Drones are becoming quite popular for individuals and governments. I haven’t spent enough time talking about drones – their popularity is growing rapidly.
Cheap drones for individuals
For a few hundred dollars you can buy an easy-to-fly drone that can stream HD feed to your smart phone. That according to the video at Spying eyes or a bit of fun, drones fly off the shelves at Sydney Morning Herald.
Yeah. Today they can.
As Alex Tabarrok says at Marginal Revolution, Acrobatic Quadrocopters, image a micro-drone, specifically a quadrocopter, that can balance a pole, toss it in the air, and have another micro-drone catch the pole in the air.
Check out this video:
link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=pp89tTDxXuI#t=17s
The catching ’copter recalculates the exact position to make the catch 50 times a second. It positions itself at the exact point so the pole will balance and right itself.
Here’s the question – how long do you think it will be until you can go to your local hobby story and buy one of these for under $200?
Ever play with maple seeds? They have a flat, blade-like tail. When they fall, the tail creates lift, generating spin, and the seed floats to the ground quite some distance from the tree.
They were fun to play with when I was a kid. Throw them in the air and they slowly spin to the ground like helicopter in auto-rotation.
Lockheed Martin has developed drones based on the same concept. A small propeller on the end of the tail creates a controllable, rapid spin which allows the drone to fly. A fixed camera on the drone is synchronized to the spin to produce a very stable view from the drone.
Check out this video:
The drone could be scaled down to a small size for recon.
Previously discussed the amazing stuff that little drones can do.
This week’s issue of The Economist has several great articles in the Technology Quarterly section. One in particular that caught my eye – Unblinking eyes in the sky.
The article says drones that police might use for their operations will fit into the trunk of a car and can be had for the price of a police cruiser. Quite a bargain for surveillance in a crisis situation when you might otherwise need a helicopter which costs $1.7M to buy (according to the article) and require 1 pilot & 1 observer at operating cost of $5k or $10k an hour (my wild guess).
Farhad Manjoo describes what a team at the University of Pennsylvania is doing with autonomous drones – the team calls them quadrotors – I Love You, Killer Robots
The drones are very small, autonomous and extremely nimble. They can determine location of nearby drones.
Check out the drones as they fly through windows at various angles:
