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iPhone-Controlled Helicopter With AR Games

Posted by Soulskill on from the get-to-da-ichoppa dept.

andylim writes "Parrot has unveiled a remote-controlled helicopter that boasts augmented reality games. The helicopter is controlled using an iPhone or iPod Touch's accelerometer and touchscreen. There's a camera on the front of the helicopter, which you can use to navigate and to play augmented reality games, including a game that involves fighting a gigantic robot."

3 of 51 comments (clear)

  1. Re:An iPod? by fractoid · · Score: 3, Interesting

    It seems pretty stable from the video. I wonder how well this electronically-stabilised-quadricopter technology would scale to, say, human-sized? :D I did a bit of research on blade loadings and suchforth and it seems that a helicopter weighing 200kg with pilot would need 30-40kW to lift off, can anyone with more experience confirm or deny? I'd love to see something with the same format but, say, 2m long, powered by nanophosphate lithium batteries with a 5-10min flight time.

    Of course the AR stuff is also cool. I bet there's a market for that... run a service where your users print a specific patterned logo in a print ad, register it with your site, and on a phone running the right application the pattern loads a video or even 3D virtual animated object anchored to the logo.

    --
    Rampant carbon sequestration destroyed the Dinosaurs' tropical paradise. I'm here to help repair the damage.
  2. Re:An iPod? by Heavy+Machinery · · Score: 3, Insightful

    You hit the nail on the head: the problem is power/weight. Looking at the specs http://www.parrot.com/parrot-ar-drone/en/how-does-it-work#start/ it looks like the batteries are expensive lithium-ion-polymer with "15 minutes battery autonomy", which I assume is a fancy way of saying that you get 15 minutes run flying time between recharging.

  3. Augmented Reality Stuff inside by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    Hi,

    I'm the boss of the company which created the computer vision software embedded in the drone, and also the Augmented Reality game demo on the iPhone.

    You can check it out here :
    http://www.int13.net/ardrone-the-first-flying-toy-using-augmented-reality/en/

    I have to post it here, 'cause they don't seem to credit us for our hard work...