Tag Archives: hexacopter

Third Person Driving with a Drone feels like driving in a videogame

Check out this very interesting video that features an experiment in which a car is driven by a pilot that views the car and street thanks to a video feed from a drone.

Driving a car "Third Person View", from an aerial perspective thanks to a live video feed from a drone
Driving a car “Third Person View”, from an aerial perspective thanks to a live video feed from a drone

It looks and feels very much like a video game.

The pilot is getting a live video feed from the drone thanks to FPV goggles
The pilot is getting a live video feed from the drone thanks to FPV goggles

Continue reading Third Person Driving with a Drone feels like driving in a videogame

Drone musicians as flying rockstars!

I could not pass over this one. A real concert played by a band of small hexacopters.

Drone concert by Kmel Robotics
Drone concert by Kmel Robotics

Must see and listen, perfect execution.

By KMEL Robotics

Related posts

Stay tuned on the Personal Drones blog for the latest multirotor and quadcopter news!

 

Multirotor used to smuggle tobacco inside prison – Drone technology opens new routes for contraband

Staff member from the Calhoun State prison in Georgia spotted a suspicious “helicopter” flying over the prison.

Calhoun State prison
Calhoun State prison

Rather than an helicopter, it looks like something visitors of this site are very familiar with: a DJI F500 hexacopter with a NAZA flight board, controlled by a Spectrum DX radio:

DJI hexacopter used for contraband in an attempt top smuggle tobbacco inside a Georgia prison
DJI hexacopter used for contraband in an attempt top smuggle tobbacco inside a Georgia prison – source

This unusual visit prompted a search on the premises surroundings, and after an hour Deputies noticed a suspicious Dodge car with 4 people onboard, two males and two females, and the multirotor.

“Everybody had several cell phones with different contacts. People try different things but the helicopter was something new. It is a surprise I’ve never seen a helicopter. They were in the woods flying it they had binoculars evidently so they could watch it,” Hilton said.

Multirotor tobacco smugglers - source
Multirotor tobacco smugglers – source

Read the full story at walb.com

This had to happen sooner or later. Quadcopters and multirotors are an obvious easy way to bypass any kind of wall, perimeter, country border et-cetera, and maybe deliver illegal items such as drugs for example.

After all, with multirotor deliveries for books and pizza to start soon, the use of this technology for both law enforcement (12) and all sorts of illegal purposes is just a matter of time.

PARS: a rescue multirotor drone that will save lives

A multirotor was developed by the Teheran based RTS Labs  that is able to take off from a boat and drop flotation aids to people in distress in sea water.

From the site:

“Pars is an Aerial robot designed and made for saving human lives. The first purpose of building the robot is the relief of people drowning near coastlines. By developing its applications, it can be used in ships and off shore reliefs. It can also be used in other applications such as monitoring of marine and off shore structures, recording films and pictures from dangerous path ways for rescue missions, precise positioning. One of the features of this robot is Ability to save more than one life in a mission it can also track its path by GPS positioning and at the end of its mission it can come back home without the need of user guidance.”

Here are some pictures from the RTS Labs site:

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The level of autonomy of the machine is probably still limited at the moment, from what can be understood from the web site. The inventors state:

“It’s noteworthy to mention that this robot is designed for the first time and can make a huge revolution in robot applications for saving human lives.”

And here is a video that illustrates the capabilities of PARS.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c0BOq2Y0Ngk#t=30

Terry and Belinda Kilby – Drone photography in Baltimore – Elevated Element

The Baltimore Sun features a terrific interview to drone photographers Terry and Belinda Kilby, who just published a book about drone photography in Baltimore: Drone Art: Baltimore and run the site Elevated Element.

elevated-element-baltimore
A photo from the book Drone Art: Baltimore by Terry and Belinda Kilby – Source

The interview is very generous and covers nearly all aspects of their activity, from equipment, both drones and cameras, to considerations about the workflow they have established and to the management of security.

They tend to select places and timing to ensure as few people as possible are around. Say sunday at 6AM. If required, they define a clear area for takeoff and landing, and they communicate clearly to bystanders what is going on and where to stay to remain secure.

They apparently are well known drone operators in the area, as they got a phone call from the FBI as someone else was flying a drone outside hotel rooms. They state they would never do that and  take every precaution, such as the ones mentioned above, to ensure everything remains safe for everyone.

They stepped up through a couple of generations of GoPros, to Cannon S90 an then Sony NEX 5N.

They build all their multirotors themselves.

Terry and Belinda Kilby hexacopter equipped for drone photography
Terry and Belinda Kilby hexacopter equipped for drone photography – Source

This was just a little appetizer, read the full article at the Baltimore Sun