Drones on farms

[M61A1]

Yep, I had a barbecue last weekend!

Lol, good pickup....bugger too late for editing.

 

 

[Icarus]

Apparently , recently there was a spate of thefts from rural properties in my area.

 

The thieves used drones to scope out the property for people at home and layout.

 

They then went in and filled up the owners wheelie bins with stolen goods and wheeled them away.

 

The drones were seen by neighbours as they flew over their properties .

 

one solution may be to build a rf scrambler to disable the control signal to drone.

 

However I believe building or possessing such a device is illegal.

 

 

[Head in the clouds]

...... You tube is full of videos from drones and of drones flying at high altitudes, out of line of sight, over crowds and with autonomous flight to GPS co-ordinates. Youtube has videos of drones with pistols and small machine guns fitted flying and firing at targets. This is real stuff that exists here and now. And when there are a couple of idiots putting these drones with guns on Youtube you can be sure there will be many more who are doing it and not posting their videos. ..... I have at least three mates who own drones with the capability of totally autonomous flight anywhere they choose to send them. These are not expensive these days and were bought on line. . To suggest they are expensive and therefore not going to be a problem is just plain loony. The price is low enough that "enthusiasts" have them now and as prices go down, as they have been for several years, the usage will increase. They exist and people are doing this stuff with them now.

Sure, autonomous drones are available, whether to call them expensive or not is in the eye of the wallet holder ... and then there's autonomous and there's autonomous.

 

A simple 'so called' autonomous drone that costs around US$1500 seems to have a max flight time of around 5mins which isn't really time to go very far or do much, whether of a friendly or a nefarious nature. When you start talking about 'proper' autonomous drones with long flight-time capabilities (5-50hrs) you're going to be spending something more like US$25K to US$40K for production machines and anything upwards of US$100K for custom built machines, so they're not cheap in anyone's language.

 

As far as Australia is concerned, though, autonomous drone flights are completely prohibited except with a special CASA Approval on a case-by-case and flight-by-flight basis. As far as I have been able to determine, for the foreseeable future all drone flights have to be flown by a pilot and flown within visual line of sight. This does allow the flight to be conducted by FPV via video streaming however the craft then has to be in visual line of sight of a spotter who can immediately take control, not higher than 400ft AGL etc, all of which considerably limits their practical usefulness here, regardless of whether it's with good or bad intent.

 

Given that autonomous drone flight is illegal in Australia (except by special Approval) those considering buying drones with autonomous capability need to maintain a healthy degree of 'emptor caveat' lest those products suddenly end up on the prohibited imports list and subsequently get confiscated ...

 

The definition of 'autonomous flight' as given in Airworthiness Circular AC101-1 is -

 

Autonomous Operation: A pre-programmed, automated flight profile that does not require human intervention for normal operation.

 

Presumably this would technically include drones with the 'follow' function being used as autonomous 'selfie sticks' - though CASA seems not to intend this to be the case if I correctly interpret the rather unclear interview with CASA by The Australian last year (assuming CASA was quoted correctly by the media) -

 

The Australian spoke with CASA about new, autonomous drones on show at last month’s Consumer Electronics Show that can be preprogrammed with a flight plan to fly without being manually piloted. CASA said these drones could be flown legally provided the piloted was still in control. “Fully autonomous flights are still some way off,” the spokesman said. “Current technology enables users to pre-program a specific route. But this kind of flight is by no means ‘autonomous’, as the operator is still required to pilot the aircraft over the designated route.

 

......

 

There is rapid change taking place regarding drones and their regulations, so no doubt we will hear of more developments in the near future.

 

 

[fly_tornado]

this is where consumer level autonomous flying is at, its a 3D mapping application but it could be doing almost anything that you can do with a drone

 

 

 

[S.Drifter]

I can't wait until drone's with up to 6 or more hours of duration are developed at an affordable price. I'd love to be able to muster either from the office or the cab of a ute parked out in the paddock. There is huge potential here.I can see no reason why you couldn't use it on your own place or do it on a commercial basis. It would be a lot cheaper than running an aircraft as is done now and not to mention safer.

 

 

[Gnarly Gnu]

First sharks with lasers, now drones with chainsaws.

 

 

At 0:45 even the creators fear it! Ideal for greenie logging protests. The end of the clip is somewhat deflating though...