006, during the Aramus Excavations and Field School, we had the possibility to partecipate in a subproject regarding the remote sensing of Aramus hill. The project was leaded by Ing. Klaus Kerkow with the help of Christine Hanisch. Luckily on that occasion there was the support of Armenian Ministery of Defence and of the Armenian Air Force, which provided an helicopter (as you can see in the picture), but, of course, this was an extraordinary situation.

The helicopter provided by Armenian Air Force

Since that year we tried to find a system to get remote sensing informations without the need of expensive or difficoult solutions (like helicopters or ultralight aircrafts). In 2008 we started a preliminary research which ended with the construction of an UAVP (Universal Aerial Video Platform), an open source UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle). In the video below you can see the first flying test of our prototype (thanks to Wolfgang Mahringer, the main developer of UAVP project, who helped us in building our drone).

A DIY endoscope for emergencies during excavation fieldwork

It happens somethime when we are digging: suddently an empty space appeasr under our feets. Normally it is just a small hole, but in some cases it is something bigger (and can be dangerous, expecially if buldozzers or other machines are around). In this video we show how we faced such a situation during an excavation inside a church. Using some material we had in the field (a broomstick, some adesive tape, a led flashlight and a wireless camera with a monitor from the remote sensing device of our UAVP), we build a DIY endoscope to check the underground situation. The interesting thing (IMHO) is the possibility to recombine open hardware components (from the UAVP) in a similar way to open source software.