The AR Drone, a fururistic ‘quadrocopter’ that can be controlled via video-link to an iPhone or iPod touch, will start shipping tomorrow. The space-age gadget is controlled by a handheld device using WiFi networking technology and works both indoors and out. The craft streams a live feed back to the user at 15 fps from a front-facing camera which allows the craft to be controlled from a pilots-eye view. A second ground-facing camera mounted on the underbelly of the drone captures the action at 60fps. Data from the second camera helps the internal guidance systems deliver a smooth flying experience. But the developers, Parrot S.A, haven’t stopped there; perhaps the coolest feature of the AR Drone is that it allows multiple units to go head-to-head in an augmented reality game, giving the drones the ability to fire virtual lasers at each other (see the video, below). Anyone who has tried to pilot a regular remote-controlled helicopter will know how difficult they are to fly and also how easy they are to damage.

Sporting four rotors instead of two, quadrocopters are significantly more stable in flight than their twin-rotor cousins. The AR Drone boasts sophisticated software, running on an embedded Linux OS on a 468mhz ARM processor, to process and react to in-flight information coming from the 3-axis accelerometer, multiple gyrometers, ultrasound altimeter and the vertical ground-facing camera. The marketing guys at Parrot claim that all this guidance technology means that even a child can fly the AR Drone. Writing on the product’s official website, the makers claim: Thanks to its Microelectromechanical systems (MEMS), Digital Signal Processor (DSP), Inertial measurement unit (IMU) and sensors, the Parrot AR.DRONE turns complex fly patterns into an easy-to-pilot system. Children will pilot AR.DRONE instinctively, using the iPhone, without any learning curve. This allows for an incredible fly experience and acrobatics. The aircraft has also been built with durability in mind; it sports a protective frame that shields the delicate rotors from knocks and bumps.

, the craft is built to withstand some moderately rough treatment: Constructed of carbon fiber tubes and PA66 plastic, the AR.Drone is meant to stand up to abuse. PA66 plastic is known for being hard, rigid, and resistant to abrasions, while carbon fiber is one of the strongest and lightest materials on the planet. Little chance of breaking the structure of the AR.Drone during normal use. According to the technical specs, users can expect to get only around 12 minutes of flying time from the 3-cell lithium-polymer battery, which will then take approximately 90 minutes to recharge. ar drone motor weightThat doesn’t sound much, although presumably enthusiastic users could purchase multiple batteries and swap them out as they drain.parrot ar drone battery extended Perhaps the coolest thing about the AR Drone from a geek’s perspective is the prospect of building your own games and controller software for the device. ar drone 2 range test

The team at Parrot are actively encouraging developers to build cool augmented reality games and custom controllers for the device using their SDK (to register as a developer, go to the ARDrone developer page). Using the AR Drone API, developers can build software to control the AR Drone from any Wi-Fi capable device. This should mean that controller software and potentially some pretty cool games for Android-based mobile phones, PCs and many other platforms and devices should follow quickly after the launch of the device.parrot ar drone negozio The AR Drone ships September 9th and is available for pre-order at Amazon for a hefty $299.99.parrot ar drone facebook Check it out at the Parrot AR Drone websitear drone price singaporeOur editorial staff evaluates products and services independently, but Top Ten Reviews may earn money when you click on links.ar drone 2 malaysia

You can do barrel rolls, execute U-turns and make high-speed turns, making this drone a ton of fun to control. The GPS receiver is sold separately. This sleek drone works for professionals that want to take advantage of the drone's two high-definition cameras, but its ability to pair with your smartphone or tablet makes it attractive for new users too.Drone 2.0 is more affordable than several other RC drones on the market, but it is still quite impressive. It has dual high-definition cameras built into its body, GPS capabilities and a brushless motor. Its value and outstanding performance are why it has received our Top Ten Reviews Bronze Award for the best RC drone. How to Pick a Drone When shopping for a drone, racers, photographers and hobbyists alike must consider more than just cost. SpecOut ranked the best drones by performance. 2 minute read › SpecOut is a tech gadget site that uses Graphiq’s semantic technology to deliver deep insights via data-driven articles, visualizations and research tools.

Deep insights from technology data. Create a gist now Instantly share code, notes, and snippets. parrot ar drone 2.0 arduino communication with node possible other names: ardrono, dronenodeuino, ardronenodeuino, arnodedroneduino ahahahah above shot is from @rem getting node on the drone untar node-serialport and put node and the node-serialport folder onto a usb thumbstick thingy put the thumbstick thingy into the drone (like in the above photo) telnet into drone, telnet 192.168.1.1(it might be usb1) cp -r usb/node-serialport/ node_modules/ note: you can use node-serialport to get data from arduino but you can't use johnny-five because it depends on firmata which doesn't support Tx/Rx serial communication this last point means you have to write actual arduino sketches and upload them to the arduino directly, but you can still write node code that runs on the drone to reads the serial data also I found out that since the serial port on the drone is intended as a debug console you will get a bunch of debug data spewing out at you from the boards Tx pin.

I don't know how to turn it off at this time. what this means is you can send data into the drone over serial but you can't (to my knowledge -- someone should hack this) send data from the drone over serial to a device yet here is where things get tricky be very careful that you don't eff up your drone! the drone has a female USB port exposed next to the battery connector but unfortunately it is hardcoded into host mode so it can only be used with mass storage devices :( that last point is based on my naive understanding of electronics. prove me wrong and fork these instructions! there is another serial console on the drone motherboard open up the bottom of the drone under the little piece of black tape to expose a buncha plastic hole thingies: turns out this has pins for TTL serial communication and USB serial communication. this awesome post by jazzomaniak is where I figured this out here is a pinout from jazzomaniak: ** it has come to my attention that the serial console tx/rx pins on the AR Drone 2 run at 1.8v which means you'll need a level converter to talk to the arduino.

here is a schematic from the mirumod project that shows where the level converter should be installed ** without a level converter i still was able to receive and transmit serial data from arduino to drone but it was flaky. i believe (but have not yet tested) that after fixing the voltage mismatch that communication will be much more reliable you'll wanna get some thinnish gauge wire (around AWG 16 I reckon, AWG 22 is for most breadboards and my 22 wire didn't fit into the drone serial ports) get an arduino uno which provides 5v or 3.3v TTL serial via digital ports (Rx and Tx). due and uno have this, not sure about others here is a shot from @rem of drone with the entire bottom cover removed you can also theoretically power the arduino from #8 and #9 on the drone if you hook them up to a barrel power jack thingy for the arduino (or use the Vin and GND pins for the same effect). I haven't hooked this up yet cause I ran out of cables. @rem in the comments below said he got it working

you can also use the other USB port on the drone to power the arduino, but I don't have a short enough USB cable for this upload the sketch in this gist called helloworld.pde to the arduino in a telnet shell on the drone type cat /proc/cmdline and find out which tty device the 'console' is set to. on my drone it was ttyO3 set the tty socket to raw mode: stty -F /dev/ttyO3 -raw verify the baud rate of the socket: stty -F /dev/ttyO3. mine originally said 115200 but after messing with it it seems to change to 9600. the arduino sketch and the node code running on the drone need to both contain whatever stty tells you the baud rate is for communication to work. the Input/output error above is because I was sending serial data from the arduino into the drone. I unplugged the serial cables from the arduino and tried the command again and it worked. I think it was around this time that the drone decided to switch baud rates to 9600 go into a node repl (./node) and copy paste in helloworld.js from this gist