|
You are obviously well-versed in electronics. .
Just mediocre at the hobby level. I have a more firm understanding of computers.
.
Is making these controllers something you happen to do for a living?
Not at all. My drone is a garage sale find for 10 bucks that currently needs a new battery. :)
However, I have put together several projects using microcontrollers like arduino's, raspberry pis, and I did quite a bit of research as the lawnbot is on the list of things to complete.
So, it should be easy for some American company to make new controllers for all our DJI drones, including all the ag drones that have evolved in the past years?
It isnt out of the realm of possibilities one already exists. You might check this list out, and at the -very- bottom, there is a listing of schematics.
https://ardupilot.org/copter/docs/common-autopilots.html
There is a company, I believe in SoCal, that specializes in hobby runs of boards and designs. And one reason to use them is if you want to commercialize your product. Places like PLPCB based in China and advertise all over have a tendency to 'borrow' designs and mass produce them.
The electronics all work very similar. The 'ag part' additonal, is no more then either the blink example or the fade example code. blink, you signal a signal to turn it on or off. The fade, uses pwm, which is akin to blinking it on and off really fast. Flip your lightswitch on and off as fast as you can, and it will look dimmer, but you won't notice the on/off. but it is the same for the pump motor for the sprayer so you have control over the speed of the motor which controls the pressure or the speed of the seed spreader.
Then, what about all the other signal generating devices the world uses made in China? Televisions? Radios? Computers? CELL PHONES? Automotive chip devices (remember the Covid chip problem...)? Do you have means to replace all those? Or, do we just dumpster toss all those mentioned items too?
While a security concern, because those can and have been used a vector of attack for hacking computer systems on the network which is a legitimate problem even beyond if it was made in China or intentionally backdoored not. Like a smart tv has a processor like your cell phone. But vulnerabilities exist in the software that can be hacked remotely, and you only update a tv every say 10 years, and no update is out to fix the problem.
To back up just a step, You have two different styles of processors. One is an applications processor and one is a microcontroller. The main difference is the microcontroller has guaranteed execution of an instruction in a certain time and you run a single program on it. An applications processor, which is a cell phone, your computer, a tablet, etc the operating system decides how to schedule various tasks. It can run multiple programs at the same time but it is typically an illusion, it just say okay I ran this for 40ms, I need to work on this other thing. They both have operating systems, they both can be hacked at the operating system level. China does do that to spy on their own people.
Not all chips they need for the auto industry can be backdoored. The auto industry tends to use older chip designs which use an older fabrication process. In part for known reliability. Tesla was stuck on a USB contoller chip, which can't be backdoored. They shipped cars without the feature that used the chips and said they would install it later.
not everything we attribute to China is made in China. TSMC is the worlds largest manufacturer of chips, and they are in Taiwan, which China refers to Taiwan as Chinese. LG and Samsung, are based in South Korea, Malaysia and Vietnam have several factories. Japan and Europe actually makes a number of chips too especially for the automotive industry. A lot of times everything is assembled in China.
Both Intel and TSMC are building factories in Arizona as we speak. I think Intel's first one is going to be done in 2025, They started planning for it like in 2010 and I think Intel already announced a second one because they take 10-15 years to plan and build.
Finally, what, how, and why would anyone care what drones do? I assume that at any given moment in the world, there are hundreds of thousands of DJI drones flying. Who watches them & how many people does that take? You could spend a lifetime if you just tried to watch DJI generated YouTubes.
They are free spy planes. You paid for the privilege to spy for China.
hrm.
Second, we need people that actually know what they are doing. As a country most of it is stuck on consumerism, instead of learning the basics of what they are doing. And that is the whole push for STEM in classrooms, and such. Which is the difference between just pushing a button and it works, and knowing what happens behind the scenes when you push the button.
What I am encouraging you to do is find out what happens when you push the button. Rather then complain to the government, that you bought a drone, that you have no idea what you actually paid for. Quite frankly, the whole petition could have been started by the Chinese government, and because you don't even begin to understand what you are talking about,Just that you bought a Chinese spy plane, you know how to fly it, and it is useful for your purposes. While I am nitpicking this particular issue. It is pretty common even historically, and thus why we have our government system set up to weed out the kangaroo court of public opinion.
|
DJI drones may soon become totally banned in USA unless you do something NOW
