This is really a WIP, lots to do and many different paths to follow, so don't get your hopes up.
I guess by now everyone has seen the DJI/Flir "collaboration" that grafts a Flir thermal camera to a DJI Drone.
Pretty sweet, but costs a whole bunch.
I think there is a much lower cost way.
Since Flir introduced the Flir One (gen 2) for Android, I've been working with a few other folks to get that camera working under Linux.
Question about FLIR One for Android - Page 5
This camera is only 160 x120 pixels, but it is also only $US250. It could be useful in an SAR situation where ANY thermal camera is better than no thermal camera.
The original thought was to interface the camera directly to Solo via the break out board's USB (
Solo Breakout Board & connectors), and use v4l2loopback along with the driver. Unfortunately 3DR has changed the kernel from the one they released v4l2loopback.ko and as a consequence it won't load. I've poked at 3DR about this and the result was they removed the part of the developer's guide that talked about the video pipeline.;>(
I'm a bit reluctant to embark on an effort to completely replace the software stack on the Solo, so ----> "Plan B"
Plan B adds a single board computer stacked on top of the break out board and takes the thermal image, the visible light image and using gstreamer combines them into a 720P HDMI output which I then feed into the GoPro port. This works surprisingly well, as can be seen in the picture.
My hope was to have this flying by mid April, but I'm not sure it's going to happen due to toooo many other things on my stack.
Plan C results when Plan B's SBC is too bleeding edge and the HDMI doesn't quite work yet.
Status:
Plan A: waiting for 3DR to get off their butts.
Plan B: waiting for working HDMI code, maybe another month or two.
Plan C: some startup issues need resolving so the board will power up in the proper state and run the driver and gstreamer pipeline without manual intervention. Power supply testing and mounting to Solo a WIP.
The Solo's companion computer is fully capable of running the thermal camera driver and gstreamer pipeline. The trick is to get v4l2loopback.ko for the kernel version that 3dr is shipping.
The other issue I've got is that none of my android devices will record to the camera roll. So, I don't have anything other than picture of the running 3dr app with my thermal video.
The other pix of the Solo with the attached camera are fuzzy by design. As soon as this is flying, there will be more detail and details.