Exmaps News and Updates

Elon Musk and his associated companies already have the required technology to do drone delivery. This is in contrast to many companies such as UPS and Amazon whom are trying to do drone delivery. 

1) Battery Swapping Technology

Elon Musk's Tesla has already demonstrated this in the model S. Battery swapping is probably necessary if there are no break through in battery technology. With a flight time of 30 minutes, each drone can only cover 20km one way. That means density of distribution centers will have to increase. An alternative is to build battery swapping stations so that drones can swap out their use batteries and extend their flight time. 

2) Precision Landing Technology

Another requirement for delivery drones is ability to land precisely. This makes package retrieval from the drone easier and battery swapping possible. Elon Musk's SpaceX has already achieved this in rockets. 

If SpaceX can precisely land something as complex as a rocket, a drone should be easy. 

3) Solar Charging Capability

And if drones deliver packages in remote areas, the battery swapping station will likely be located off grid. Elon Musk's Solar City can power such battery swapping stations just like how the super charger network is powered. 

Source: Tesla

4) Obstacle Avoidance Technology

Another critical technology the drone must have is to pro-actively avoid obstacles such as buildings and trees. In the latest edition of the Dual Motor Model S, Tesla introduces the autopilot feature. Every Model S now rolling out of the factory includes a forward radar, long range ultrasonic sensors, a forward looking camera, and a high precision, digitally controlled electric assist braking system. Coupled with software, this allows the car to avoid collisions from the front, sides, or from leaving the road. Although it will be challenging to minimise the sensors such that it will fit a drone, such miniaturisation should be possible. 

Source: Tesla

Here we present some common and up and coming payload options for consumer drones. 

1) BUBL

Promising 360 stills and video, the BUBL is actually 4 cameras put together into an enclosure the size of a baseball. The under 300g weight make it suitable to be carried by small quadcopters like the phantom. 

Mounting a stabalisation system might be difficult since all cameras must be free of obstruction. Therefore, video footages might carry drone vibrations. Lastly, you seem to need their custom media player to view the full 360 video. 

2) CENTRCAM

CENTRCAM captures 360 degrees panoramic videos and images. What makes this different from BUBL is that it captures only 360 in 1 plane. Meaning you cannot see what is underneath the camera. It uses 4 HD camera (4K video since 4 HD camera footage are combined to make the end video) and have WIFI and Bluetooth connectivity. 

You can view the video here: http://centrcam.com/panorama/quadcopter

From this quadcopter video, other parts of the horizon seems to curve downwards (probably due to fisheye lens?). which makes viewing somewhat awkward in certain parts of the video. 

3) Giroptic

Yet another 360 camera. This one features 3 lens and comes with interesting mounts like the light bulb mount:

Perhaps the female mount can be permanently attached to the drone and the camera screws on. 

They also feature Occulus Rift video viewer which I assume allows you to experience flying (or free falling if your drone is crashing) when viewing aerial video. However, note that 360 viewer is again, proprietary. 

4) Polaroid Cube

This captures HD video at 30 fps, H.264 format which is pretty decent for its size. It also comes with many mounts of which I think the helmet mount can allow it to mount on a standard camera stabalizer. Whats cool is that you can easily detach it from the stabilizer. Also it has a 124 degrees ultra wide angle lens, while capturing more per image, it might also introduce too much distortion.  At $100 people might choose the $120 GoPro over it. 

5) Sony HDR AS100V

Benefiting from Sony's image sensor technology, the AS100V (not very marketable name) is probably the only camera out of the 5 that can match up to the GoPro in terms of video quality. In fact it has a built in GPS which makes geotagging later on useful. You can also get the LiveView Remote which you can strap on your wrist, a neat feature especially if you are doing action scenes with follow me mode on the drone. At $399 for the camera + remote, it is priced aggressively compared to higher range GoPro models. 

Due to the open source nature of APM Autopilot firmware, many manufacturers have been coming up with drones based on APM. We summarized those that are available.

Easy Drone

Easy Drone is a modular quadcopter developed for videographers and it boast a quick set up time with gimbal control built in. The claimed flight time with gimbal is 12 minutes and it comes with several versions:

Ready-to-Fly Package L  - $895

Ready-to-Fly Package XL - $1095

Ultimate Ready-to-Fly Package - $1495

(Source: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/wiggly/easy-drone-the-first-modular-plug-and-fly-aerial-s)

The Pocket Drone

While the Easy Drone is targeted at videographers, the pocket drone is targeted at everyone. It is foldable and fits into a pocket. It is also able to carry a GoPro camera but unlike the Easy Drone, does not come with a gimbal. The claimed flight time is 20 minutes, useful for filming long cycling action etc. It also comes with several versions:

Bind and Fly Package - $445

Ready to Fly Package - $495

Aerial Video/Photo Package - $595

(Source: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/airdroids/the-pocket-drone-your-personal-flying-robot)

Quanum Nova

  Shaped like the popular Phantom DJI and seen by many in the community as a "Phantom Killer" the Quanum Nova is a RTF quadcopter that boost full GPS functionality. The claimed flight time is 15 minutes although no payload is mentioned.

RTF Package: $319

(Source: http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/store/__55105__Quanum_Nova_FPV_GPS_Waypoint_QuadCopter_Mode_1_Ready_to_Fly_.html)

  3DR IRIS

Manufactured by 3DRobotics, the IRIS is based on the PixHawk system (vs the rest at APM 2.5 - 2.6) and also spots a GoPro mount. Gimbal add on is also available and the claimed flight time is 10-15 minutes (no gimbal) and 7-8 minutes (with gimbal).

Basic RTF package (no gimbal, tall legs): $750

(Source: https://store.3drobotics.com/products/IRIS)

Today we are proud to release the beta version of EXmaps.com. We have been working on it for many months and now we are finally ready to release it to the public.

What is EXmaps?

EXmaps cater to the APM/Pixhawk users. In short, the current version serves as a digital drone logbook.

You get to create account, and upload logs tagged to specific UAV so that cumulative data such as flight time and flight distance can be tabulated according to UAV.

Here are some features that we build:

1) Calculation of actual flight time and distance

2) Presenting log data in interactive graphs, maps and sliders

3) Automated historical weather data base on time of flight

4) Ability to make individual logs public with comments function