1. Pan tilt zoom camera 2. a small clear housing for the camera system with wipers to clear water droplets 3. Solar panels for longer missions. 4. Backup auto failover computer system 5. A slightly bigger battery I think we're going to need a bigger boat. Ha. ha. ha. Awesome job mate. I love you build. I just noticed this video first. I didn't even watch the previous one. I'll have to check that out next. TH-cam makes it so that I can live vicariously though your projects. LOL!
Thanks, glad you enjoyed it! I think it will need more redundancy for ocean missions, including a backup computer, and possibly redundant power supplies and comms.
Super cool project! I think an underwater camera would be super cool for this project. You could drive and explore some reefs or just look for some fish
Another banger! Been looking forward to this video after you mentioned it last time. How you haven’t blown up yet is beyond me, but keep going, the contents A tier ❤
Awesome man!!!! So glad I got to see this on opening day. You've inspired me to get a Starlink Mini for my own projects. Merry Christmas from Sydney mate!
Great video! The mini is really a game changer for RC! I think your comparison tests between the mini and the flat HP were a bit flawed because of a RF phenomenon called the Frenel Zone. Basically, the mini had a helpful plastic box that kept it farther from the ground. The flat HP was at a significant disadvantage because it was touching the ground.
This is extremely cool. I can't wait for you to add a solar panel and do long range missions. You could do a kind of street view for rivers or explore underwater with sonar.
Imagine, a starlink powered portable "base startion" that the rc car or whatever can leave outside of buildings or POIs to stay connected to the starlink network, and the rc car itself connects to the base station via some more common way of communication that can handle indoors environments and walls. This way an rc car could tow a starlink solar wagon and just go without it for scouting, exploration and better mobility
Great idea, the best of both worlds! The base station itself could be a bigger, heavier vehicle, which could dispatch little RC cars to explore further.
SLmini is a great option; it is still on the pricier side, but compared a PI with a 5G Hat, it does provide way more options. Looking forward to your next adventure!
excellent work. rctestflight would be proud. why not lash together a couple of old surf kayaks, or some hoby cat hulls with a small frame. then you could have loads of solar, and infinte range.
Thanks! I'm thinking the next iteration might be a single kayak with a low CG to make it self-righting. The current design could get helplessly flipped on the open ocean!
@@thingify-app left without maintenance/cleaning maybe but whilst out on water i doubt it'll have enough time to dry out and build up enough salt to cause immediate issues. i know you can purchase exterior (waterproof) cctv housing with wipers already fitted on the outside lens, you just pop your own camera inside. i searched "cctv with wiper" on google out of curiosity and found a few products that would suit purpose or would at least give you idea for solution
Yeah I'm using a separate GPS/magnetometer connected to the Pixhawk. You can get this info from Starlink though, I'd just need to figure out how to pipe it into the Pixhawk.
Make a thin plastic drop cloth based solar hot air balloon (even 15' ones can lift kgs) and put the starlink mini on it and have it stream video as it flies around the world. You'd probably never get it back but it'd be worth it. You could try to do a project loon and try to ride specific wind currents with adjustable buoyancy by drawing in balloon volume with dc motors and strings.
This would be an incredible long-term goal! I think the hardest non-technical part would be the regulatory approvals this thing would need from different jurisdictions 🤯
@@thingify-app Yeah. Such a shame. Any balloon with a payload over 2lb needs FAA registration even in the USA. Maybe instead a kitetoon (kite balloon) tethered to a boat.
awesme! sadly the bitrate and latency are far too low/slow to make this feasible for fpv quads or proximity flying with fixed wing aircraft but it's perfect for boats and rovers, where it's more important to have a connection at all since terrain or buildings would block direct rf communication.
