It's actually reasonably inexpensive to build something direct drive (which is how the real ones work). This gives you many advantages including a much faster response time and more accurate positioning.
Look for "gimbal motors", basically a large skinny pancake brushless motor. Combine those with an odrive and a magnetic encoder. A 3D printer will help.
You can also have a look at low cost suppliers of cheap UAV stuff if you want something fully integrated for you. A basic Viewpro or Siyu isn't that much more than your Amazon thing. Various software bugs but they can be worked around. The DJI units can sometimes be had used and some of the protocols have been RE'd already.
Hey HN, thrilled my silly little project was posted here. I had been noodling on this idea for quite some time and ran into a bunch of roadblocks early on that prevented me from getting reliable control over the PTZ camera. Once those were overcome, it came together fairly quickly.
I'm looking forward to doing more experiments including integrating my own payloads (thermal and optical) with an off the shelf motion control system. I also have an automotive radar unit coming which may provide some interesting options for cueing without using ADS-B in some situations (with relatively close targets).
The "We" is short for Westinghouse, or at least it was: Westinghouse Steered Stabilized Camera Mount, thus WESSCAM. Then they dropped an "S".
Granted pronouncing the name is ambiguous, Wes-cam or We-scam. But they're known well enough in the industry at this point that it's not a problem for them.
It's the we-scam part that's kinda funny. But of course they don't target consumers at all so that connotation doesn't matter I guess. Professionals just go by the product specs and not brand feeling.
This is a fun project that combines a cheap PTZ camera + OpenCV, Kalman filtering, PID control, and digital stabilization to not just snap photos of aircraft flying past, but do rock solid, pixel-level tracking as long as they're in sight.
And it can be combined with a source of ADS-B data so it knows what it's looking at, displaying the info on the OSD.
Look for "gimbal motors", basically a large skinny pancake brushless motor. Combine those with an odrive and a magnetic encoder. A 3D printer will help.
You can also have a look at low cost suppliers of cheap UAV stuff if you want something fully integrated for you. A basic Viewpro or Siyu isn't that much more than your Amazon thing. Various software bugs but they can be worked around. The DJI units can sometimes be had used and some of the protocols have been RE'd already.
I'm looking forward to doing more experiments including integrating my own payloads (thermal and optical) with an off the shelf motion control system. I also have an automotive radar unit coming which may provide some interesting options for cueing without using ADS-B in some situations (with relatively close targets).
Granted pronouncing the name is ambiguous, Wes-cam or We-scam. But they're known well enough in the industry at this point that it's not a problem for them.
And it can be combined with a source of ADS-B data so it knows what it's looking at, displaying the info on the OSD.