Ultra-light UAVs employed to take aerial photos of the protest rally in Moscow

http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/12/10/updates-on-protests-in-russia/#drone-journalism-comes-to-moscow-protests

by agrostis • 15 years ago

27 14 15 years ago

thelede.blogs.nytimes.com

This is actually a pretty popular hobby: attaching cameras to a Model RC plane and take pictures/videos. See forums such as http://www.rcgroups.com/aerial-photography-128/?s=1aecd50171...; for some great examples.

exDM692• 15 years ago

The UAVs were used by the press, not police surveillance.

Maybe the US press could do the same, they could cover events like Occupy Wall Street using remotely controlled quadrocopters since real choppers or journalists on foot were not allowed in the area.

jbarham• 15 years ago

Probably not a good idea to fly a UAV in lower Manhattan...

bigiain• 15 years ago

Like this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9cSxEqKQ78

???

(Note: that video caused a _lot_ of controversy in the FPV (first person video) and RC community.)

exDM692• 15 years ago

What makes lower Manhattan different from downtown Moscow? They're both high density urban areas with population in the millions.

Moscow is older and the architecture may be a bit more forgiving for flying UAV's. Also the aerial photography taken in Moscow seems to be around a river and a park. However, there are plenty of Occupy and other protests plus other events where aerial photography may be interesting going in lots of different places, some more UAV friendly than others.

Also remember that modern gyro stabilized, computer controlled quadrocopter UAVs operate with a centimeter precision indoors, so they ought to be pretty precise outdoors too.

DenisM• 15 years ago

Here's the actual picture. Stunning.

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=2492349945119&se...

huhtenberg• 15 years ago

The fish-eye is nice, and their use of ultra-light UAV is very interesting. The crowd though is a bit on a thin side :)

agrostis• 15 years ago

Re. the crowd: it might be thin indeed—the most trustworthy estimates for the attendance were around 50k people—but for Moscow, this is extraordinary, as almost all protest demonstrations in the last fifteen years or so were of a narrowly partisan nature and had an attendance of several hundred, rarely two or three thousand, up to 6k just once.

ajays• 15 years ago

Here's a non-Facebook picture, if you don't want to send them the traffic and the data: http://englishrussia.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/18.jpg

biot• 15 years ago

It's amazing how technology keeps shrinking the world.

slipstream• 15 years ago

Original source even better, also includes 360° fullscreen viewer for all images: http://www.airpano.ru/360Degree-VirtualTour-inactive.php?3D=...

6-rotor helicopter used by Ridus/AirPano team: http://www.airpano.ru/files/bolotnaya_1.jpg

Aerial video: http://rccam.livejournal.com/50143.html (jump to 3m00s to see how the flare rocket fired from the crowd below just barely missed the helicopter)

+ flare rocket shot in the general direction of the helicopter, view from the ground: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NIxFjds55U0&t=2m47s

---

Also, regarding the second helicopter. The Ria Novosti video linked in the article seems was later removed and another one uploaded instead: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dryUQ_192cc (mirror http://ria.ru/tv_society/20111210/512347323.html)

This new video is slightly longer, but the part about Ria Novosti staff operating their (quadrotor) helicopter is no longer there.

jsiarto• 15 years ago

Another great resource for this is Chris Anderson's http://diydrones.com/

Great resource for UAVs, FPV flying and aerial photography.

easy_rider• 15 years ago

Yeah, just found that one few days back. Me and my friends were discussing all the useful appliances for RC Drones. (E.g. aerial recon during a zombie hollocaust) Maybe I'll have some time in the future to start my own project. Diydrones shows some real supercool stuff that is actually affordable!

brc• 15 years ago

Not related to Moscow protests, but I saw a segment on the news last night that the local fisheries patrol will be using UAVs to patrol for illegal fishing. The UAVs will operate 24 hours a day and continually sweep the restricted zones for fishing operations.

Ultra-light UAVs employed to take aerial photos of the protest rally in Moscow

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