The other advantage to a software gimbal is no moving parts, which makes the drone lighter and much more robust. Also a lot cheaper, too.
I've crashed mine a number of times (owing to inexplicable disconnects which I think I've finally fixed), one of the crashes involved it automatically "returning home" after a disconnect. Unfortunate home turned out to be some pine trees on the edge of a field, where I had taken off from. It gracefully flew back, but because the GPS didn't have a full 3D fix when I took off, it overshot by about 10m, putting it right over said trees where it started to descend, then hit every branch on the way down. The only thing that broke was one of the plastic feet. I'm glad the return to home feature worked, because when I initially lost control of it, it was hovering 200ft over a pond!
/rant
And as an RC flyer this makes me very afraid that folks are "flying" such devices in public. If a flying club member had a model or transmitter behaving in such a manner they would NOT be allowed to fly their model(s) until they had demonstrated they had fixed it, usually by means of long range on-ground testing.
Manufacturers by creating such ill-behaved devices, and users (not necessarily you timb) that then don't take responsible steps (i.e. by ground testing and having insurance) to ascertain device safety are going to kill unlicensed personal drone use along with airborne RC flying.
/end rant
The plot thickens:
https://techcrunch.com/2017/01/12/sf-district-attorney-lawsuit-against-lily-may-have-prompted-refund/
Part of the suit has to do with the initial pitch video, watched by millions of people, showing off what appeared to be a Lily drone following users and shooting video. The drone responsible for all that fancy aerial work and video was not in fact a Lily, but a DJI Inspire, something the creators failed to mention.
The plot thickens:
https://techcrunch.com/2017/01/12/sf-district-attorney-lawsuit-against-lily-may-have-prompted-refund/
From the article:QuotePart of the suit has to do with the initial pitch video, watched by millions of people, showing off what appeared to be a Lily drone following users and shooting video. The drone responsible for all that fancy aerial work and video was not in fact a Lily, but a DJI Inspire, something the creators failed to mention.
For those who don't know it, the DJI Inspire is the professional model series from DJI, starting at EUR 2,299 for a basic Inspire 1, and up to EUR 7,098 for the Inspire 2 Premium Combo, used to record movies in cinema quality.
Slightly off topic alert, anyone got tips for reducing wind noise should I ever get around to doing a few outside videos, this one sounded like an aircraft was trying to land or something.
The drone doesn't look that difficult to make, it's just two GPS units, wireless communications, a bit of math. Three years and $15 million should easily have covered it.
Here is an extract from the DA’s complaint against Lily Robotics:
“In May 2015, Lily Robotics used a false and misleading promotional video for a camera drone to obtain over $34 million in “preorder” sales from customers all over the world.
A “preorder” is when a customer pays a seller for a product with the understanding that the product is not yet available to be shipped but that it will be shipped by some stated future date.
In addition, Lily Robotics did not refund those customers their money when it delayed for almost a year the shipping dates for its product, as the law required. Instead, it told its customers that the preorder money: “remain[ed] untouched,” was in “cold storage,” and was not being used “to run the company.” This, too, was false and misleading. According to a witness, Lily Robotics had actually used that preorder money as collateral to obtain a $4 million load so it could continue its operations.
It is now January 2017. Lily Robotics still has not shipped a single product to any of its customers, and, according to a witness, it is running out of non-preorder money.
my idea of sub $300 technical improvements for any compact quadcopter used for aerial photography.
IF I was selling aerial photography compact quadcopters. by compact is to say it will fit in a backpack.
I would IMO add High Visibility colors to the quadcopter & a onboard piezo siren that can be activated by the pilot. to help find a lost quadcopter.
add an infrared LED collision avoidance system, simple idea is to add 8 to 16 infrared LED's and infrared sensors to the quadcopter.
to stop quadcopters from colliding with walls floors & ceilings indoors. but with the outdoors its from colliding with trees & buildings.
pulsed infrared sensors that detects objects that the quadcopter is about to collid with. and pulls an automatic split second turnaround.
by embedded software. job for programmers.
also add an anti-wind drift system by useing an optical mouse sensor on the bottom of the quadcopter looking down at the ground.
that will keep a quadcopter in a fixed hover. alternative to GPS without constant joystick input to hold a fixed position. even in a wind.
a optical mouse sensor detects if the ground is moving and embedded software removes the quadcopters tilting from the calculation
leaving pilot input and drift. so this is an autopilot that stops non piloted quadcopter drift.
also an integrated quadcopter video system, that gives Standard definition as FPV to the pilot, without a time lag.
but also gives video to an onboard High Definition Digital Video Recorder for aerial photography.
also the FPV video to the pilot . Heads Up Display needs to show countdown timer from a calculation of the battery voltage.
also 2.4Ghz up link signal strength. vr the down link. with a beep for low! must return to base.
also need a signal test preflight checklist for the video so you get a coordinated 5.8ghz channels frequency set
FPV Channel video TX frequencies used by the quadcopter. available frequencies for the down-link.
if you have two or more FPV quadcopters in the same RC radio zone.
end of rant
Haven't they heard of the Streisand effect? Time to get the popcorn out?
Wise move on their part. But it means I'll have to put away the popcorn 😕. Well at least until until the next time some company tries it on 😀.