The vehicle and video receiver
The vehicle and video receiver
This project is a proof of concept testbed for a possible future airborne project. The vehicle itself is a modified commercial radio controlled car. It is fitted with high capacity NiCd traction batteries, plus a Pixera colour video camera and a 450MHz audio/video transmitter. The tranmitter drives a 5/8 wavelength telescopic whip mounted on a 1/4 wavelength ground plane. Additional batteries supply the power to drive the camera and transmitter.
The video receiver consists of a varactor tuned low-noise downconverter followed by a 44MHz IF stage which outputs baseband video and audio, suitable for the I-Glasses video display headset. The receiver is powered by a slimline internal 12V NiMH battery.
Currently the video range is rather limited, but I plan to deal with that by adding an extra RF amplifier stage to the downconverter front-end, and possibly a better antenna than the current telescopic whip.
Next step is to replace the bulky batteries with something lighter, and search out a suitable aircraft.