The Wild Blue Yonder

September 14, 2001 - Radio-controlled planes, radio-controlled cars, and other radio-controlled vehicles have become a very popular hobby. And another hobby that’s been following hard on its heels is the practice of mounting "tiny wireless cameras" to the radio-controlled vehicle, so that the person who’s remotely controlling the vehicle can also see first hand what they would see if they were actually in the vehicle itself.

Fakhre Alam of Reno, Nevada has joined the rank and file of those hobbyists who have turned to the XCam2 to enhance their radio-controlled experience. As Fakhre puts it, "I put your X10 camera on small radio control car and drove it and also recorded the video." That was a very rewarding experience for him, because he says "then I put a camera on my radio control plane."

He designed the small autopilot plane using the gyro and micro controller and GPS. On the plane, Fakhre attached the camera with a servo that can rotate around at 120 degrees, which also allows him to view from the bottom.

On the camera Fakhre increased the range of the transmitter by using what he called "some kind of RF amp," which more than doubled his range. "My main purpose was to monitor the real time view from the plane cockpit," he said. Then he mounted the camera at the belly of the small plane. With that setup, he has a perfect view from the front and downwards up to around 120 degrees.

"I also put a small GPS receiver with a digital RF data transmitter for transmitting GPS coordinates along with the raw, pitch angle of the plane axis so I can simulate flying the plane on my PC by using mapping software."

As he says, "It’s a little bit difficult but I can survive because I am a Electronics Engineer plus a Computer Engineer." In other words, with that kind of knowledge, Fakhre was ready to turn that radio-controlled plane into a veritable real life plane.

At this point, Fakhre is in the process of converting his video into an AVI format so he can play it on his PC.

Since the dawn of time humankind has been in love with the idea of flight, and now it has become possible in so many ways. And the XCam2 is taking the art of flying to new heights.

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