Seeking Pre-Programmed Indoor Drone for Fixed Route & Android App Compatibility

Hello,
at the beginning I would like to warn you that I am a complete layman when it comes to drones. I hope I am not writing, no pharmacists, and what I am looking for is for the common mortal to buy.
I am looking for a drone (or a device of this type) that would move in a small room along a short, fixed path, e.g. up and down (if possible, without touching the ceiling or floor) or right-left (if possible, without touching walls). It is best if the path can be programmed (it would be nice if there was an application for this (or to control), e.g. for an android) and for a given period of time the device would move along this short, fixed route, without the need to control the device. I would be grateful for any help and suggestions.

Greetings.

How big is this room? In my opinion, it is not feasible, GPS has an accuracy of 3m, it has a chance to be successful if it was to fly around the city or in the park, then the GPS will work.
What's your budget? If it's two or three digits, we don't even have anything to talk about.

Indoors, half-bids. Ultrasonic distance gauges in three axes and a CPU piece. It could be done in such a way that the first flight "on manual" taught and then autonomous, but a lot of work.

Ultrasonic distance meters are not suitable for drones. Last year, I spent two weeks repairing and replacing a drone model with such sensors. He was completely lost and this was, unfortunately, a disadvantage of the entire series, not just one copy. The seller recalled the entire batch after my complaints and repairs. Even the manufacturer's service did not help.

In this case, rather, an inertial navigation system may be used. Very precise accelerometers on six axes (in addition to inertia in 3 axes, there is rotation around each axis), a good clock, counting the distance, speed, direction and route calculation. Unfortunately, the operator would have to very accurately determine the starting point, room dimensions and location of control points each time. And the number of calculations to be performed by the flight controller would be significant.

Outside, with large spaces, there are no problems. GPS, an application controlling the position and saved navigation points, calculated according to the satellite map.

But in a closed room, with a small size, this, unfortunately, will not work.

Maybe something like this could be bought commercially, but it will cost a 4-digit sum. Heavily complicated project. Certainly there are no such "cheap" drones below PLN 1000.

Sorry to just write back.
So the route programming is mainly determined from the GPS? Good to know for the future. First of all, thank you for the response.

A budget, let's say up to PLN 1,500-2,000, but that's probably the worst case. Preferably below PLN 1000, but I expect it can be hard. Honestly it doesn't have to be a drone, it could be something else, but I have no idea what. As for the size of the room, it is not about one particular thing, it is more about the height. The drone (or something else) would move within 2-3 meters of height from the floor. For example, there would be a long and tall box with a hole in the room (say a box 1 meter high) and the drone would fly into that box and fly one meter above it, all the time in a loop. Alternatively, you could put a line along the entire height and the device would move along this line. It could work like an elevator.

Hope I didn't confuse it too much. As I mentioned, it does not necessarily have to be a drone, but I do not know what other devices could move so that you do not have to manually control them all the time, but program a fixed route along an equal up-down line. I also do not know where to find such a mini lifting platform that I could set up to automatically pull the device for a given period of time, and then pull it out over and over again.

I also don't know if my topic fits this section, but I have no idea where to put my thread. I would be grateful for any tips.

If it was a hangar-sized hall, GPS would work, but I doubt you would find a machine that uses a positioning system other than GPS and which you do not need to program manually (I'm not talking about choosing the position where to fly because that's the smallest problem). With such small dimensions of the room, you could try with a camera to determine the position, but you would have to do it yourself and you can write your master's thesis.

Not only with GPS, GPS is the most convenient and it is simply ready and available.
The drone is blind. He has no idea where he is or what he is doing. From the point of view of its controller, it is suspended in space and merely changes level.

In order to establish a position, to set course, altitude, etc., it must have some frame of reference. In a building with a GPS signal, it is poor and its accuracy in civilian applications is not very precise.

You would have to build an external reference system for the drone to communicate with and adjust its settings based on it.

What you can possibly do is inertial navigation. The drone knows its airspeed, orientation, time, calculates the course, speed, acceleration in all axes, flight time and on this basis calculates its position in relation to the starting point.
In a closed room, without disturbance, it can roughly succeed. It's just that you have to determine the drone's exact route, converted to the available parameters.

Unfortunately, such a system has a basic error that any inaccuracy exacerbates the position error.

Ok thanks for all the advice. I rather let go of the auto route topic. I have another question. Are most drones easy to control when it comes to lifting them up and then lowering them down? On these drone pilots, is one knob responsible for up-down control and is it possible to move the drone without much training? And are there drones to which you can attach something weighing up to 200 g and measuring up to approx. 15x10 cm?

harpk wrote:

Are most drones easy to control when it comes to lifting them up and then lowering them down? On these drone pilots, is one knob responsible for up-down control and is it possible to move the drone without much training?

