For the last few months I've been watching the progress of the AR.Drone by France's Parrot wireless engineering company. The AR.Drone is a revolution in remote controlled helicopters. Usually RC helicopters are nefariously difficult to control and take a lot of time and dedication to actually be able to use them effectively. Parrot has tried (and apparently succeeded) to fix this with their quadricopter design.
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| Image from Wikipedia |
But that isn't the really cool part. The AR.Drone is not controlled by a standard RC controller. It is controlled via WiFi using an app running on an iPhone/iPod Touch/iPad. This is further enhanced by an on-board camera which is streamed to the Apple device. Parrot has used this to create what they call "augmented reality games". Using the camera, the display on the Apple device, and a few real-world reflectors, the AR.Drone software creates targets and virtual opponents which you can fly your real AR.Drone against. This is probably better explained in a video.
After a very lengthy development cycle, the AR.Drone is finally being released around the world this week. However, there are two downsides. First, the $300 price tag really does take the AR.Drone out of the "just a toy" category and more into the land of "only rich people with money to burn" category. Secondly, the fact that you only get 12 minutes of use out of a single charge really bursts the bubble for me. It looks like a really cool device to play with, but only getting 12 minutes of play-time and then having to wait 90 minutes to 2 hours to charge is just not worth the price tag.
Still, it's nifty...
That's fairly standard runtime for an electric radio control flying machine of any sort. I'm actually surprised it wasn't less.
ReplyDeleteThe way you use electric R/C devices is to have a quick charger and at least two sets of batteries. This is made a bit difficult because it's an aircraft - they all use LiPo batteries for their high energy density.
Lithium polymer batteries are awesome but you need to get quality ones and a VERY GOOD charger, because the biggest side-effect a LiPo battery has during charging is EXPLOSION. So, like, don't buy extra batteries on eBay from "SUPER DISCOUNT CHINA BATTERIES YES A++++".
--Erik