
Sky Drone FPV: NSA-proof Video Transfer System for Consumer Drones - SkyDrone
http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/sky-drone-fpv
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andymoe
Cool setup and best of luck with your funding! A group of us in the Bay Area
got a similar setup working over cellular for a DARPA challenge last year in
2012 - the military is really into this idea of blanketing battle fields LTE
apparently. ([http://www.uavforge.net](http://www.uavforge.net) \- we did not
make the final 10 unfortunately)

What kind of frame rates are you currently getting with the beagle board? Our
initial work used an ARM based board from gumstix with a TI chip for encoding
h.264 but the frame rates could have been better. We tried a few other boards
with varying levels of success... I can't remember if Beagle boards where
among them. Are you able to talk about this "custom" video format of yours? AR
drone took this approach as well but the implementation is not real fun and I
think a more standard format has other advantages given the right hardware ;-)

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SkyDrone
Thanks for the link - you have a very interesting project as well.

We can get up to 30fps on HD resolution. But our own codec is also less
computing intensive than h.264. We sacrifice bandwidth efficiency a bit for
that though.

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spiritplumber
We have something that at low rezzes is driveable (not sure about flyable) at
1G speeds. It was tested on the public roads in Italy in 2010.

www.f3.to

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SkyDrone
good to see the project :)

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spiritplumber
Let me know if you want to cooperate.

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SkyDrone
Let me know what you have in mind. Currently we focus on our Indiegogo
campaign. You would help us a lot if you help to spread the word :)

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spiritplumber
Email me at my username @gmail and we can talk :)

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oakwhiz
Are you getting the cryptography reviewed by an accredited third party, or are
you making the relevant code open-source? Otherwise I would hardly make the
claim that it is "NSA-proof."

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SkyDrone
Of course we are not reinventing anything on the cryptography side but using
standard AES256 implementations.

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oakwhiz
Your product is interesting and I am sure you are on the right track, but
surely you must realize the weight of the claim that it is NSA-proof.

It's exceedingly easy to make slight, but fatal mistakes in the implementation
of encryption, even when using existing crypto libraries. The type of padding,
the message format, and way the protocol handles invalid or repeated packets
can all materially affect the security of the system.

Anybody can write encryption that they themselves cannot break. The NSA has
some very bright people that will break your implementation if they discover a
slight flaw. You can't really call it NSA-proof unless you have taken similar
analysis measures - one inexpensive way of accomplishing this is to
collaborate with the community on the parts of your code that deal with the
encryption and communications. I understand that for a commercial product this
may seem quite unreasonable, but so is the claim that it is NSA-proof.

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rdtsc
What is the best way to handle this? Supposedly one shouldn't do it from
scratch. I can see that. Now about libraries? Are there good ways to
call/encapsulate/use crypto libraries without shooting oneself in the foot.
Maybe some provide good default padding, message formats, and repeated/invalid
packets and all the other common pitfalls?

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oakwhiz
This is sort of what TLS is intended to fix, however TLS isn't always
appropriate for the task at hand. In this situation, we're talking about a
protocol for handling the unreliable connection presented by cellular internet
providers - TLS (and partly its UDP cousin DTLS) would cause trouble because
it only accepts packets in the order they were sent. TLS would cause a huge
amount of overhead in this scenario.

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rdtsc
Ah TLS, yet, I should have known that. Thanks for replying.

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joe_the_user
I don't get it.

That reason to encrypt is what?

I mean, you aren't going to be transferring your own secrets but the "public
information" of the public streets, right? Sure, the NSA can't get your info
but if a given part of the city interested them, we'd assume, they'd have
their own drones, helicopters or satellites trained on the spot (I hear their
satellites are _good_ too). I suppose you could rest easy knowing your drone's
battery power hadn't been involuntarily donated to their effort. But it still
seems less than meaningful.

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oakwhiz
Encryption with authentication can be used to prevent malicious or invalid
data from being accepted at either end of the drone connection.

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SkyDrone
exactly

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serf
Isn't a large advantage of a analog signal the fact that it degrades on a
scale as a function of distance from transmitter rather than instantly like a
digital transmission without management? Not that digital couldn't be made to
work for FPV... but it adds latency and unreliability to a product where
digital streams are avoided like the plague on purpose usually, no?

