Quake Drones

[IronPawz]

I keep having this nagging idea. What if you have a fleet of drones / RC quad copters around a city programmed so if the earth starts to shake (perhaps even into a network so they can tell a quake is coming their way) they take off and start filming.

You see earth quake footage from something attached to the shaking ground but what does it look like from the air? So there are all sorts of issues like windy days, air perhaps from swaying buildings but likely with planning you can get around most of this by location. What do the buildings look like from that not moving point? What would a room look like from the air like a super market (you always see their feed but again the camera is attached to the building).

Some cameras have stability gear so potentially you can do this from the ground to some extent (or create a bigger earth quake specific machine for this). Suspension camera able to rock up and down / side/ side with the motion of the platform.

You can program a drone to do a given task. You can detect a quake. They only last for a few minutes and clones all do at least 6 minutes with a camera (cheap ones).

The footage would be worth plenty to the media and it would be great I am sure for science.

Then there is the other idea. You have a bunch of clones where one is always in the air while the others charge and they take turns (some can do 30 minutes). Weather again is an issue but I think the idea generally is interesting and given I only ever crap on in Kiwibiker I'm putting it here to get it off my mind.

I'm not much of a drone expert but I am about to get a basic one and I work in Wellington so perhaps I will try sort something basic out (I'll try find something programmable and in budget).

[Akzle]

fucking plebian. why would they use consumer grade drones?? 50 minutes is easily achievable.

you'd be best to trigger launch by nist quakewatch or something.

plus really, who cares, and why?

plus -edit- why not just circle a predator at 15k, and drop to get under the weather when triggered.

[Grumph]

Two immediate objections..

At least half the quakes happen at night...

And katman would see it as surveillance of him personally and start another bloody thread.

[AllanB]

I'm with Katman - fucking drones. We have used them at work for roof inspections on houses post earthquake.


So I'm reading that you think they could also detect earthquakes. Trust me, when they come you friggen know it!


Still - I'd concede that in the event a drone was airborne over a city and there was a decent shake it would be interesting viewing from a different perspective.

Still - best not wish that crap on Wellington, I mean any other city in NZ.


PS - Christchurch City Council still suck arse by accepting seriously poor road works as 'repairs'. Fucktards.

[bogan]

Would there be enough visible movement to bother? Or would it just be indistinguishable from shakey-cam you'd get on the ground/roof anyway. The more spectacular imagery is generally due to the movement differential between trees/lines/etc and ground, or the ground shift along a fault line/subsidence/slip I would have thought.


PS - Christchurch City Council still suck arse by accepting seriously poor road works as 'repairs'. Fucktards.

At least they actually had a major earthquake, our fucking roads just look (and handle) that way :bleh:

[jellywrestler]

I keep having this nagging idea. What if you have a fleet of drones / RC quad copters around a city programmed so if the earth starts to shake (perhaps even into a network so they can tell a quake is coming their way) they take off and start filming.

You see earth quake footage from something attached to the shaking ground but what does it look like from the air? So there are all sorts of issues like windy days, air perhaps from swaying buildings but likely with planning you can get around most of this by location. What do the buildings look like from that not moving point? What would a room look like from the air like a super market (you always see their feed but again the camera is attached to the building).

Some cameras have stability gear so potentially you can do this from the ground to some extent (or create a bigger earth quake specific machine for this). Suspension camera able to rock up and down / side/ side with the motion of the platform.

You can program a drone to do a given task. You can detect a quake. They only last for a few minutes and clones all do at least 6 minutes with a camera (cheap ones).

The footage would be worth plenty to the media and it would be great I am sure for science.

Then there is the other idea. You have a bunch of clones where one is always in the air while the others charge and they take turns (some can do 30 minutes). Weather again is an issue but I think the idea generally is interesting and given I only ever crap on in Kiwibiker I'm putting it here to get it off my mind.

I'm not much of a drone expert but I am about to get a basic one and I work in Wellington so perhaps I will try sort something basic out (I'll try find something programmable and in budget).
what if it's at night?

[AllanB]

what if it's at night?

Night vision man ...

[IronPawz]

If it was at night you'd want some in the city in well lit areas. Some indoor might work like one building looking at other buildings. The movie 2012 showed things like the land heaving so as mentioned above a good long view over flat land.

The idea is just interesting. It would likely give a new perspective and that almost always comes with some surprises. Next thoughts would be getting them to upload video if the drone is hard to recover.

As to tempting fate. Plate tectonics are not the juju up the mountain. Surely they care little for the curious on the crust.