An internet of kites

Tags: #<Tag:0x00007fa4a126a6e0> #<Tag:0x00007fa4a126a190> #<Tag:0x00007fa4a1297cf8>
#1

Hello,

Firstly I just joined this forum to find out how to become a member of this space and I’d like to come and visit.

I found out about south London makerspace because I recently discovered the OpenPlatforms conference that is happening in February at Goldsmiths about the collaborative economy. While researching the contributors I came accross a directory of community spaces and this is the closest one to me. I also attend a meetup for assistive technology for people with a disability at the Drake Music Project.

I have set up a meetup group for kite related wireless sensor networks, also this year am working in Newmarket with a community artist at the museum of sporting history to build a ‘kite-ballet orchestra’. This is also my opportunity to develop for a community in my local area Lewisham. I host a weekly meetup for flying kites in Blackheath during kite season.

I am looking for a space to host an occasional kite hack meetup, and have found an opensource kite design I would like to build and customise for wireless sensor networks, and broadcasting data to machine learning that is processed at a server. Hopefully I can come join you and do some work, soldering , coding, making kites etc

Here is a link to the meetup group, I’ve not hosted a kite hack yet, maybe if just small numbers who are members we could gather at south london makerspace? I want to start the group collaboratively as I mean to go on.

Thanking you,

Zachary

1 Like
A brief introduction
#2

As someone who is interested in kites, electronics and software - and lives quite near Blackheath - this is highly interesting :slight_smile: I’m not sure I quite understand the whole concept, but that’s never stopped me til now!

If you wanted to run an event in the space there’s a guide somewhere on Discourse about how that’s done. Would work for a build event, though I’ve yet to see the kite flying potential in the surrounding area and Blackheath is a good hour of so away.

#3

Hi Chris, glad you’re interested and thanks for your advice, I’ll look into it. Brockwell park is a possibility for quick tests and Streatham common is a well used open territory for kites.

I’d like to share/ ask what it might be to build an internet of kites, typically a kite with a ballast weight in the tail, which can be replaced with wearable tech, playing around with 15-30 grams in weight. There are many more problems and interesting solutions, need to decide on some common specifications which can be developed. A lot of the fun stuff doesn’t need to be online in the slightest, i.e sensory feedback etc although finding alternative purposes after connecting will be rad :smile:

#4

I wonder if there are any parallels in High Altitude Ballooning. Although a kite won’t be quite as far away, or as high up, there are some similar concerns around weight and power at altitude that might be similar.

Also - it sounds like quite a cross-diciplinary thing. There’s the electronics and software, but then also textiles for building things into kites, or indeed constructing them from scratch.

One thing that popped into my head when reading this is a little fleet of small-ish kites, each with some RGB LEDs sewn into them, and some kind of sensing that converts their distance from each other into a colour or something :slight_smile: Or possibly some way of orienting them globally (say, with a magnetometer) and then a ground station that can measure the wind direction - so they change colour depending on whether they’re in the “window” or not - so you can make funky patterns of light as you fly them around, enhancing the feedback you’re already getting from holding the line(s).

On the less “ooh shiny” side of things, maybe a stack of kites with air quality sensors in them, so you can find out about the atmosphere at various heights?

Lots of interesting possibilities!

#5

It is very cross-disciplinary to work with the different aspects, somewhere between sport and art.

After London’s recent pollution report I could see anything more relevant than air quality sensors. There are people who need to be in London’s outdoor spaces but won’t go out and participate if the air is bad. A local report might help.

There was a small team of students from Harvard who gave pollution sensors to kite flyers in China to influence better air quality. One of the things I’d like to do is publish a kite ideas bank, not sure what is the best format, I’d like to use git/wiki. A pollution monitor is one of them. Definately one of the questions is to what extent carrying baggage is off putting to a kite enthusiast, or to what extent new people get involved for the first time because of the added challenges.

Using light to communicate between local kites is a very interesting idea. I once tried adding a webcam to goggles because there is an issue with resolution getting kites in the wind window to match a video stream width at good resolution. The software was looking for the colour of the kite against the sky and grass to use as a controller, achieving not far from the basic concept of a mouse. One of the problems was that as the sunlight changes the kite fabric goes between light and shade, and there was too much noise in the data.