Edit: I want to make it more clear that I did READ that it said you overcame
those boundaries, I just wish it was made more clear how that was achieved.

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SkyDrone
I would suggest to read "The geeky stuff" section on our campaign page. If you
want to know specific details I am happy to elaborate.

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abcd_f
You guys should've kept NSA references out of the pitch. Streaming being
private is a good feature. Streaming being private for the sake of sticking it
to the man is not. Mixing engineering with politics costs you a part of the
appeal. To put it bluntly - who wants to openly support activist nuts (even if
you aren't them)? Far fewer people than who want to support well-engineered
personal-use FPV UAV.

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northwest
Unlimited range is the thing that makes this important (sexy for the average
consumer).

On the receiving end, it means you will never be able to know who's watching
you.

Your only defense against unwanted surveillance (by whomever) would then be to
shoot the drone down.

(EDIT: So if the team is smart, it will sell to both sides and launch a
kickstarter for a drone-detection-and-defense system.)

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timerickson
HD over 3G/4G LTE cellular connection? The lag would in the order of a few
seconds, which makes flying FPV extremely difficult. It also means a huge data
bill unless I've been grandfathered into a "unlimited" data plan.

I think I'll just stick to some of the cheaper, well respected 5.8Ghz FPV
setups.

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SkyDrone
We get below 150ms end-to-end latency. Check out our project page where we
describe what we do different to achieve this.

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lgeek
> below 150ms end-to-end latency

Is that network latency or video latency?

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SkyDrone
real perceivable end-to-end video latency

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SkyDrone
Real END-TO-END LATENCY shots published for Sky Drone FPV project, showing
170ms and 184ms end-to-end latency with the prototype setup. We will make sure
to end up at <150ms at launch!

Please take a look at the update yourself here:
[http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/sky-drone-
fpv/x/3767302?c=...](http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/sky-drone-
fpv/x/3767302?c=activity)

We've also included how we tested it, so you can reproduce this very same test
with your own FPV system and compare.

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milesokeefe
I wanted to make a 4g based quadcopter for a while but gave up after looking
into the advancements that would have to be made to overcome latency. I'm glad
you guys did it!

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SkyDrone
Hi everyone,

We had been asked to provide more information and more technical insight to
our development process. We have made a demo video for that. Hope this helps a
bit: [http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/sky-drone-
fpv/x/3767302?c=...](http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/sky-drone-
fpv/x/3767302?c=activity)

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Tepix
I really like this project, however I'd prefer that they go the open source
route. I.e. they should publish the source code and preferably the hardware
design documents after launch so a community can build around it.

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dharma1
Just saw this is running on Blackberry 10. Are you building it in QT? I'd be
interested in having a chat - info@londonhelicam.co.uk

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SkyDrone
The core application UI is in OpenGL ES. For option screen etc. on BlackBerry
10 we use Cascades (based on QT).

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D9u
While I'm not so sure about NSA capabilities, I love the idea of having my own
surveillance drone.

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northwest
> I love the idea of having my own surveillance drone.

That's the point. Everybody loves to do surveillance but nobody wants to be
the potential target. See the issue here?

What I'm saying is: Should society decide to want to abandon privacy, then it
must be in a symmetric and very controlled manner. Everybody must then have
the same degree of transparency over anybody else. Asymmetric transparency
relationships are not ethic and very unhealthy for the stability of society,
mid- long-term at least.

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Tepix
Have you considered sending the control commands for the aircraft using the
same UMTS/LTE link?

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SkyDrone
Sure, we might add this via software update in the future. But it is currently
not scope of the project.

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the-kenny
150ms is too long for FPV. Others have tried it. It might be flyable, but it
won't be good.

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SkyDrone
Depends on the use case. If you want to do artistic FPV flying near obstacles,
some analog systems might indeed be better.

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dharma1
what happens if you hit a blind spot, or network congestion, and start
buffering video while your drone keeps flying? I wouldn't fly FPV over 3g/4g
networks, especially in urban environments. People can get hurt

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northwest
Signal jammers would be a problem as well.

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SkyDrone
They are a problem no matter what kind of technology you use.

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rdl
Wow, I had no idea anyone did any development for Blackberry.

~~~
SkyDrone
It is a very good platform :) But no worries, we do an Android and iOS Ground
Station app as well.

