Auto Pilot follow another plane -episode idea

[BuddyMartin]

Is it possible to make one rc plane follow another one? I am sure Dave could figure it out.
Line robots follow a colored line. A way it could be possible is for the leading plane to be colored brightly and the following plane to have a camera that can see the location of the bright color in the camera view and make a direction decision and tell the autopilot.
It would probably be easiest to make them both slow flying planes and the leader to be a little faster. Could use quadcopters.
There are probably better more high tech solutions. It might be too expensive and time consuming, but would be a good episode.

Can it be done?

Buddy Martin

 

[BuddyMartin]

Instead of FPV formation flying, it could lead to UAV formation flying.

 

[aiidanwings]

I bound two park zone albatross micros to one transmitter one time. The take off was great. Not so much on the flight.

 

[Tritium]

ArduPilot has a follow me mode so yes it could be done fairly easily with that platform.

Thurmond

 

[Johan]

Ardupilot has an "Optical flow" feature: given a camera image and its changes over time, it can track 'stuff' in the image.
I'll bet with some tweaking by experts it could be done (like "keep the bright yellow thing in the centre").

Just make sure that none of the cameramen, crew and bystanders wear a bright yellow T-shirt

Oops, just read Thurmonds reply: follow me (GPS based) option is of course also feasible: follow the other plane's GPS position

 

[BuddyMartin]

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_VDja1dJZ1w

ZERO UAV YS-XS Follow me TEST (Y6)

I found a youtube video of a guy that got his quad to follow his remote control and keep a constant distance.
Can have another quad carry the remote control around while the other one follows the remote. LOL