How do personal drones work?

[Morro Man]

Wondering if we have a thread on how drones work. Not so much about the algorithms that allow a drone to fly or keep level, but more about how we control them via remote and phone.

One thing I was first surprised about when I first got my phantom and read tutorials was that you have to have a line of site without barrier between you and your drone. Call me naive , but I figured our current technology would allow me to fly the drone from my living room, out the door, down the block, around trees, etc etc. I live a few blocks from the beach, and I had this lazy vision of laying on my couch , and..




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[Morro Man]

flying this thing over water capturing breaching whales. Not that I think not paying attention physically to your drone is a good idea, I just though it was doable.

So, I just wanted to know more about how the remotes communicate, and how GPS comes into play.


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[dan84uk]

The 2.4ghz microwaves your device uses are part of the EM spectrum just like light. For the same reason you cant shine a torch through a wall, you cant shine microwaves very well through a wall. To do what you want you would have to use part of the spectrum that can penetrate better, like lower energy radio waves, but then you would need huge antennas because the waves are larger. There is also the problem interference, which is like everyone having the same color torches, to help with this you change the color of your torch a little, that is basically like changing wifi channel.

An alternative is to send it off to do is own autonomous mission, but you wont have a live feed or communication with it once its out of range. Though you could buy a device to track it using GPS and the cellular network.

 

[Morro Man]

Why couldn't a cell phone control the drone directly, as if the drone was another phone. If that makes sense... Cellular network command


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