I reckon it could still work with fixed wing drones using the waypoint setup as with quads as all the actual calculations to keep it flying are done on the drone anyway
I would love to know how you control the pan tilt cam over the Internet. But as for streaming I have been using belabox to stream from the roof of race cars at 8000kbps with adaptive bitrate
I got one which supports ONVIF, which is an open standard for security cameras. Amongst other things, it has commands for PTZ controls. My webapp has a direct IP connection to the Raspberry Pi over WebRTC, so it can talk ONVIF straight to the camera. Although I do want to make a local MAVLink Gimbal Manager which runs on the Raspberry Pi, which would let any Ground Control System control the camera through standard MAVLink commands.
Some kind of glider with solar panels that could stay aloft for days would be amazing! This project sends Mavlink packets over IP, but wrapped in WebRTC to 1) be accessible from a web browser and 2) get through the NATs at each end. The web based controller just needs a few tweaks to support aerial vehicles!
@@thingify-app I would imagine most fully autonomous missions would rather have a full ardupilot ground station available to them. While your project is great for your specific useage, it's missing a lot of features with it's current web interface. Either way, I'd certainly love to see you do some ultra long range starlink flying. I'd imagine it'll need a lot of effort to cut down the weight of dishy even more, but it could work.
Put a mini drone on top of it (tethered to your starlink maybe?) so you have your own r/c aircraft carrier for those moments you need a higher POV of a given location.
The Starlink Mini has a built-in WiFi router, so the Raspberry Pi is just configured to connect to that. The Mini also has an ethernet port, so it could be hardwired into the Pi. I chose not to do this, as it would be another cable penetration into the tub.
Interesting video. Wonderng if you have seen the Ukranian drone boats they have been using with Starlink in the black sea? They recently used a drone boat with a child FPV drone presumably connected to the human controlled pilot via the Starlink connection on the parent drone boat.
You should probably add a channel link to the boat hull. Or the coast guard will eventually get upset with you when they're disappointed by the contents of the box.
Completely agree, will save you some headaches, I started adding stickers from the university reasearch department and the questions an tone from the police changed completely, now is basically just curious questions
This would be worth trying with adaptive bitrate if bandwidth becomes really constrained, dropping colour to get a bit better compression quality. I need to do more measurement of what the bandwidth constraints really are over time, and how many drop outs are due to complete loss of connectivity for ~seconds (vs reduced bandwidth).
Yes my robotic sheep will soon roam the Highlands intermingled with the real sheep and I will get all the best spots to go touch grass before anyone else does
1. Pan tilt zoom camera
2. a small clear housing for the camera system with wipers to clear water droplets
3. Solar panels for longer missions.
4. Backup auto failover computer system
5. A slightly bigger battery
I think we're going to need a bigger boat. Ha. ha. ha.
Awesome job mate. I love you build. I just noticed this video first. I didn't even watch the previous one. I'll have to check that out next. TH-cam makes it so that I can live vicariously though your projects. LOL!
Thanks, glad you enjoyed it! I think it will need more redundancy for ocean missions, including a backup computer, and possibly redundant power supplies and comms.
Absolutely love this series! Please don't stop uploading.
Super cool project! I think an underwater camera would be super cool for this project. You could drive and explore some reefs or just look for some fish
I wonder how far you could see or if it would be too murky
A companion ROV would be really cool for exploring reefs!
Man, that is really cool. You got me thinking on getting the starlink for my projects as well
finally, we get some RCTestFlight vibes again 🙂🙂
Yeah the early days of RC Test flight😢 amazing times
This is really cool! Enjoy summer and happy holidays!
Another banger! Been looking forward to this video after you mentioned it last time. How you haven’t blown up yet is beyond me, but keep going, the contents A tier ❤
Awesome man!!!! So glad I got to see this on opening day. You've inspired me to get a Starlink Mini for my own projects. Merry Christmas from Sydney mate!
Thanks mate, Merry Christmas from Adelaide!
Great video! The mini is really a game changer for RC! I think your comparison tests between the mini and the flat HP were a bit flawed because of a RF phenomenon called the Frenel Zone. Basically, the mini had a helpful plastic box that kept it farther from the ground. The flat HP was at a significant disadvantage because it was touching the ground.
