{"id":814,"date":"2010-09-06T09:43:26","date_gmt":"2010-09-06T08:43:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.feedingedge.co.uk\/blog\/?p=814"},"modified":"2010-09-06T09:53:27","modified_gmt":"2010-09-06T08:53:27","slug":"parrot-ar-drone-pays-a-visit-in-the-name-of-research","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.feedingedge.co.uk\/blog\/2010\/09\/06\/parrot-ar-drone-pays-a-visit-in-the-name-of-research\/","title":{"rendered":"Parrot AR Drone pays a visit – in the name of research"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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@andypiper<\/a> has just come back from a long work trip, on his way back at one of the lay overs he invested in a Parrot AR quadricopter (@ardrone<\/a>). I was most honoured that he offered to bring it around Feeding Edge HQ so I could have a look and a play with it. This would be cool at any time but was very timely as I needed to get the feel of it as it is likely to be an item on the Cool Stuff Collective.
\nAndy shot, edited up and posted this video last night of the AR Drone zooming around the garden. What is amazing is that it really was very windy. (He has left out the minor crashes we both managed to make in to the swing, the apple tree and the bush at the back \ud83d\ude42
\nIt does a load of things that are really very clever. The front and down facing cameras are very neat, in particular as it is self stabilises giving you time to look at the video stream on your iphone (which is also the controller for the copter). The ultrasound sensors on the under tray help keep the copter stations over the ground at the height you set. As out garden has an odd slope in it it was cool to fly the drone at the tier and see it lift itself up as it flys the contour!
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\nAndy was very brave in getting pretty close to the Drone at the end of this film. Whilst it copes with the odd gust of wind it can still slew a little outside, but I think the against the sky shot he got is awesome.
\nI think we should have no problems zooming this around a nice still TV studio.
\nOther cool things that I did not realise about the drone is that it generates its own ad hoc wireless network, has an embedded linux on board and you can telnet to it ! It can also seek an AR tag to land on and detect other Parrot AR drones.
\nYou can screenshot the iphone app interface, and soon be able to stream the video.
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\nIt is very very cool indeed. Thanks Andy !<\/p>\n