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Ultra-Light Micro Air Vehicles

Posted by samzenpus on from the eye-in-the-sky dept.

Roland Piquepaille writes "Dutch engineers have built the third generation of the DelFly autonomous air vehicle. The DelFly Micro made its first public flight earlier today in Delft. This micro air vehicle weighs only 3 grams and has a wingspan of 10 centimeters. This very small remote-controlled aircraft carries a 0.4 gram camera. The DelFly Micro, which looks like a dragonfly, can fly for 3 minutes at a maximum speed of 5 meters/second. It could be used for observation flights in difficult-to-reach or dangerous areas."

7 of 143 comments (clear)

  1. Video link: by Sporkus · · Score: 5, Informative

    There's a video of the DelFly Micro in action here. It takes flight about a minute and a half in.

    1. Re:Video link: by LiquidCoooled · · Score: 5, Informative

      There is an assortment of additional video links on this page

      http://www.tudelft.nl/live/pagina.jsp?id=1468ded9-96cb-47dd-aed3-da0a70a34813&lang=en

      Its like they are catering for everyone, because each link has a different format.

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      liqbase :: faster than paper
  2. I'll wait for the Fourth Generation by UncleWilly · · Score: 5, Funny

    You'd still notice this in the girl's shower.

    1. Re:I'll wait for the Fourth Generation by Rogerborg · · Score: 5, Funny

      Roofies are technology.

      --
      If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
  3. Re:Paging Danny Dunn... by QuantumHack · · Score: 5, Interesting

    That's exactly what I was thinking! When I was 12, and I read Raymond Abrashkin's "Danny Dunn: Invisible Boy", I was mesmerized. And this mini UAV is essentially the plot device in the book, right down to the dragonfly appearance. Pretty good prediction for a book from the mid '70s.

    --
    www.backwoodsengineer.com
  4. Impossible! Slashdot SAID SO!!! by BobMcD · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Does NO ONE ELSE remember THIS conversation:

    http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/10/11/131214

    Scroll through it and take in all the posts about how all the eye witnesses were CRAZY to have reported seeing "Dragonfly-Sized Insect Spies". Bathe in the impossibility of the batteries, the cameras, the wireless technology. Soak up how it simply was not even close to being true.

    One of a short list of things must be the case:

    A) That story from October certainly WAS plausible and a lot of you pundits are going to be dining on fresh hat today.

    B) All the know-it-all's are still correct, due to some technicality.

    C) I have somehow swapped dimensions again and no one ever said it didn't happen at all...

  5. Re:A Mathman Prophecy by splutty · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I would say 500 meters straight up and over the edge of that cliff you're standing at the bottom of would definitely fall under 'difficult-to-reach'. And quite possibly be extremely useful to have one person there checking that out before you bring in say that helicopter...

    --
    Coz eternity my friend, is a long *ing time.