Quadrotor UAV that hovers 4 ft above my RC bot?

[ROBOT420]

Hi there! I have built the RC under the thread "First attempt at an RC bot, PLEASE help!" and now I would like to find a way to make a quad rotor mini UAV hover about 4-5ft above my RC at all times and "chase it down" whenever it moves. Any thoughts? Thanks!

[jwatte]

1) Make sure you can build a quadcopter that can hover and carry a payload. This, in itself, is hard.
2) Add a webcam and a single-board computer. This may be a Raspberry Pi, or a BeagleBone Black, or something small and powerful like that.
3) Add an object with a known shape/color to the top of your RC.
4) Write code to recognize the shape in the input stream from the webcam.
5) Depending on where in the picture the shape is, make the copter move appropriately.
6) Realize that this will fail as soon as your RC drives under a table/bush/culvert/other cover.

[ROBOT420]

Cool deal, here goes nothin'!

[blakkas]

That is a cool idea. Tell us how that works out.

[ROBOT420]

Thanks, will do!