To generate useful ground imagery from cameras mounted on our kites, we will likely record a succession of images that can then be “stitched” together into a panorama. As an early test, we combined 32 low (VGA) resolution images from the pan/tilt webcam in the boat shop to produce the images here.
Creating coverage of the ground from a kite will be a similar process, so this is a promising result. The projection of the 3D world into a 2D image inherently results in apparent distortion, and the distortion becomes more noticeable as the width of the panorama increases. These images demonstrate two different projections into 2D space, which cause different type of distortion in each case. If the kite […more]
Jamie has made sweet innovations allowing the Samsung tablet to act as a remote camera control for the Android phone. He also hooked up the phone to a GoPro. At left is a short video demonstration.
From Jamie: The main idea is to remotely position a camera that may be on a kite (100m in the sky, or in another country) using Android devices. At the kite side is an Android phone which is relaying images from its camera to the ground, and controlling two servomotors that can pan and tilt the phone. On the ground is an Android tablet on which the image stream from the kite can be viewed and the pan and tilt is controlled. Control […more]
Today we remotely controlled our newest inflated Rok lifting kite’s angle of attack (AoA) using a linear actuator in the kite’s bridle. The actuator was controlled from the ground via bluetooth using an Android phone and tablet. The kite flew with comparable stability and lift to a standard-issue Rok that we used as a control, even after some bridle adjustments to accommodate the new actuator.
We found that the 10cm range of the actuator was enough to make a noticeable difference in the kite’s elevation and line tension, but not enough of an adjustment to explore the full useful range of AoA. In the next test we will use a pulley system to double the effective range of the actuator. […more]
