MrFarmHacks Farm Drone/Plane blog

Hello Forum,

So this is my blog about building a few copters, planes, rovers to for labour reduction and research purposes on my farm in India. I firstly plan to build a custom solar powered plane. I am familiar with FPV drone building (mainly tinyWhoops) but unfamiliar with ArduPilot. Can someone give me a run down on a couple of questions that I have?

  1. Solar Panels.
    Which are the most effective and cost efficient panels available to us for custom builds? As I understand it Sunpower Monocrystaline Semiflex 22.5% were the best options out there a couple years ago - is this still the same case? Or is there a more powerful solution available with better efficiency per $?

  2. Hardware.
    My first project is to build a RC plane, that flys solar powered. Once I have the navigation aspects perfect. I plan to tinker with cameras for crop/soil analysis. Can someone explain to me like I am 5 year old what components I will need for something like this… and most importantly the best ArduPilot board to start with? I really don’t know where to start with that part But I realise I’ll need a flight controller, esc, power supply etc as I’ve built racing drones in the past on Kiss & Betaflight.

Really appreciate anyone help that any can give me.

Cheers
MrFarmHack