Treasure hunt...

[Tenly]

I've been asked to help find some sunken treasure. The treasure in this case is a prop for a large boat that was lost last fall and is worth $22,000. They already hired a guy in a boat with a sonar rig who was unsuccessful. They know "roughly" where the prop was lost but I think I may need to search a wide area around that location.

The spot is about 1.5 miles offshore. I tried to die laid and use DroneDeploy but it complained that the target area was too far away from the take off area and it refused to fly.

Ideally, I need a tool that will let me define a search area, and then fly the drone out there, record 4K video and then fly back for battery changes until the entire area has been covered...

Does anyone know of a suitable tool for this?

 

[RedHotPoker]

What about Drone Volt Pilot for Phantom...?

Drone Volt Pilot

Drone Volt Pilot for DJI Phantom and Inspire on the App Store
http://www.itunes.apple.com/gb/app/drone-volt-pilot-for-dji-phantom/

RedHotPoker

 

[sonof40]

I'm curious to know, if you spot the prop in the recording, how will you know where it is? ie GPS coordinates?

 

[flyNfrank]

Use flotation support of some kind on your A/C. Then best option would be to launch the A/C from a boat near the search area. I can't think of a better way to do this mission.

 

[Tenly]

I'm curious to know, if you spot the prop in the recording, how will you know where it is? ie GPS coordinates?

There is a subtitle file (.srt) recorded with each video. If you enable subtitles during playback, it overlays some data on the video - including the GPS coordinates...

Having said that though and researching available options, I think I'm going to use photos instead of video and try to do it with Pix4DCapture.

 

[Digdat0]

How big is your search grid?

So Litchi (or many other apps) could easily map a waypoint mission and run it for you, getting the video you need in a search grid pattern. With Litchi, you create your way points on their website (Mission Hub - Litchi) and then in the field run them as a mission. This is what I would do, create small search grids using Litchi and deploy the drone to cover them. Litchi will tell you how much power it will consume, etc so you can get there to/from safely.

The larger issue really is that your target is 1.5 miles away .. meaning, you are going to use 1/4 to 1/3 of your battery just to get there (flying from land) and also for the return trip, leaving you with very little for the mission itself. Lets say you get 15 minutes flight out of a battery, 10 mins of that would be the to/from trip, leaving about 5 minutes for the search. So you would need to plan for that, and break the missions into smaller pieces.

I would get Litchi and plan my search grids, but you need to solve your battery issue. Either get closer to your search area, or get a longer duration battery (aka, dual battery mod).

Can you take a skiff out and launch closer to the search zone? If you can do this, do it! That way your battery is all about the search zone, not the flight to /from it. You don't want to come down in the drink if your battery comes up short. If not, I'd look to invest in a dual battery .. but you should research it first. The thread on Dual Battery mods can be found here: Dual Battery Mod

Good luck and keep us posted.

 

[Procharged97]

Have you checked out skycatch commander

 

[GenesisX]

Have you considered the dual battery mod for this expedition? Seems like cheap insurance compared to the value of the booty.


Sent from my iPhone using PhantomPilots mobile app

 

[alokbhargava]

I'm curious to know, if you spot the prop in the recording, how will you know where it is? ie GPS coordinates?

There are various ways of getting GPS location for a point on a map. One way is to switch to waypoint mode and touch the screen to create a point.

 

[RedHotPoker]

Launch from a boat in the general vicinity of your lost propellor, and conserve all flight battery time for actual search of the deep..

RedHotPoker

 

[flyNfrank]

Launch from a boat in the general vicinity of your lost propellor, and conserve all flight battery time for actual search of the deep..

RedHotPoker

......must be standing in a cave.