GPS HUD from recon now for skydiving

[jeb 0]

OK, the time has come :) Those interested in getting the Recon Instruments HUD for wing-suit flying can now order them. But we need to get 250 orders within 30 days in order for recon to build them. We need to show them there is a big enough market to make it worth their while. Please order now so we can have this amazing technology develop... http://labs.reconinstruments.com/

P.S. They work for tracking too :)

[chemfx 0]

http://labs.reconinstruments.com/

[FlyingRhenquest 1]

Neat! I was just telling someone I wanted something like that for skydiving, too. Does it remember telemetry data, too?

I'm trying to teach myself how to set things on fire with my mind. Hey... is it hot in here?

[ciscobird 0]

"The screen refreshes at 1 frame per second..."

Everything related to skydiving/base happens much quicker than that...

I think I'll wait until they come out with the 2nd or 3rd generation model, if the first makes at all...

Thanks for sharing, tho...

[-Joey- 0]

Jeb, I have a slightly technical question. By what method are you calculating ground speed? Are you integrating accelerometer data, integrating GPS data, or using one to provide corrections for the other? And what kind of filtering algorithm is being ran on the data from the sensors?

I ask because each of these methods has their weaknesses, and I'm sure a tracker or wingsuiter is going to want the most accurate ground speed (and by extension, glide ratio) reading possible.

Skydiving is serious business

[bradcurn 0]

I ordered mine

Now just 138 more orders

whoohoo!!

[slotperfect 7]

I trashed another thread that was a blatant advertisement.

This one is OK - please don't turn this into an ad string.

This is a cool piece of kit and I hope it fills to the point that they get produced.

Arrive Safely

John

[piisfish 135]

I tried to ordre mine but I don't think that the order went through

scissors beat paper, paper beat rock, rock beat wingsuit - KarlM

[FlyingRhenquest 1]

Quote

I trashed another thread that was a blatant advertisement.

This one is OK - please don't turn this into an ad string.

This is a cool piece of kit and I hope it fills to the point that they get produced.

I'd love to see a late-night advert for a product like this, with the usual badly paid actors and cheesy sound effects! That would be hysterical!

I'm already curious to see how this device evolves. Once you have a number of people testing them, they'll start asking for refinements and features, pointing out things that could be smoothed out.

I already have a number of ideas and am curious if they've already implemented any of them. 6 hours of battery life isn't too bad, as long as you remember to turn your goggles on before you start your jump and off afterward.

I wonder if they could do an external battery as an option, to go in a helmet audible alarm slot?

If they could marry an HD video camera to one of these things, that would be awesome sauce. I've seen some glasses with an embedded video camera in another forum post here. Battery life would probably be the biggest problem with that. I actually have a friend who skis who might be interested in something like that which has a camera on it.

If I could download the flight telemetry and show my jumps on Google earth, that would be pretty spiffy. Even if it just spits out KML files, I could do something with that.

Compass heading would be pretty nice, too, but at the same time I want to avoid information overload. Really the most important thing in my view would be the altitude.

Can't wait to see what version 3 looks like!

I'm trying to teach myself how to set things on fire with my mind. Hey... is it hot in here?

[Mr_Polite 0]

Cant wait to see the "you need 200 wing suit jumps" to use this

I say put it on students to distract them.

[tsisson 0]

I can't wait to see how this distracting little piece of gadgetry adds even more element of chaos and lack of awareness in the landing pattern.

But I didn't see you because I was too busy monitoring my "heads up" display.

But my altimeter said I was at 700 feet, my audible said 600, and my Johhny spaceman recon heads up unit said 500...

I'm going to continue to trust my eyeballs thanks very much...

[piisfish 135]

well I am happy my order went through, part of the lucky 250 "first"

and if I don't enjoy the use of it, I could still resell it to other hype-geeks

scissors beat paper, paper beat rock, rock beat wingsuit - KarlM

[costanza 0]

Quote

"The screen refreshes at 1 frame per second..."

Everything related to skydiving/base happens much quicker than that...

I think I'll wait until they come out with the 2nd or 3rd generation model, if the first makes at all...

Thanks for sharing, tho...

most commercial GPS chipsets update at 1 Hz (update once per second). There exist chipsets that update faster, but would result in the units costing thousands of dollars a piece, or Recon would have to sell millions of units to offset the costs.

edit: GPS also has an issue when there exists little movement in x or y coordinates. if you have a gps system, and stand still, you can see that your position floats around and jumps, speeds are not consistent, etc., as GPS requires movement from one coordinate to another. This is great for any flying with movement over the ground (ws, tracking) and useful while under canopy, but less useful under most free fall and tracking conditions.

[CygnusX-1 42]

I know my knowledge on GPS is kind of out-of-date, but the GPS signal from the satellites was based on a 1 Hz rate. Therefore no hardware could update faster if using the GPS signal than once per second. That is unless they are using software to extrapolate your position between the two samples received from the satellites.

[kallend 1,621]

Quote

I know my knowledge on GPS is kind of out-of-date, but the GPS signal from the satellites was based on a 1 Hz rate. Therefore no hardware could update faster if using the GPS signal than once per second. That is unless they are using software to extrapolate your position between the two samples received from the satellites.

I believe the update rate depends on the antenna/detector and not the GPS signal itself. Some chipsets are advertising 20Hz updating. Kalman filters are also be used to interpolate. I also know of work using carrier cycle detection which is very fast and accurate, but not sure if its available commercially.

...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.