Most of the sensor work I have done since has been measured 40 meters distance from the kite with the person flying the kite. A lot of useful data can be captured there, and the main concern is not taking away from the original feel of flying the kite.

1 Like
#6

Interesting using machine vision to track location. One thought would be to add 3 or more retroreflective strips to the kite and some really powerful IR LEDs that you flash in the direction of the kit from the flying position. With an IR filtered camera, comparing between when the IR LED is off and on, you calculate a delta that shows you just where the reflectors are (assuming there are no other retroreflectors in the area!). Knowing how far they are apart and their arrangement, you could calculate where the kite is in 3 dimensions (knowing angle you and distance away, you could work out the altitude).

Of course the problem would be there’s lots of IR coming from the sky (damn you day star!) so picking out the reflectors, even when you remove the background, might not work all that well. Might work OK at night though.

I think if you wanted to communicate between kites, something like an ESP (using an ad-hoc wifi network) might work well. They’re teeny tiny, the bulk of the weight would be in the battery - but a 900mAh Lipo would last a long time and they’re extremely light.

1 Like
#7

I was just watching this very interesting (an quite over my head!) presentation about the Lighthouse tracking system that Valve developed for VR

And they used high frequency modualtion of the IR source to distinguish signals from background noise. I don’t know if that’d help for this!

Other option might be time-of-flight using the difference in reception time of a signal from each kite by a number of known basestations. Might be hard to calibrate if you have to take the system with you.

4 Likes
#8

That’s a very interesting discussion! Would that require a lot more resolution for a kite tracking system? We fly with 45 meter lines! Maybe better measure something reflective a few meters from torso attached to the line? Maybe I should look for reflective road safety fabrics or tapes.

Thanks also for the laser cutting induction on Thursday. I have materials to test cut this week, top quality Icarex and cheaper ripstop polyester.

1 Like
#9

I have a book full of kite designs from the 70s here somewhere if you’d like to copy some :slight_smile:

The lighthouse system is range limited due to how powerful a laser you’re allowed to spray everywhere. You might have more luck tracking base stations on the ground via IR cameras on the kites. No sky to confuse things then…

#10

So thanks Tom for the laser cutter induction. I have an opensource kite design for a precision delta kite designed for competition flying and tricks.

Last week I cut some ripstop kite fabric with ease and I have looked at the kite plans I have and some of the pieces are a tad bigger than the laser cutting platter. I presume that if I can imagine it it’s possible, I am imagining cutting the larger pieces in two stages, and that kind of precision will not be a limiting factor using a laser cutter :slight_smile:

1 Like
#11

Thanks, would be great to look at some other designs! :slight_smile:

#12

Found it. It’s in rather delicate condition, so take care! I’ll bring it in on Tuesday and leave it in the bookshelf.

DSC_0117.JPG3840×2160 3.16 MB

I remember flying this one, which would take as much line as you could give it, in the gentlest winds, until it was a speck in the sky. Would be great to strap a camera on (the book includes some designs for camera mounts and payload release mechanisms)

DSC_0116.JPG3840×2160 3.23 MB

DSC_0115.JPG3840×2160 2.55 MB

1 Like
#13

Hi @techfolderkites zach , nice to meet you the other day.

Remembering our discussion about the ESP8266 boards, turns out adafruit do one that already has the battery circuit and other bits already, which might speed things up.


Heres a bit of tutorial using the nodemcu lua firmware i mentioned

Personally id go for using the arduino ide, but thats just because i know c better than lua!

#14

Thanks!

#15

Definitely going to make a load bearing kite soon, I am researching the drogues that are used in re fuelling aircraft mid air, to host a flying speaker, but on the other scale I have discovered a tiny MEMS speaker I’d like to try, here is the spec http://www.usound.com/images/pdf/Datasheets/Achelous-1.2.pdf
Max voltage is 15v but surely 1-5V will produce a high register sound that will travel for a flying musical instrument??

#16

Bela platform are about to release the Bela mini, that ways 60 grams and is near zero latency platform for musical synthesis

#17

This worked like magic, more tests soon with machine learning at our blackheath weekender meetups

2 Likes