Back in 2010, our own John Biggs rightly described Parrot’s AR.Drone as ” the coolest thing [he had] seen in a long, long time.” Since then, Parrot has launched the AR.Drone 2.0 and while it’s still a very cool gadget, quadcopters have come a very long way since 2010. Last month, the folks at DJI, who mostly specialize in developing unmanned aerial systems for commercial use, sent me one of their consumer-oriented and GPS-enabled DJI Phantoms to review. Most quadcopters are aimed at hobbyists and take a good amount of assembly and at least some experience with flying remote-controlled aircraft. The Phantom, which has a list price of $849 but currently retails for about $680, comes mostly pre-assembled and is extremely easy to fly, thanks to its built-in compass and GPS module. Thanks to having GPS built-in, the drone always knows where it is in relation to you. So depending on the mode you are flying in, every input you give will always be interpreted in relation to you and not in relation to where the front of the aircraft is (here’s a video that explains how this works).

The other cool thing about the GPS mode is that the drone can hover in position even if it’s windy. It’ll just auto-correct for the wind, thanks to its built-in autopilot (you probably want to turn this mode off when you are trying to take a video, however, as the constant corrections will show up in your videos).ar drone 2 camera focus This autopilot also kicks in if the Phantom loses its connection with your remote control if it flies out of reach or your remote runs out of battery, the drone itself is very low on battery, or because you turn it off to see if the autopilot actually works. parrot ar drone blade replacementOnce the failsafe mode kicks in, the drone will simply fly up to 60 feet, fly back to where it first took off and land. storm drone 6 or phantom

I actually tried this and it worked surprisingly well. The drone touched down just about 3 feet from where I launched it. When you spent $700 on the drone and another $300 or so on a GoPro 3 Silver, that’s a nice feature to have. The Phantom is a clear step up from something like the AR.ar drone parts compatibilityIts communication distance is just under 1,000 feet and a maximum horizontal speed of about 32 feet per second and a descent speed of close to 20 feet per second. best controller for ar drone 2That’s fast and feels even faster if you are just learning how to fly it.parrot ar drone on sale These specs show that this isn’t just a toy but can actually be used for some pretty impressive aerial photography. ar drone sale singapore

Indeed, since the Phantom launched earlier this year, a whole ecosystem has sprung up around it that provides owners with everything from improved propellers to cases and multi-axis camera gimbals. A gimbal, by the way, isn’t a must, but if you want to take really stable videos without the so-called “jello” effect (here’s a pretty extreme example of that), both a gimbal and some well-balanced after-market rotors will surely help. Here is a video I took with the Phantom and a GoPro 3 White over the weekend: The Phantom’s battery lasts just under 15 minutes, so you probably want to buy at least a second one, given that the package only includes a single 2,200mAh battery and a charger. If you decide to get one of these, by the way, make sure you read the instructions and watch this series of videos before you turn it on. The Phantom may look like a toy and is easy to fly, but this is a pretty high-end piece of technology and there are a few things you need to know and do before your first flight.

With the 2013 NAB Show just around the corner, it’s a fair bet that DJI will announce a few new products in the coming days and we’ll make sure to keep a close eye on this company. This is my Next Cant receive GPS data Add GPS support to ardrone_serverCommercial drones and radio-controlled aircraft are of increasing concern, with commercial airlines afraid of collision and property owners worrying that their privacy is being invaded.Another risk is the possibility of hijacking or jamming a drone in flight. In recent years several security researchers have made public vulnerabilities for these flying machines. In some cases even providing full source code or tools to play their attacks.I will be sponsoring an effort for compilation of vulnerable drone and vulnerability testing/exploit methodologies. As part of that effort, this report has been prepared to provide a ready reference of vulnerable drones and associated attack tools. This document compilation should promote a better understanding of how drone vulnerability is currently exploited, and how future drone will take advantage of improvements in available vulnerability research data.

I’ll try to keep this page updated as new drone vulnerability details go out.Last updated: Wednesday, March 1, 2017Where should I go next? Is there any ROS package or stack that can be used as a tutorial/sample to use ardrone_autonomy?Here are some examples: “falkor_ardrone” is a ROS package which uses the “ardrone_autonomy” package to implement autonomous control functionality on an AR. State Estimation, Autopilot and GUI for ardrone. This ROS stack includes a series of very basic nodes to show users how to develop applications that use the ardrone_autonomy drivers for the AR drone 1.0 and 2.0 quadrotor robot. This repository contains the source-code for the Up and flying with the AR. AR Drone simulation in Gazebo, compatible with . How can I report a bug, submit patches or ask for a feature? offers a nice and convenient issue tracking and social coding platform, it can be used for bug reports and pull/feature request. This is the preferred method.

You can also contact the author directly. Why the has been patched? The ARDrone 2.0.1 SDK has been patched to 1) Enable the lib only build 2) Make its command line parsing compatible with ROS and 3) To fix its weird function issue. The patched SDK is being hosted on an external repository. Why the wifi bandwidth usage is too much? The driver has been configured by default to use the maximum bandwidth allowed to ensure the best quality video stream possible (please take a look at default values in parameters section). That is why the picture quality received from Drone 2.0 using this driver is far better than what you usually get using other software. If for any reason you prefer the lower quality* video stream, change , and parameters to the default values mentioned in the AR-Drone developer guide. Please note that lower quality does not mean lower resolution. By configuring AR-Drone to use bitrate control with limits, the picture gets blurry when there is a movement.

What is the default configuration for the front camera video stream? How can I calibrate the ardrone front/bottom camera? It is easy to calibrate both cameras using ROS Camera Calibration. First, run the camera_calibration node with appropriate arguments: (For the bottom camera, replace front with bottom) After successful calibration, press the button in the UI. The driver will receive the data from the camera calibration node, then will save the information by default in . From this point on, whenever you run the driver on the same computer this file will be loaded automatically by the driver and its information will be published to appropriate topic. Sample calibration files for AR-Drone 2.0’s cameras are provided in folder. Can I control multiple drones using a single PC? or can I make my drone connect to a wireless router? Since version 1.4, the driver supports connecting to multiple AR-Drones from a single PC. Thanks to efforts and patches provided by @kbogert.