Sunday, August 19, 2012

Model helicopters old and new

We headed for a local park armed with two model helicopters, one traditional, the other was a Parrot AR drone version 2. The difference is amazing.


To be fair, the old one is pretty beaten up and the gears are grinding. Still good fun.



The Parrot AR drone creates a wifi network that you join with an iOS device. The software has "absolute" mode where you tilt in the direction you want the drone to fly and it takes care of figuring out which way it's facing, which is the hardest part about flying these things.


Let's hope the military never gets hold of this technology..

2 comments:

alexsatrapa said...

You might be interested in this: http://www.canberrauav.com

It's a UAV team that competed (and nearly won) in the Outback Challenge: the aim being to locate a "lost person" and drop a bottle of water to them, using an entirely autonomous drone.

alexsatrapa said...

And of course there is the DIY drones site: http://www.diydrones.com

Though a lot of this is dealing with computer control, not radio communications!