Parrot AR.Drone - Iphone control, AR, ultrasonic altitude, visual position lock

[supermac]

Check this thing out.

It has Augmented reality capability and control with iphone, Ultrasonic altitude lock and vertical position lock by camera!
http://www.parrot.com/parrot-ar-dron...-it-work#start

Unreal!

[pyjamasam]

Hehehe. They ready my mind.

Don't think I haven't wanted to do this.

I already got the streaming video to the phone part working :-) Now I just need a stable hover... muhahaha

chris.

[lowfi]

Seems like the Parrot is out, can someone grab this, and let the mods begin.

[Honk]

Ok this is certainly inspiring, but I do not want one since I'm not sure how much you can do with it's software. I mean my interest lies in developing, not really using, but I can see that this is a great thing that really drives the development further making it available to every iPhone yuppie out there I mean it costs less than the iPhone itself (if i'm not wrong)!

Although, from what I can see it seems to have great similarities to the Silverlit X-UFO (which started this whole craze?) with it's main frame and the propellers.

Correct me if i'm wrong anywhere here, but isn't the DC motor drive just much cheaper and at the same time allows for almost unrestricted update rate? And by this you get much more stability and quickness out of the regulation? By these speculations I'm getting reaaally eager to just put an AQ board (that is a Pro Mini and a Wii motion Plus gyro) on my X-UFO frame that I stripped of the original (ANALOG :O ) control board and just put 4 FET's to drive the motors. I expect it to react much faster than my big AQ since the small weight (like a 6 or 7th's weight of my big quad) and the much lighter props and DC motors (150Hz vs unrestriced) and the code that puts out in 500Hz.

But I gotta give the parrot a lift on my hat for those implementations in games and fun stuff.

We'll see if I get something together, anyways it would be great to be able to fly inside so I can refine things inside my room on rainy days such as this.

Haven't anyone else thought of combining AQ with DC motors? I mean it's really cheapo hardware, just gotta put analogWrite(output); //output 0-255 corresponds to 0-100% RPM

[Tedro]

Pre-ordered! Can't wait to take it apart...

[jpkh]

Well AR.Parrot is meant to be programmed by users, all those fancy reality pictures are actually game software that runs on it and iPhone..

Tedro, do you have iPhone ?? Due only way to control AR.Parrot is with iPhone and you need to buy it separately if you don't have it. Also you cannot fly it outside. It's only for indoors use. We have been testing those now about 6 months (not me but my partner)

[Honk]

JP, are the video really that slow as in the commersial videos? Seems like 3fps or something! I couldn't fly with that low update rate unless the quad was really stable but I guess it is stable.

And what do you think, is DC motors making for a more stable quad due to higher/unrestricted update rate?

[jpkh]

Whole AR.P works over WiFi network so you will connect to it via WiFi connection Ok that is good but then again it can be really bad too especially when thinking these normal city areas. On city areas there are million WiFi accespoints that are already fighting with each other. So now we have one moving ap, some areas your range can be only matter of ten meters. More WiFi noise = less fps and range. I personally have not played with it but I can check that fps issue.

Anyways if you have that iPhone, iPad or similar device yes it's a nice but expensive toy :P

DC motors, hmm yes they can give a bit better stability but when thinking of it. There are also many problems with those. First payload, DC motors are all inrunners and that way they do not have enough torque, due they are inrunners their rotation speed is way higher than outrunners. Also due they are DC synchronizing their spin speeds is way more difficult than outrunners that are 3-phase motors.

Ok sure you can use them on small quads like we have seen but it mean that you either need to use gearbox to lower down rpm and get better torque or you use props that are specially designed to that motor. So having a prop like 1045, 1245 is out of the question

[Honk]

Well ok, it's because of Wifi, then I get it. Well I'll stick with analog video for a while I think

Hmm, yes, you have valid points, but I mean, if I already have this hardware (my stripped currently non working X-UFO) then the mechanics with gearboxes are already sorted. The only thing I'm into now is just trying to evaluate DC motor stability compared to Brushless low update rate ones. I mean it's much cheaper and easier to control a DC motor than building a I2C ESC (especially for the industries) so that takes need for advanced technology away. I do not in any way say that brushless motors are not better than DC motors, but only thinking of update rate compared to stability.

In general I hate DC motors and love brushless. I mean coal pads that slide along a copper piece, and 2 gears on that? Of course it will be much more ineffective energy wise, but still, fun to play inside with

The only (maybe real) trouble I can think of is that DC motors give much more unwanted noise than brushless ones, I hope to not have trouble with that since the motors I have already is somewhat noise reduced on the PCB's by each motor. Will put this project in it's own thread in the coming week.

[Tedro]

JP, I do have the iPhone and (don't laugh) have had the app installed for a few months now. =)

I'm hooked on custom built quads but this should be a cool toy... at least for the indoor/iphone aspect.