External controls for PH4 - Quadriplegic wheelchair use

[Sky Photog]

Can anyone please help me find people who have worked to modify controls of any Phantom for disabled use?

The reason I ask is that I am a DJI retailer and have a disabled customer who only has use of his chin and one hand but wishes to fly a drone on his farm.

The control sticks on his current wheel chair would be perfect to control the Phantom 4, but I am looking for anyone who has managed to extend a drones controller sticks and buttons externally.

Even controlling the drone from a laptop would be handy (with full camera feed).

Any info or links to people you could give me who might be developing this tech would be appreciated as I wish to help him in any way I can.

Thanks in advance!

 

[jakobe75]

This would be brilliant if done.
And probably not that hard to somebody with the right skills. Seems like you could remove and relocate the sticks with some fancy soldering. Other functions might require more nimble articulation of the hands, amd likely an assistant. but core flying would just need sticks. And depending on the quad, it's possible to have head tracking built into a set of goggles to give more mobility.

Think about the freedom you could give those who are physically unable.

 

[AlecW]

I have a friend who's son got into a jeep wreck 3 years ago and can only move from the neck up, no hand control at all and he uses his mouth sucking and blowing to control his chair and other stuff. Also he uses basically a sick from his mouth to tap on iPads etc.. Google quadriplegic mouth control, there are some gamer devices but I don't know how you'd use one to control the sticks. My friend's Son has full control of his head, maybe your customer does? Maybe FPV goggles are a solution?

I was actually thinking about this the other day, his brother is a pilot and his mother is a flight attendant. I bet he'd love to fly a Phantom.


Following.

 

[Sky Photog]

Hi guys... he can move his head to control one joystick with his chin and one hand a little to control the other stick. With the right know how I can't see why it would be too difficult to adapt these controls as an extension of the P4 controller. See attached photos of his setup.

 

[tevek]

If you can mount the controller on the chair to provide access to his good hand, wondering if you could modify the sticks to be slightly closer together so the span between the two would be less of a stretch. Adjust the controller settings to be more or less responsive, and use a VR setup for whatever device he is using to give him some pan and tilt functionality. It would be freaky at first and he would be best to have someone with him until he gets used to it, but something along those lines might work. He would love the experience.

 

[rleigh]

Take a look at this and see if it guides you anywhere: 4D-Joystick - An innovative System to Control non-trivial Toys with the Mouth

 

[DocDiggler]

Hey Siri


Sent from my iPad using PhantomPilots

 

[Neon Euc]

I think a better solution is to actually reach out to computer gaming enthusiasts as their are a lot more gamers the droners. And with the mods that gamers do I would expect a lot would have been made for gamers of all disabilities too. [emoji4]

Neon Euc

 

[Ron Davis]

Not knowing if Sticks or Virtual buttons on a Tablet would work ......but here is some info I found ..

I know people use this to emulate game controllers across networks ...arguably our FC is a game conroller connected to a tablet via USB with more or less buttons than any other out there.
Home | VirtualHere

Then there is this I found in the SDK documentation... MAVIC only but notable.
https://developer.dji.com/mobile-sdk/documentation/introduction/component-guide-remotecontroller.html

Mobile Remote Controller
A simulated remote controller on the mobile device to control the aircraft when the physical remote controller is absent. It can simulate the vertical and horizontal movement of the left and right stick, which changes the aircraft's pitch, roll, yaw and throttle. The mobile remote controller only supports Mode 2 control style and P-Mode.
It is only supported by Mavic Pro using WiFi.

I would think someone with some expertise on the Mobile SDK with either Android or IOS could figure out a way to connect the dots.

The right compassionate person at DJI might find some helpful people ... enabling this would boost their image for sure.