Business Day, By Kevin O’ Grady: The Parrot A R .Drone is a remote - controlled quadrotor — or four-bladed helicopter — that makes use of some brilliant technology, ONE of the most exciting gadgets I’ve had the good fortune to play with in recent years is not a smartphone, a tablet computer, a gaming console or a camera. Well, actually, it is a camera, or two of them to be precise, but that is not all it is, by a long way. Nor is it made by any of the usual suspects when it comes to noteworthy gadgets — Apple, Microsoft, Sony, Canon or Nintendo. This one is made by a French company whose name is more usually associated with high-quality automotive Bluetooth solutions — Parrot. The device is the Parrot AR.Drone, a remote-controlled quadrotor — or four-bladed helicopter — about 30cm long that makes use of some brilliant technology to give a flying performance unrivalled by the smaller, cheaper infrared-controlled helicopters that are on the market courtesy of companies such as Silverlit. This flying machine is designed to be operated using software that runs on the iOS (iPod, iPad and iPhone) or Android mobile operating systems. It sports an ARM9 468MHz embedded microcontroller with 128MB of RAM running the Linux operating system and is controlled by creating its own Wi-Fi network, to which the iOS or Android device connects. It has two onboard video cameras — one front-facing and the other downward-facing — that stream video to your mobile device, so you can fly the drone without even being able to see it. You can even record video from the airborne drone using various third-party iOS or Android applications. The AR.Drone uses an "inertial guidance system" that includes a three-axis accelerometer, a two-axis gyrometer and a single-axis yaw precision gyrometer. An ultrasonic altimeter with a range of 6m provides vertical stabilisation so that if you stop actively flying it, the AR.Drone automatically goes into a stable hover. The "AR" in the name is short for "augmented reality", which refers to the ability of two AR.Drones to engage in battle, with "augmented reality" weapons fire and explosions appearing on each user’s iOS or Android real-time display. Not surprisingly, a "toy" as sophisticated as this doesn’t come cheap — about R3500 if you order online from Parrot and about R3000 if you buy from local distributor Smart Automotive Components (www.smac.co.za), which also distributes Parrot’s Bluetooth products. The beauty of it is that every single part, from the motherboard to the motors to the styrofoam hulls (for indoor and outdoor flying), is available separately, so if you damage it in a crash (as you will, and as I did), you can simply order the damaged part and fix it yourself. But the most fascinating part of all of this is how this type of technology is being developed for multiple uses in search and rescue, transport, construction and emergency first response, among other things. In a recent TED (Technology, Entertainment and Design) talk, University of Pennsylvania roboticist Vijay Kumar, who studies the control and co-ordination of multirobot formations, demonstrated how smaller, smarter versions of the AR.Drone can fly and work together seamlessly, without accidentally flying into each other, to accomplish some of these tasks. "Agile aerial robots like this have many applications. You can send them inside buildings as first responders to look for intruders, maybe look for biochemical leaks … or they can be used for transporting cargo," Kumar says. Today’s (relatively) expensive toy is tomorrow’s hi-tech, unmanned flying robot. Source: BusinessDay, ***
