Relay drone?

[c.wilkins8384]

I was wondering if anyone has ever tried to overcome line of site radio communications by using a second drone that is equipped with relaying equipment. this second drone would fly in tandem with the original drone at high altitude keeping line of sight communication possible even when communication would normally be obstructed. Maybe a rc plane programmed to (or manually) fly a holding pastern over a particular area of an obstacle course. I can imagine flying fpv through the grand canyon has line of site limitations. Has this been done before? If not, I'd love to hear your input on this matter.

 

[ZoomNBoom]

Yeah, it has been done, Ive seen quite a few youtube video's. And as you'd expect, it works great as long as it does. One problem is of course, the battery life of the relay drone and the doubling of failure points. You could consider a lower tech solution; if there is a bit of wind, how about a kite?

 

[Snarls]

Hi c.wilkins8384 welcome to the forum! Yes this concept has been done multiple times before. A quick example I can find is this video. In this case the relay quadcopter is positioned in a strategic location and left in position hold, while the FPV quadcopter flies around the area. I've also seen this concept done with a flying wing left is loiter mode which is just flying around in the same circle, while the second plane/multirotor flew the area. I also feel like I've seen crowdfunding for a commercial relay product, but I may be mixing things up. After all new multirotor crowdfunding projects keep popping up more and more.

 

[c.wilkins8384]

Thats an amazing video. thats exactly what i was thinking about.