Custom Designs
You have jobs you want to do, but how do you do them?You know that if you can get information more easily, such as images from a drone, you can save hours in a day, days in month, substancial labour saving and response time.But nothing you have seen has been able to fullfil all your needs.This is where custom design may be the answer.You need to determine:1: Sensors (camera or ...) and viewing data2: Flight times and distancesThis pretty much dictates the design of the airframe to do the job.And now with the advent of VTOL Fixed Wing airframe controllers the best of both copter and fixed wing aircraft is available in one airframe.
The first step is to define your mission.
What are you wanting or hoping you can do and achieve with drone use?
This definition is where it all starts.
Your Objective will, in many ways, dictate what payloads the drone needs to carry.
As an industry we are being spoilt at the moment by the huge array of sensors available, their dimishing size and weight, and most importantly, their dimishing costs.
The distance you want to cover is a prime factor in the choice of systems.
The distinctions that exist in the hobby-grade drones between multi-rotors and fixed wing start to blur when you get to larger systems.
For example; Adding a hybrid power system to your multi rotor can increase its flight time to as much as 4 hours. cost: $7KAUD + 4.2kg. The off the shelf copter for this weight is $20KAUD.
Consider then much more affordable drones so can have multiple drones for multiple jobs.
Fixed wing drones still cover the longest distances.
Multi-rotors can hover and decend closer to targets on demand.
The terrain can play a role in how you use drones and in some cases, which drones are more suitable.
A major decission factor is 'required loiter time' over targets and the required height over the target to get the detail of data required.
The payload you choose can have a big bearing on these requirements.
