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Fully Autonomous Flapping-wing MAV Is As Light As 4 Sheets of A4 Paper
Hallie Siegel writes "According to its developers, the DelFly Explorer is the first flapping wing Micro Air Vehicle (MAV) that is able to fly with complete autonomy in unknown environments. Weighing just 20 grams and with a wingspan of 28cm, it is equipped with an onboard stereo vision system. The DelFly Explorer can perform an autonomous take-off, keep its height, and avoid obstacles for as long as its battery lasts (~9 minutes). All sensing and processing is performed on board, so no human or offboard computer is in the loop."
I can fly when I'm only three sheets to the wind.
I deny that I have not avoided attaining the opposite of that which I do not want.
4 sheets of A4? How much is it in a sane unit?
We are talking about 2.75577828e-9 of a fully loaded jumbo jet! Wow, that's light!
If you need area, it's 0.0000152737 of a football field.
Negative moral value of force outweighs the positive value of good intentions.
metric paper sizes are the correct ones and everything else is stupid.
I have discovered a truly marvelous proof of this, which the margins on this A4 sheet of paper are unfortunately too narrow to contain.
So, it can turn on, fly at a certain height, and avoid things - all for 9 minutes. I mean, yeah that's sorta cool how they utilize the stereo vision, and that it's got the ability to slow one if it's "wings" in order to avoid things. But it looks like it's only going to work indoors, with all fans off. Being that there's no way to control it, seems like it'd be less than entertaining, other than to present to an unsuspecting audience, like slashdot. Other than that, troll me into oblivion, I suspect it's lame.
If you think that's lame, I heard that some idiot bike mechanic brothers demonstrated a so-called flying machine that could barely get 10 feet off the ground and couldn't even stay in the air for 60 seconds. What a joke! It's clear that it's doomed to fail since the early prototype was so limited.