Gyro controlled video via R/C plane

posted Nov 8th 2007 2:00pm by Will O'Brien
filed under: misc hacks, portable video hacks

[Mark] couldn’t resist sending this in, and I can see why. It turns out that this is made from off the shelf parts, but the functionality is awesome. The pilot wears a video headset – igoggles, etc, and has a gyro/accelerometer sensor mounted on it that outputs commands to the R/C transmitter. On the plane, a servo pan tilt camera matches position based on the viewers head motions. Just about all the components are listed in the credits at the end, but you can use any RF camera and a transmitter with enough channels to run the extra servos.

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Comments [21]

Reader Comments

That is quite possibly one of the coolest things that I have seen in quite some time. rather simple, but breathtaking.

Posted at 3:30 pm on Nov 8th, 2007 by Carl Trott

Here’s a Wikipedia article on FPV -
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Person_View

Posted at 4:14 pm on Nov 8th, 2007 by Five Fingers

Brilliant, but I wonder how long most users will last before the vestibular occular discontinuity causes severe motion sickness.

Posted at 4:36 pm on Nov 8th, 2007 by monopole

@ monopole
Depending on the altitude and speed it might be under the threshold of most people. That is to say that as the plane goes higher, the ground seems to move less, thus at a certain point, the sensation will be too low to cause discontinuity, and the less than desirable traits that follow.

Posted at 4:56 pm on Nov 8th, 2007 by Nick

I saw this like a year ago. I thought I saw it here.

Posted at 4:57 pm on Nov 8th, 2007 by eric

Mmmmm… Refried hacks

Posted at 5:37 pm on Nov 8th, 2007 by Jonathan

re-fried or not, that is coolest damn hack I’ve seen in a while, thanks for sharing!

Posted at 7:16 pm on Nov 8th, 2007 by justdiy

amazing. camera setup ideal for other projects.

Posted at 9:54 pm on Nov 8th, 2007 by jeff

I think that a great next step for this project would be to run the gyro input straight to the plane’s controls and just fix the camera to look straight ahead. When I had a rc plane, it just ran on throttle and rudder input, so this gyro should be able to fly basic rc planes at least

Posted at 10:11 pm on Nov 8th, 2007 by Felix Ferite

Absolutely great. With the dissapointing progess of VR these days, I think the logical replacement is immersive remote viewing. I’ve been working on a homebrew NVG/remote viewing setup based on the $25 HMD you posted a while back. It’s even simpler than this but it’s still a blast.

Posted at 3:19 am on Nov 9th, 2007 by Case

Darn if he could not do this in the US. Homeland Security would be all over his ass.

Posted at 7:32 am on Nov 9th, 2007 by unsupported

Wow, that is an excellent hack. Although this isn’t new. It’s still very good.

I’m especially impressed with the distance between the plan and the guy. No video cuts.

Posted at 1:36 pm on Nov 9th, 2007 by blackhawk1793

…….wow

absolutely breathtaking

im going to build one!!!!

Posted at 2:23 pm on Nov 9th, 2007 by patman

“Brilliant, but I wonder how long most users will last before the vestibular occular discontinuity causes severe motion sickness.”
No problem even after a 50min flight, or several in 1 day. Never heard of someone experiencing this in the community. As long as all the controls don’t lag, it’s no issue.

Posted at 2:51 pm on Nov 9th, 2007 by Kilrah

@felix: That can be done in 5 minutes. However, it’s nothing like natural anymore. Are you really used to fly a plane by moving your head? No, you naturally move the head to look around even without thinking of it (which we can see when no head tracking system is used, people still move their head around where they would like to look, even if it doesn’t work). It would feel really weird to have to go against that natural reflex. Very tiring.
@nick: Low flight is not a problem either. http://youtube.com/watch?v=-3RI0WrzbV4

Posted at 3:39 am on Nov 10th, 2007 by Kilrah

This type of flying is AWESOME ! Its the closest to being inside of a plane that you will ever get without leaving the ground. To see more videos like this go to http://www.youtube.com/user/JetPilott

Posted at 10:28 am on Nov 10th, 2007 by Jet Pilot

I have added up the total cost for parts:
having scrounged through many sites and searched many products, the grand total should come out to be around $1,500 with shipping.
However, the base electronic hardware can also be used in virtually any plane you want. It’s a pretty simple “hack”, even for a novice like me.

But honestly, It’s gotta be so cool to have your own personal UAV.

Posted at 4:47 pm on Nov 11th, 2007 by Patman

hey, this rocks, but couldn’t seem to find all the parts. would be cool if some one could shoot these to me. also I didn’t see a schematic? I know no pain no gain. I understand that the head (gyro that controls the pan, tilt, etc,.) unit is separate from the control of the aircraft.

Posted at 6:56 pm on Nov 11th, 2007 by David

@patman: Would you mind sharing that list? Pretty please? :D My friend is into r/c planes and we’d like to try this, though we may not have the budget for it. I’m guessing the most expensive piece is the HMD. I believe I’ve seen some HMDs that were ~$250, maybe not the best quality, but we’re just interested in getting working video. Even a black-and-white display would be fine as long as it’s made for both eyes.

Posted at 8:55 pm on Nov 11th, 2007 by cwc

Controlling the pan/tilt on a camera on an RC plane has been around for quite a while, the guy who made that video & setup posts on the forums at http://www.rc-cam.com which contains a mine of information about what electronics to use, what LCD glasses etc.
I’ve had a wireless camera on my RC car for years, it’s great fun to fire it up and drive around 2 inches above the ground using LCD glasses.

Posted at 9:47 pm on Nov 11th, 2007 by Haku

Not bad at all with the images and flying. I will have to see about building one if there was a list to do and oh wait, money I do not have. LOL!! Got to find a cheap way I guess.

Posted at 10:36 pm on Oct 5th, 2009 by best flying rc airplanes