Apparatus - there is an up / down control, one gas lever controls the rotational speed of the rotor / rotors.
Familiarization with the functions and gentle operation of the levers / joystick positions assigned to specific functions and channels is required.

harpk wrote:

And are there drones to which you can attach something weighing up to 200 g and measuring up to approx. 15x10 cm?

It depends on the capacity of the drone and its size.

For example - Syma x8c with a load of 200g is practically impossible to control - a flying brick.

Thanks. And there are some drones:
a) having some small speakers, and which can be used to send sound, e.g. with bluetooth, to make it quite audible?
b) in which it is possible to connect them to some power supply, so that they work longer than about 30 minutes on the battery? The drone would, for example, be mounted on some rail and there would be power cables.

harpk wrote:

and)

Rather, there is no, probably as additional equipment requiring apparatus and a receiver with more channels to control, on / off or other.

harpk wrote:

b)

Only increasing the battery capacity or installing an additional power supply with additional equipment.

A drone with a brush drive system (motors overheat) will not last long under such a load,
required brushless drive that can work longer.

harpk wrote:

Ok thanks for all the advice. I rather let go of the auto route topic. I have another question. Are most drones easy to control when it comes to lifting them up and then lowering them down? On these drone pilots, is one knob responsible for up-down control and is it possible to move the drone without much training? And are there drones to which you can attach something weighing up to 200 g and measuring up to approx. 15x10 cm?

No. The very control of the drone, when it comes to the degree of complexity (we are talking about amateur and commercial constructions), is simple. 2 scoops. each in 4 directions.
But learning to "fly" a drone is quite another. You need to learn the orientation of the model in space, distance assessment, automatic direction selection, in different positions of the drone. It is not easy at all, although drones are the easiest of all flying models. You can fly a drone for several months and still not master its pilot to a satisfactory degree.

Besides, the number of crashed or lost drones speaks for themselves. ;)

If the drone is large enough and has a lift capacity, it will carry an additional load. But each additional gram reduces its flight capacity.

Why do you need drone speakers? Tell me what you need, because maybe you are talking about some method that is used, but you don't know about it and you are re-inventing something? What are these speakers for?

The battery in the drone is payload. The bigger the battery, with more electricity, the more mass. Each type of battery has a specific charge capacity in relation to weight. Therefore more electricity - more grams of weight.

I wrote to you above, which means every gram for the flying model. More weight - more power needed, more power requires more electricity. And the drone's motors have limited efficiency and their efficiency is not linear.
You can quickly reach the border, where the drone has a huge battery but does not want to fly.

Normally you just buy spare batteries and replace it with a charged one when the pack is exhausted.

Multi-rotor drones are not economics masters in the use of energy. Each drive is a separate set that must be powered. If you have 4.6 or 8 of them - unfortunately even a very large battery will run out very quickly.

For long and long flights, planes are rather used. They can fly for a long time, because they use energy only for translational movement, and the wings, which do not need additional energy, are responsible for the load-bearing capacity. They can also glide, without consuming energy, and if you turn off the engines in a multi-rotor, it will fall.

1 PAWEL wrote:

harpk wrote:

b)

Only increasing the battery capacity or installing an additional power supply with additional equipment.

And are there such additional power supplies? Is it easy to fit into a drone that would handle it? Can you please give me some examples?

Madrik wrote:

Why do you need drone speakers? Tell me what you need, because maybe you are talking about some method that is used, but you don't know about it and you are re-inventing something? What are these speakers for?

The drone is only needed for presentation purposes. I want it to only enter a channel that mutes the sound and blows out of it, so you can hear the difference in volume inside and outside that channel. Therefore, when it comes to controlling the drone, only two directions would be used: up and down. As the person who would control the drone never did, I would like this control to be quick to learn when it comes to just these two directions above.

As for the sound, I have a bluetooth speaker which is quite loud and I would like to attach it to the drone so that it can fly into this channel with that speaker. However, I am afraid that such a speaker may be, after all, too heavy for the drone, so I asked if there was a drone to which the sound could be sent, e.g. via bluetooth.

And when it comes to power supply, I was thinking about giving some rail / guide to this channel and pinning the drone to it, and putting some power cables in this rail / guide, but I don't know if there are such drones at all. The point is that the drone will be needed for the entire day, it does not have to run continuously, only at certain times for the show.

Can you ask for some specific models?

harpk wrote:

And are there such additional power supplies? Is it easy to fit into a drone that would handle it? Can you please give me some examples?

The easiest way is to increase the capacity and use better quality batteries + an additional package holder.

harpk wrote:

is there any drone that could be transmitted with sound, e.g. via bluetooth.

Rather not a job to do on your own.
In high budget it may be possible.