New Anti-Poaching Video Surveillance Drones for Nepal

ConservationDrones.org has been working closely with WWF Nepal for the past year or so, supported by the WWF AREAS Programme. One of our long-term goals is to reduce training time for new drone operators. After several months of development and testing, Simon Wunderlin (one of our Technical Directors), arrived at a neat solution based on the ‘Caipirinha’ airframe from Team Black Sheep (which we nicknamed ‘Caipy‘). The Caipy hits the sweet spot between sophistication and simplicity. This anti-poaching video surveillance drone weighs only 650 g including battery and a GoPro 3 camera. Not only is this light-weight drone easy to launch and land (fully autonomously), but it is also extremely safe and resilient against hard landings due to its low inertia. Our Nepali trainees particularly like that they can launch the Caipy using most android devices running the Andropilot app, which allows them to ‘leap frog’ the drone from check-point to check-point without a radio transmitter. We were able to get 20-25 minutes flight on on a single battery (15-20 km range at a cruise speed of 13 m/s).

Conservation Drone Caipy

Classroom Refresher Training

Caipy on its carry case

Caipy is tiny compared to the Raptor drone and another 1.4 m wing airframe (from top: Simon Wunderlin, Lian Pin Koh, Rupak Maharjan)

Caipy with modified Multiplex transmitter

Caipy preflight preparations

Testing control surfaces before take-off

Captain Prabhat Thapa of the Nepali Army preparing the Caipy for take-off

Caipy before take-off

Captain Prabhat Thapa ready to launch the Caipy

Launching the Caipy with a Galaxy S3 mobile phone

Chitwan National Park staff, Rupak Maharjan, launching the Caipy

Minor field repairs of the Caipy (securing control horn)

WWF Nepal staff, Madhav Khadka, examining the Caipy

WWF Nepal, Madhav Khadka, launching the Caipy

WWF Nepal, Madhav Khadka, launching the Caipy

Nepali army staff transporting the Caipy

ConservationDrones.org trainers, Simon and Lian Pin (front row, squatting), and trainees Captain Prabhat Thapa (Nepali Army), Purushottam Sharma (Bardia National Park), Rupak Maharjan (Chitwan National Park), Madhav Khadka (WWF Nepal), and 2nd Lieutenant Probin Pandit (Nepali Army).