Testing DIY Digital Video for FPV Flying
Wifibroadcast promises digital video for FPV flyers using Raspberry Pi computers and ordinary WiFi dongles
Wifibroadcastis a collection of open-source software that uses ordinary Wi-Fi dongles and Raspberry Pi hardware at each end to provide telemetry, recording capability, and high-resolution video for first-person-view, radio-controlled flight. Only commodity hardware is needed, so this approach is relatively inexpensive.
IEEE Spectrum Senior Editor David Schneider found that the video quality was quite good when the radio link used to control his model airplane was on a different band (72 megahertz) from the one used to transmit video (2.4 gigahertz). But the Raspberry Pi computer aboard the plane created enough electromagnetic interference to compromise the control link. A more modern spread-spectrum control link, operating at 2.4 GHz, could cope with that interference, but the control signals then degraded the video quality.
Schneider explains the experiments he did and why they convinced him that this DIY system for digital FPV video isn't yet ready for prime time.
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David Schneider is a senior editor at IEEE Spectrum. His beat focuses on computing, and he contributes frequently to Spectrum's Hands On column. He holds a bachelor's degree in geology from Yale, a master's in engineering from UC Berkeley, and a doctorate in geology from Columbia.