First take with a drone.

Short version: https://www.facebook.com/156316404712431/posts/1065408730469856/?vh=e&d=n

Longer version: https://youtu.be/wrc7dHPPXFw

Greatness.

Nice Tony!!!

I was talking with buddy last week about shooting video of hunting dogs with a drone. He is a serious electronics geek that is into drones. When he gets back from his current contract gig, we are going to get his gear set up and try to see if he can capture the data packets from a collar. Unless Garmin is encrypting the data, he thinks he can get a drone to automatically follow the dog. That might make for pretty cool video.

The dji drone have a tracking function that may work for dogs.

Make sure you understand the rules with drones and wildlife. People like to complain about drones...

https://tpwd.texas.gov/warden/law-enforcement-faq/drones-uavs

No need to hack anything if you’ve got a DJI drone that uses Go4.

https://store.dji.com/guides/film-like-a-pro-with-activetrack/

Charlie

The image processing based tracking seem to be geared for larger objects, that move a more predictable path, in plain view. The two videos I have been able to find from automatically tracking drones lost the dogs repeatedly when they changed direction suddenly in the grass\brush.

There is a drone that uses a TV remote sized GPS tracker, but it does not appear to be released for sale yet. The promotional videos for it look promising, but the remote is not water proof. Maybe a zip lock bag and some duct tape

Spent a couple of hours this evening researching and exchanging ideals with a guy that uses drones professionally, in his photography business. His opinion is that the flight processing\nav software is nowhere near being able to track a seemingly random target like a bird dog. I also found out that due to FAA regulations, none of the drone manufactures will provide APIs or other means of interfacing their software to a location signal from another source. So even if we can hack the Garmin signal (very do able), we cannot get the data to the Drone.

Seems like another whiskey fueled idea shut down by reality.

My Typhoon has a device called a Wizard remote that the drone will follow. Tracking fast action though is still hit or miss. And the drone needs to have good object avoidance. I am a Part 107 licensed operator. The wizard remote is about the size of a tv remote. Has been around for about 3 or 4 years now.