raspberry pi3 - episode 1

I wrote some words about UAV Matrix site and blog yesterday ( http://uavmatrix.com/Blog/17 ) but I haven’t got idea about this project a few weeks ago. When I was thinking about next steps in phase 2 I was searching internet to find any information about Raspberry PI and ways how it can be used as a flying controller or streaming camera. After reading blog project details I think this is great and maybe I should follow this in future.

After reading UAV blog I checked if I can test camera part now (having only RPI and camera) and dropping telemetry part because having NAZA I can use data planner only with DJI datalink. So about telemery I have to forgot now.

I have plugged my creative web cam into PI3 and I was trying to follow camera part quickly. I spent some more days  on setting up RPI....and nothing. Creative cam works with my PI when I`m running Cheese app but I cannot setup properly streamer service.     

I have lost 2-3 days trying to test camera and finally I decided to pause with this and find someone with Linux knowledge to help me with it in future. I cannot run camera quickly on RPI3.

After that I did test another Raspberry option – early Android builds for RPI. Right now there is no official android builds but you can find some ports from android TV over the internet. There is also not google did start with official support some time ago. Hope soon or later official build should be also available. I have installed of on those ported builds and connect that to internet using my current Huawei modem.  Builds allow you to install apps from sd card so firs what I did was to add IP camera app to my Android based RPI. Unfortunately camera support is not available yes and I did stop with next steps after reading some posts. Overall peoples on different forums report the same – camera does not work yet.

Ok, summarizing this post, that was my first step to adopt RPI for drone, it`s failed but I will back to this idea probably soon.

One more  …. In next few weeks I have to finally decide if should I buy DJI data link for camera first or drop it and follow different solution similar to UAV.

Adding RPI to drone has one minus it will increase dramatically weight of drone and probably can impact other parts. RPI + power bank + camera + modem = 365g. Sounds not good but this will be continued in next RPI episode.