Locating lost/crashed/emergency land UAV unit

Hi Guys,

Recently I lost a unit of my FX61 UAV workhorse during mission in peat swamp forest in Sarawak interior. I have this unit in service for the last 3 years.
It was my mistake, I overestimated the remaining battery reserve was enough to complete the last survey line before RTL. It was sudden very strong wind during that last line and there was no telemetry connection due to trees obstruction.
Few years ago I heard about GPS pin point device used by conservationist to locate birds and the device transmit X,Y locations through radio frequency. I dont know if anyone has tried use it for UAV.
Now I was thinking if you guys know any device, ways or tools can be use to locate lost UAV units?
Thank you

Any comments Guys?? or any experience please do share as we all will be benefited from it. Thank you

Hi Stanley,

In the past I have been using a GPS tracker like this one:

But then you must be sure that the area you are flying in has GSM/GPRS coverage.
It works by sending an SMS code, to trigger the device, which in fact wil reply with an SMS with the GPS coördinates.
Pinpointing is reasonable accurate (5meters)…

Erik

@Erik_Groeneveld Thank you for your info.
Unfortunately GSM/GPRS devices wont help much because here in Borneo you will expect no coverage in the interior forest.
One method here we still practicing is that to collect aerial photos for the last known location based on the info in Mission Planner then look for the UAV in the pictures.

Recently a friend suggested this device https://www.amazon.com/Marco-Polo-Tracking-UAVfind-System/dp/B014C3P230 has anyone have the experience using this one yet?

Hi ,
I am working on small tracker with Lora, I added small gps module on tracker as well. With lora signal i can get the signal strength in 20 km Range to calculate the distance and also GPS data. waiting to get the pcb s to start to test)