Stanford's Francis Fukuyama Builds Personal Surveillance Drone

HerbieTMac writes "Political science professor Francis Fukuyama builds and flies his own personal surveillance drones. His current model requires ground visibility but he is working on the HAM license that would allow fully remote operation. His YouTube videos (video 1 , video 2) are particularly impressive." I had no idea that Francis Fukuyama had such technical interests.

So you put a camera on a RC model

[LanceUppercut]

So you put a typical camera on a typical RC model - something virtually every single RC pilot has been doing for years already. YouTube is choke-full of such videos. Where's the news? The fact that he call it a "personal surveillance drone"? Or the fact that a Stanford professor is playing with a toy) (He should have bought a real non-toy RC model) P.S. And no, HAM radio licence is not sufficient for BVR operation.

ugh

[nomadic]

I don't particularly care what Francis Fukuyama does with his free time, though I guess the more time he spends working on electronics hobbies the less time he can dedicate to screwing up the world through his incompetence. http://www.newamericancentury.org/iraqclintonletter.htm [newamericancentury.org]

Welcome to the old hobby professor.

[Lumpy]

Several of us have been doing this for years now. http://diydrones.com/ [diydrones.com]

I have had a self guided drone that will take off and land on it's own as well as fly to preprogrammed waypoints for over a year now. It runs off of an arduino http://www.sparkfun.com/products/8785 [sparkfun.com]

ham radio ATV is the video feed and I send packet data via cellphone to control it. I am hoping to get a Android phone to make it completely cellular based for video and control to avoid the problem with using Ham radio (long range is a problem with HAM and fast scan ATV.

I am glad a Professor has finally caught up to us hobbyests that have been dinking with it for years now.