Guy builds nightvision drone to hunt feral pigs
rcgroups.com
rcgroups.com
another technique that has been very successful with pigs and goats is to release a pig with a tracking collar. pigs and goats are much better then human at tracking down other pigs and goats. mounting the tracking collar receiver on this system would be of great assistance.
Regardless, I was disappointed when I didn't see/hear PEW PEWs.
maybe you could mount a paint ball gun with fluro pellets :)
http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=343...
Also, this same relative says he doesn't walk around at night without a 0.50 caliber pistol and a shotgun. Apparently these pigs can be pretty unfriendly
One thing to add for those not familiar with feral hogs... these animals are a non-native species and highly invasive. They can have at least 4-6 piglets at a time, 3 litters a year. They damage crop and farmland, carry disease, and compete with native wildlife for food.
Depending on how huge fields they have this might be hard though..
Federal government shows up to help ;)
Feral hog meat, unlike typical pork, is a deep red and can have a wild-game taste. It makes for great sausage and barbecuing but you wouldn't necessarily want a ham sandwich everyday in your lunch.
Many outfitters charge both the hunter for the opportunity to hunt and the farmer for the removal service.
He seems to have a problem "lingering" over the right area.
However, if you just want to get rid of the pigs, not kill them, I could imagine that you could do pretty well herding them with a loud RC helicopter... perhaps even herd them into a trap or kill-zone.
So if you could get them high enough for the noise not to be a big issue, and to give them a reasonable coverage with the camera, you can easily put a few of these up in a network on autpilot (with way points) and just watch several screens at once.
It also appears, from the guy's videos, that he has a large area of ground to cover, and with the limited optics and image resolutions he's working with, a tethered balloon wouldn't be very functional.
He should just stick with his plane idea.
This is a very cool build indeed.
Obviously it would be illegal in most of Europe and probably elsewhere too.
This is something I've spent a fair few idle afternoons daydreaming about, and to be honest I'm quite worried about the future possibility of semi-autonomous weaponised drones. The average HN reader probably has the knowledge and access to resources necessary to build a basic manually-controlled drone. An iPhone or even an Arduino would provide the necessary computing power for semi-autonomous activity (and a whole bunch of useful sensors, including GPS, camera etc.) and it can't be long before someone builds some open source software to enable these things to fly basic missions (go to these coordinates, film for 30 minutes, return to base, avoid obvious obstacles whilst doing so). Mounting some kind of weapon on there is a fairly simple step. You could even print the weapon parts with a 3D printer...
What really scares me is the arms race that will occur when law enforcement has to deal with this kind of thing.
There are exemptions to most of these laws, including ones concerning "hunting seasons" for farmers.
I knew a guy with an orchard who had the coveted right in Ohio to shoot deer all year long. 80% of that man's familys' protein came from those hungry deer.
... And I like to fly small R/C foamies, as well :-) No plans to build any flying defenses, though.
You must have a hell of a wireless keyboard, typing from up on that high horse of yours.
(I should stress I'm a very peaceful chap with no revolutionary or violent inclinations whatsoever!)
That's how it starts...
"A future for drones: Automated killing"
http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/national-security/a-f...
The FAA other alphabet soup agencies probably have other regulations regarding the manufacture and use of a flying killing machine.
Some info on ATF licenses: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Firearms_License
It's not just "remote hunting" that's banned. It's the attachment of any weapon to an aerial or moving platform that's banned. A slingshot on a paper plane would qualify by a literal interpretation of the laws as written.
See section 91.15 for the part about "dropping of items."
I'm still looking for the BATF regs on this. IANAL, so it's a bit of work, but I do know a few guys that do weapons systems (govt contractor) and my younger brother is a pilot.
http://www.rotaryforum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=13318
As long as they aren't actually guns, it's legal. As soon as they become actual firearms, then you need permits/licenses/etc.
[1] Yeah, I've worked with this stuff, too.
- Small.
- Far away
- Moving quickly in relation to the aircraft.
Additionally, you have lots of vibration (from the engine, and air turbulence) and you have to count every gram of payload; which makes precision weapons unhappy, since they're both heavy and want to be held very still.
You can solve the killer trio with very high rates of fire, or explosive projectiles.[1] These are both either very expensive or illegal for civilians; and you wouldn't want to be using them on a rice field anyway.
There's a reason Predator UAVs use guided missiles, not small arms.
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[1]: The canonical ground-attack weapon, the GAU-8/A, uses both: 30mm explosive shells at 4,200 rounds per minute. https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/GAU-8_Avenger
The high explosive part seems more for insurance than a requirement for a successful hit.
Civilians of course don't have access to this stuff, but if the military has the capability now, it will eventually trickle down.