Cell phone GPS for lost model locating
Posted: Sat Jun 18, 2011 1:44 pm
Hi i'm new here so i hope i'm not posting in the wrong place or anything..
Elsewhere online theres a few videos of various groups/people sending cameras up to about 90 000 ft on weather balloons with either parachute or glide recovery, amazing videos of the inner edge of space, google it.
Anyway for people doing this the question becomes how to recover the randomly dropped camera unit (distances of 30-100kms from the launch point are fairly average from what i've seen).
The solution many use is to place an android/iphone type cell with gps in with the camera (obviously with alot of foam for impact protection of the phone). This works in two ways, first you can download an app that allows you to text the phone and receive its GPS location in return (you then plug this into google maps and voila theres your lost model location to within a few metres, my friends iphone can pin point which room hes in in my house, so its pretty accurate). Secondly other apps can be downloaded that will plot the path of the phone (and thus the craft its in) so you can get flight path info after recovery.
I thought given the small size and relative cheapness of some of the phones that can do this, it would be most useful for backup GPS recovery info for FPV/OSD especially at range, and for those with a phone that can do this already (not that uncommon) it makes a great lost model locator that will work at fantastic ranges.
Another of my friends has a cheap phone that can apparently do this once we download the app, so we'll do some tests and update soon.
Thoughts people?
Elsewhere online theres a few videos of various groups/people sending cameras up to about 90 000 ft on weather balloons with either parachute or glide recovery, amazing videos of the inner edge of space, google it.
Anyway for people doing this the question becomes how to recover the randomly dropped camera unit (distances of 30-100kms from the launch point are fairly average from what i've seen).
The solution many use is to place an android/iphone type cell with gps in with the camera (obviously with alot of foam for impact protection of the phone). This works in two ways, first you can download an app that allows you to text the phone and receive its GPS location in return (you then plug this into google maps and voila theres your lost model location to within a few metres, my friends iphone can pin point which room hes in in my house, so its pretty accurate). Secondly other apps can be downloaded that will plot the path of the phone (and thus the craft its in) so you can get flight path info after recovery.
I thought given the small size and relative cheapness of some of the phones that can do this, it would be most useful for backup GPS recovery info for FPV/OSD especially at range, and for those with a phone that can do this already (not that uncommon) it makes a great lost model locator that will work at fantastic ranges.
Another of my friends has a cheap phone that can apparently do this once we download the app, so we'll do some tests and update soon.
Thoughts people?