This book is for a wide range of individuals who are looking to shoot aerial footage with a multicopter. No previous flying experience is assumed, but even the most expert flyers will find unexpected and interesting information.

If you think you need a boarding pass to fly, you're really missing out... Today, drones are everywhere. From film studios to farms, they're in the hands of photographers, commercial surveyors and racers alike. This fully illustrated book explains how drones developed, where they're going and which one you should choose. It even includes complete instructions to build both a simple drone and a super-fast FPV racer yourself. Whether you're flying indoors or out, buying or building, this book covers everything: ¦ Understand the Jargon Flying has a lot of unfamiliar terminology, but this book will make it easy to master. ¦ Business or Pleasure Every type of multicopter you might want is introduced, including explanations of which is best suited for what role. ¦ Get the Best Pictures This edition includes an extended guide to the tech and composition tricks you can use to make your pictures stand out of the pack. ¦ Get the Best Video A new shot-guide shows you how to get the most engaging aerial video, whatever your drone. ¦ Be a Winning FPV Racer There are two complete step-by-step instructions for building your own drones inside: an FPV racer, or a surprisingly cheap wooden drone - both great projects. Following the worldwide success of the first edition, which has been translated into numerous languages, this second edition is not only fully updated to keep pace with the laws and technology, but also extended to thoroughly cover the fast-growing new sport of FPV drone racing, while still including a comprehensive guide to learning to fly any drone.

Design and build land, air, and sea drones using Ardupilot with Pixhawk 2.1 About This Book Explore the best practices used by the top industry professionals that will not only help you build drones in time, but also build effective solutions to cater to. Navigate through the complexities of Ardupilot to put together a complete functional UAV and assemble your drone Learn through practical examples that help you build robust UAV flight and ground control components Who This Book Is For The primary audience for this book is anyone (enthusiasts and hobbyists) who dream of building their own drones. It will also help those who are trying to build UAVs for commercial purposes. Some prior experience with microcontrollers and electronics would be useful. What You Will Learn Kitbash "dumb" objects into smart ones Program Pixhawk for your drones Fabricate your own parts out of different materials Integrate Pixhawk into different types of drones Build and understand the significant difference between land, sea, and air drones Adapt old Pixhawk sensors to the new Pixhawk 2.1 plugs Become familiar with procedures for testing your new drones In Detail The Ardupilot platform is an application ecosystem that encompasses various OS projects for drone programming, flight control, and advanced functionalities.The Ardupilot platform supports many Comms and APIs, such as DroneKit, ROS, and MAVLink. It unites OS drone projects to provide a common codebase. With the help of this book, you will have the satisfaction of building a drone from scratch and exploring its many recreational uses (aerial photography, playing, aerial surveillance, and so on). This book helps individuals and communities build powerful UAVs for both personal and commercial purposes. You will learn to unleash the Ardupilot technology for building, monitoring, and controlling your drones.This is a step-by-step guide covering practical examples and instructions for assembling a drone, building ground control unit using microcontrollers, QgroundControl, and MissionPlanner. You can further build robotic applications on your drone utilizing critical software libraries and tools from the ROS framework. With the help of DroneKit and MAVLink (for reliable communication), you can customize applications via cloud and mobile to interact with your UAV. Style and approach Step-by-step instructions to help assemble your first drone with the Ardupilot platform.

Want to make something that can fly? How about a flying robot? In this book, you'll learn how drones work, how to solve some of the engineering challenges a drone presents, and how to build your own--an autonomous quadcopter that you can build, customize, and fly. Your drone will be your eyes in the sky and in places where a human could never get to-much less fit!

This book is the first textbook specially on multicopter systems in the world. It provides a comprehensive overview of multicopter systems, rather than focusing on a single method or technique. The fifteen chapters are divided into five parts, covering the topics of multicopter design, modeling, state estimation, control, and decision-making. It differs from other books in the field in three major respects: it is basic and practical, offering self-contained content and presenting hands-on methods; it is comprehensive and systematic; and it is timely. It is also closely related to the autopilot that users often employ today and provides insights into the code employed. As such, it offers a valuable resource for anyone interested in multicopters, including students, teachers, researchers, and engineers. This introductory text is a welcome addition to the literature on multicopter design and control, on which the author is an acknowledged authority. The book is directed to advanced undergraduate and beginning graduate students in aeronautical and control (or electrical) engineering, as well as to multicopter designers and hobbyists. ------- Professor W. Murray Wonham, University of Toronto "This is the single best introduction to multicopter control. Clear, comprehensive and progressing from basic principles to advanced techniques, it's a must read for anyone hoping to learn how to design flying robots." ------- Chris Anderson, 3D Robotics CEO.

If you think you need a boarding pass to fly, you’re really missing out! Today, drones are everywhere. From film studios to farms, they’re in the hands of photographers, commercial surveyors, and racers alike. This fully illustrated book explains how drones developed, where they’re going, and which one you should choose. It even includes complete instructions to build both a simple drone and a super-fast FPV racer yourself. Whether you’re flying indoors or out, buying or building, this book covers everything: Understand the Jargon: Flying has a lot of unfamiliar terminology, but this book will make it easy to master. Business or Pleasure: Every type of multicopter you might want is introduced, including explanations of which is best suited for what role. Get the Best Pictures: This edition includes an extended guide to the tech and composition tricks you can use to make your pictures stand out of the pack. Get the Best Video: A new shot-guide shows you how to get the most engaging aerial video, whatever your drone. Be an FPV Racer: There are complete step-by-step instructions for building your own FPV racer, or a surprisingly cheap wooden drone – both great projects. This is an Extended Second Edition. Following from the worldwide success of the first edition, which has been translated into numerous languages, this edition is not just fully updated to keep pace with the laws and the technology (including gesture controls), it is also new enough to thoroughly cover the fast-growing new sport of FPV drone racing, while still including a comprehensive guide to learning to fly any drone.

Explore a complex mechanical system where electronics and mechanical engineers work together as a cross-functional team. Using a working example, this book is a practical “how to” guide to designing a drone system. As system design becomes more and more complicated, systematic, and organized, there is an increasingly large gap in how system design happens in the industry versus what is taught in academia. While the system design basics and fundamentals mostly remain the same, the process, flow, considerations, and tools applied in industry are far different than that in academia. Designing Drone Systems takes you through the entire flow from system conception to design to production, bridging the knowledge gap between academia and the industry as you build your own drone systems. What You’ll LearnGain a high level understanding of drone systems Design a drone systems and elaborating the various aspects and considerations of design Review the principles of the industrial system design process/flow, and the guidelines for drone systems Look at the challenges, limitations, best practices, and patterns of system design Who This Book Is For Primarily for beginning or aspiring system design experts, recent graduates, and system design engineers. Teachers, trainers, and system design mentors can also benefit from this content.