Hello, folks.

I'm wondering what's the state of 4G/5G as a way to control the UAV and to download video feed in long-rage flights around urban areas. Is the latency too big? I've seen some people using it at a small extent, but I wonder what are the good points and drawbacks. I'm planing to build a long-range UAV setup, but I'm still in the drawing board.

So I'm curious to read what you guys have to say.

Interesting... Do you have an example of it in use?

Laws aside, I don't see why a cellular radio couldn't be used contol/update an autonomous craft. I would think latency would be too high for real time control... but I don't really understand what the link(s) would look like exactly. Hmm.

(02-Apr-2024, 10:04 PM)drumgod Wrote: Interesting... Do you have an example of it in use?

Laws aside, I don't see why a cellular radio couldn't be used contol/update an autonomous craft. I would think latency would be too high for real time control... but I don't really understand what the link(s) would look like exactly.  Hmm.

Yes, this is one of the videos I found: 

There are others, tho. YouTube can reveal a few.

Very cool. Okay... Here's the github page for the project the guy in the video used:

https://github.com/uavpal/disco4g

Reading...

Edited to add the video from the project page discussing the setup...

UAVPAL looks like a good sized project with a dozen or so people working on it. The "executive summary" seems to be that they reroute the normal wifi control protocols over a cellular connection. There's definitely latency but it's way better than I thought it was going to be. It looks like they've done a lot of work integrating their code (and an off-the-shelf USB modem) with the Parrot's factory hardware and software. Nice.

Edit: Ahh. I see what they're using ZeroTier for. They need the VPN addressing to make the client/sever connection... Sorta like if the two ends were still on a wifi network.

Thing is, latency isn't really an issue. You aren't going to use this setup to fly freestyle, it's more a LR type affair. So if it takes you a tenth of a second to issue a turn command or set a new set of coordinates, then that's fine. But you need to improve collision detection, maybe by using radar or optical systems, so the vehicle can actively avoid crashing into stuff without input.

I ended up ruling out any cellular tower based comms from my project, at least for now. The main reason was this statement from the Arducopter documentation:

Quote:Since most cellular coverage is directed to cover only 200-300 feet AGL, except in metropolitan areas with high rise buildings, flight (ArduPlane/ArduCopter) applications may experience coverage issues at higher vehicle altitudes.

If this is true (and shall be for my town, as we don't have many buildings larger than 15 stores), I might face some issues.

Instead, I've opted to try the Micoair 915MHz LR900-F. It's way cheaper than the most ready-to-use solutions I know of. It seems to be new on the market, but for the price I think it's worth a try.

@Pathfinder075 You're right, some sort of collision detection is a must. However, I think I'll leave my build without it for now. I'll try to use it with caution. Thank you!