Thanks! Interesting, I'll try to repeat the test at some point with the Flat HP propped up on a box.
Thanks for sharing these experiments - very promising for data uplink from unstable platforms!
This is extremely cool. I can't wait for you to add a solar panel and do long range missions. You could do a kind of street view for rivers or explore underwater with sonar.
Imagine, a starlink powered portable "base startion" that the rc car or whatever can leave outside of buildings or POIs to stay connected to the starlink network, and the rc car itself connects to the base station via some more common way of communication that can handle indoors environments and walls. This way an rc car could tow a starlink solar wagon and just go without it for scouting, exploration and better mobility
Great idea, the best of both worlds! The base station itself could be a bigger, heavier vehicle, which could dispatch little RC cars to explore further.
an RC mothership with starlink mini on it.. and a handful of rovers (you can start with one) yepp a nice idea
I picturing be able to go offshore and get real time water temp readings etc for fishing. Very cool!
Some kind of mobile sensor buoy would be an interesting scientific/commercial application!
I'm a fan of Reolink for PTZ, very versatile communication and recording options. I power mine off a 48v to 12v buck.
Insanely cool video
SLmini is a great option; it is still on the pricier side, but compared a PI with a 5G Hat, it does provide way more options. Looking forward to your next adventure!
Solar sounds great!
Love it man, I was hoping for an update as a fellow Adelaideian 🤙
I can’t wait!
This will be even cooler once the ASTS constellation is up, 5G everywhere with existing mobile chipsets!
COOOOOL nice boat
Awesome
this will make for some pretty cool diy ofshore trash collection robots in the future
excellent work. rctestflight would be proud. why not lash together a couple of old surf kayaks, or some hoby cat hulls with a small frame. then you could have loads of solar, and infinte range.
Thanks! I'm thinking the next iteration might be a single kayak with a low CG to make it self-righting. The current design could get helplessly flipped on the open ocean!
used to get cars with small wipers on the headlights to prevent snow build up. something like that might just be ideal for the camera lens
I had that same thought
@@ErrorINAOfficial rotatable periscope with wiper on lens and camera inside, i've actually seen CCTV cameras with wipers on too
Good idea! I wonder if it would have issues with salt buildup, but better than blocking the lens
@@thingify-app left without maintenance/cleaning maybe but whilst out on water i doubt it'll have enough time to dry out and build up enough salt to cause immediate issues. i know you can purchase exterior (waterproof) cctv housing with wipers already fitted on the outside lens, you just pop your own camera inside. i searched "cctv with wiper" on google out of curiosity and found a few products that would suit purpose or would at least give you idea for solution
Very cool! Could you add a 360 cam on a boom? That would make navigation easier.
Purchase an lens protector for the gopro and give it a good coating of rainx to prevent water buildup
Good idea, RainX is great stuff on my car windows!
Nice. I presume you are using a separate GPS, is position (and heading/orientation) available from StarLink alone?
Yeah I'm using a separate GPS/magnetometer connected to the Pixhawk. You can get this info from Starlink though, I'd just need to figure out how to pipe it into the Pixhawk.
camera mounted with a gimbal (Hardware, not software) would be cool to see.
Love the project and goals
Make a thin plastic drop cloth based solar hot air balloon (even 15' ones can lift kgs) and put the starlink mini on it and have it stream video as it flies around the world. You'd probably never get it back but it'd be worth it. You could try to do a project loon and try to ride specific wind currents with adjustable buoyancy by drawing in balloon volume with dc motors and strings.
This would be an incredible long-term goal! I think the hardest non-technical part would be the regulatory approvals this thing would need from different jurisdictions 🤯
@@thingify-app Yeah. Such a shame. Any balloon with a payload over 2lb needs FAA registration even in the USA. Maybe instead a kitetoon (kite balloon) tethered to a boat.
awesme! sadly the bitrate and latency are far too low/slow to make this feasible for fpv quads or proximity flying with fixed wing aircraft but it's perfect for boats and rovers, where it's more important to have a connection at all since terrain or buildings would block direct rf communication.
