[dundee] peeking into other peoples backyard

[jamie]

Hi all,
	A few weeks ago chris /Kriss mentioned doing a project featuring a
remote piloted aircraft and some camera's. I had seen some thing in my
browsing on aeromodelling but could not say where. i have stumbled
across it again and whats more it is open source, hence not off topic.
try http://paparazzi.enac.fr/wiki/index.php/Tiny_v2 for the flight
controller. 
providing a down link was also seen as a problem but GPRS could be used
the modules (http://www.coolcomponents.co.uk/catalog/index.php) are a
bit pricey but give the range. Other posts indicate wifi gives 3-5km
range clear field and 900m+ built up. Using standard aerials proper
siting and more sensitive aerials would increase this markedly. The
autonomous nature of the control could be used to turn the plane if it
lost the signal anyway. Hardware has been opensourced as well and
includes camera control, it is available in kit form or built or
download the schematics, board layout and software(GPL) and roll your
own.