Hi folks, I couldn’t find a large enough community about drones so I’ll ask here.

What I’m looking for is a programmable drone with an okay camera that can charge itself while landed.

What I want to do is: I’d like to make a time lapse video of a larger area (few acres). So the drone needs to fly a pre-programmed pattern to take pictures of the ground surface (at least once a day) that I can stitch together into a single (very large) picture and eventually a video. It must be able to charge (maybe wirelessly using Qi) while landed.

The control software doesn’t need to run on the drone itself, but I’d prefer it if possible. The picture/video processing will happen on another device.

There are probably options to modify a drone to make wireless charging possible for the ones that don’t support it by design. Or maybe a contact-based setup where the drone slips into the charger while landing.

I found a few things online but mostly very expensive professional grade stuff. Has anyone done something similar already?

I’m willing to modify a drone and write the software (and release it all under a FOSS license). I’m just looking for a good starting point like a consumer-grade drone with an SDK and a (possibly DIY) charging solution.

Cheers!