I reckon it could still work with fixed wing drones using the waypoint setup as with quads as all the actual calculations to keep it flying are done on the drone anyway
I would love to know how you control the pan tilt cam over the Internet.
But as for streaming I have been using belabox to stream from the roof of race cars at 8000kbps with adaptive bitrate
I got one which supports ONVIF, which is an open standard for security cameras. Amongst other things, it has commands for PTZ controls. My webapp has a direct IP connection to the Raspberry Pi over WebRTC, so it can talk ONVIF straight to the camera. Although I do want to make a local MAVLink Gimbal Manager which runs on the Raspberry Pi, which would let any Ground Control System control the camera through standard MAVLink commands.
Putting this on a long range aircraft would be awesome. Sending MAVLINK over IP is already a thing, you could really do some amazing stuff with that
Some kind of glider with solar panels that could stay aloft for days would be amazing! This project sends Mavlink packets over IP, but wrapped in WebRTC to 1) be accessible from a web browser and 2) get through the NATs at each end. The web based controller just needs a few tweaks to support aerial vehicles!
@@thingify-app I would imagine most fully autonomous missions would rather have a full ardupilot ground station available to them. While your project is great for your specific useage, it's missing a lot of features with it's current web interface.
Either way, I'd certainly love to see you do some ultra long range starlink flying. I'd imagine it'll need a lot of effort to cut down the weight of dishy even more, but it could work.
Put a mini drone on top of it (tethered to your starlink maybe?) so you have your own r/c aircraft carrier for those moments you need a higher POV of a given location.
Great work
Can you share how you connected Starlink Mini
with Raspberry Pi?
I await your response, sir.
Please in some detail.
The Starlink Mini has a built-in WiFi router, so the Raspberry Pi is just configured to connect to that. The Mini also has an ethernet port, so it could be hardwired into the Pi. I chose not to do this, as it would be another cable penetration into the tub.
Can you share the list of components from your setup
Interesting video. Wonderng if you have seen the Ukranian drone boats they have been using with Starlink in the black sea? They recently used a drone boat with a child FPV drone presumably connected to the human controlled pilot via the Starlink connection on the parent drone boat.
You should probably add a channel link to the boat hull. Or the coast guard will eventually get upset with you when they're disappointed by the contents of the box.
Completely agree, will save you some headaches, I started adding stickers from the university reasearch department and the questions an tone from the police changed completely, now is basically just curious questions
nice
An Australia to California mission would make an amazing video series. Just the build videos would be worth it to me.
This would be amazing - lots of islands to visit on the way there too!
Can you make a quadcopter with this?
Nicee
Could a grayscale video stream be better?
This would be worth trying with adaptive bitrate if bandwidth becomes really constrained, dropping colour to get a bit better compression quality. I need to do more measurement of what the bandwidth constraints really are over time, and how many drop outs are due to complete loss of connectivity for ~seconds (vs reduced bandwidth).
This is the first thing I've seen better than what China has...😮
what kind of autopilot do you use?
I'm using a Pixhawk 6C running Ardupilot rover software.
Wow, arse toys have sure come a long way
you need a solar panel to the you can go everywhere
yo!
Motion on the ocean
$299... outch. Looks like i donated an extra $500 to musky in September too... shit.
\o/
Congratz, you reproduced what the Ukrainians are doing with their sea drones (called the "Sea Babies")
Yes my robotic sheep will soon roam the Highlands intermingled with the real sheep and I will get all the best spots to go touch grass before anyone else does
..and South Africa has banned starlink...
Yeah, for RC hobby) A.k.a. killer drones
MAKE RC plane
EXPENSIVE??? jajajajaja
I’m not happy that u use the battery on it side.
doesn't matter with lithiums.
neat-o!
RC-StarLink-S U B M A R I N E
you sure could build a bigger boat that carries an underwater vehicle (UAV) ...