Re: [Paparazzi-devel] Commercial Application

[Antoine]

Hi Christian

Christian Menge wrote:
> Guys,
>
> I'm new and have a couple questions about Paparazzi:
>
> (1) We would like to use the software in a commercial fixed wing 
> application, how reliable is this technology/software?
>
> Requirments:
>
> a. - Ability to fly in moderate to bad weather, wind, cloud, fog.
Ability to sustain wind mostly depends on your airframe choice. The 
faster the better, but a high airspeed has drawbacks in term of 
endurance, landing and takeoff ease etc...
The infrared sensors won't work inside clouds, under heavy rain or 
inside dense fog.
> b. - Ability to be controlled within a five mile range.
The range depends on you radio modem choice. Some people are using 1W 
Maxtream units which give a very long range. Tests are planed using GPRS 
modems.

> c. - Two hour endurance.
Again, depends on your airframe choice - The 200-300g airframes are more 
in the range of 30 minutes endurance - The 1.5kg twinstar with lipos and 
brushless can do 2 hours.
Combustion engine will allow even more, but have other drawbacks.

Their is no such thing as a perfect airframe, only airframes adapted to 
a particular mission.
Once of the strong points of Paparazzi is its ability to be configured 
for all sort of airframes.

> d. - Automatic landing
Depends on the size of the landing site, the speed of the airframe 
etc... :)

> e. - Ability to control aircraft from a ground station.
We have that
> f. - Ability to get close to real-time feedback of aircraft telemetry, 
> video, altitude, GPS location, etc
We have that too
> (2) Is Paparazzi currently being developed, I noticed several of the 
> project pages have not been updated in years?
Paparazzi is very much developed and  the user base is always increasing.
The homepage at savannah is somewhat dead due to lack of time.
The wiki at ENAC ( http://www.recherche.enac.fr/paparazzi/doc ) is more 
alive.
The most active media is the irc chanel ( freenode #paparazzi )
A look at the CVS will give you the best indications about development pace.

> Thanks!
>
> Christian
>   

You're welcome

Antoine