Ces: An Iphone Controlled Personal Spy Drone?

[DaveC]

Cool weird contraption to spy on your girlfriend/neighbor etc with...
Built in video camera.


http://ardrone.parrot.com/parrot-ar-drone/en/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Npuznl9yViw&feature=related

 

[mali]

Cool! Would be handy to inspect roofs or other things where you dont have immidiate access.

 

[pelrun]

The thing has a quite well documented comms protocol too, so you aren't stuck with only controlling it by the iPhone app.

That said, I have no idea whether the codec for the video is open, so it could all be for naught.

 

[DaveC]

If you look at the specs it has a computer on board (the thing is basically a flying robot) which is a 468 MHz ARM 9 CPU. It also runs linux and is supposedly open for hacking. Kind of cool.

 

[fischju2000]

Wow, and if it's open to hacking by the user I bet the video encryption will be harder to tap into than that of Predator drones. (If it already isn't)

 

[WizardStan]

Unfortunately it's only got an estimated 15 minutes of flight time. Which is pretty standard for these mini helicopter things, but it'd still be cool if it could be extended to an hour. I had visions of using it at weddings and stuff. I'd be the only videographer with a flying camera!

 

[OrR]

Pretty cool... Any idea what the price range might be?
The US army should probably order a few hundred of these for Afganistan. Maybe they can encrypt the video feed if it's an open system.

 

[DaveC]

Unfortunately it's only got an estimated 15 minutes of flight time. Which is pretty standard for these mini helicopter things, but it'd still be cool if it could be extended to an hour. I had visions of using it at weddings and stuff. I'd be the only videographer with a flying camera!

It is physics man.. The more battery you add the heavier. The heavier it is the bigger the motors need to be to lift the extra weight. This means the motor controllers need to be bigger and before you know it everything is bigger, including the price.

That flight time is actually not too bad considering it is running 2 cameras, ultrasonic sensors, wi-fi radio, on-board computer.

Many of these things only get around 5-10 minutes a charge.

 

[Iorgy77]

If you look at the specs it has a computer on board (the thing is basically a flying robot) which is a 468 MHz ARM 9 CPU. It also runs linux...

We should get someone to port picodrive to it and use it to play desert strike IRL.

 

[quote]

Damn this thing will play psx like a dream.

Looks cool, I want one now.

 

[pelrun]

Unfortunately it's only got an estimated 15 minutes of flight time. Which is pretty standard for these mini helicopter things, but it'd still be cool if it could be extended to an hour. I had visions of using it at weddings and stuff. I'd be the only videographer with a flying camera!

Bung a Pandora battery in it?