Ipad Drone

[Jarhead0331]

I so want this for my next birthday! Its only $299!!!



http://www.brookstone.com/parrot-ar-drone-2-quadricopter?bkiid=hmpg|flash|slide3|786406p

See what the pilot sees—in high-definition video. The AR.Drone 2.0 quadricopter with on-board Wi-Fi system puts you in control via your iPhone®, iPod touch® or iPad® and Android™ devices. On-board cameras let you see in real time what the pilot sees as you complete complex flight maneuvers. But here's the best part—while in flight, the copter's all-new front camera captures video and stills in sharp 720p HD that you can stream live or record to share with friends on YouTube®, the AR.Drone community or other sites with just a tap. Video records at a fast 30 fps through the big 92° wide-angle lens. Record the Wi-Fi live stream directly on your device or use optional recording on USB key (key not included).

Download the exclusive new AR.FreeFlight 2.0 piloting and sharing app and take flight.
The free AR.FreeFlight 2.0 app is now available at the iTunes® App StoreSM. The Android version is available at Google Play. The app lets you record flights and take HD videos or photos and save them in the piloting device. All flight data (altitude, speed, duration and place) can be saved, checked and shared with the online community. Coming soon: AR.Drone Academy™ for geolocation data of the best flight zones, and AR.Games, with its high-flying lineup of applications and games for your AR.Drone 2.0.

Patented new Absolute Control piloting mode makes it even easier to fly.
Just tilt your controller in the direction you want AR.Drone 2.0 to go—it's that easy. And with a 3-axis accelerometer, 3-axis gyroscope, 3-axis magnetometer and pressure sensor, your flights will be surprisingly stable at any altitude. (NOTE: The Absolute Control function is compatible with iPhone and iPad devices. The iPod touch 4G does not support this feature.) Feeling daring? Perform aerial acrobatics that leave ordinary RC helicopters in the dust, including barrel-rolls and flips!

At home indoor or outdoors.
Fly your Parrot AR.Drone 2.0 anywhere you like. The included indoor hull protects the rotors during tight maneuvering around walls and furniture then removes easily to minimize weight and wind resistance during outdoor flights. This quad rotor helicopter is made of carbon fiber and impact-resistant plastic. All parts can be changed for easy repair.

Just like the original, version 2 includes everything you need to fly.

• Outdoor protective hull
• Indoor protective hull with guard rings
• Rechargeable Li-Po battery
• Battery charger

Outdoor hull available in 3 colors:
• Orange/Blue
• Orange/Green
• Orange/Yellow

[Staggerwing]

I wonder what the range is? If it's tethered to your wifi router then I guess it'd be approx 400-800ft.

[Silent Disapproval Robot]

I bought one about a month ago.  It's a lot of fun and pretty easy to fly (although I managed to crash a few times while trying to get the hang of it.)  Range is about 150 feet max but you probably don't want to go that far as the flight behaviour gets a little unpredictable as the wifi connection degrades.  Also, high altitude can be a problem.  The drone uses level sensors to find the ground so that if you do lose connection, it'll just go into hover mode until you get control back.  Problem is, the level sensors are really only good for about 20 ft.  Higher than that and the auto hover doesn't work to well.  There are more than a few reports of guys losing wifi as their drone was climbing and it just kept going...and going...and going as they waved goodbye.

The forward facing camera is 720 and the video quality looks pretty good when viewed on an iPhone or iPad.  Doesn't look as hot on a PC in full screen mode, but it's still pretty decent.  The downward looking camera looks like ass.  Really low res and grainy.

Battery life isn't the best.  You can expect about 10-15 minutes of flying time followed by 90 minutes to recharge the battery.  you can buy larger 3rd party batteries that give it a 20 minute flight time though.  The battery seems to drain more quickly with the latest firmware as well.  I think it's because they made the drone more responsive so it's pulling more power when it makes changes in direction or alt as it's trying to do it more quickly than it had done with the earlier firmware versions.  This new, more robust response can also cause problems if you like to fly at high speeds/angles of attack because when you let go of the control, the drone tries to snap into auto-hover instantly.  If you had the thing going forward at speed, the drone was probably tilted at 20-30 degrees.  The drone will snap back in the opposite direction to try to counter the forward momentum and it often loses lift and will drop a fair distance before it recovers so if you're too low, it'll crash.

Couple things I've learned so far that you might want to keep in mind.

1)  The drone is really light so strong winds can really toss it around and make control very difficult.  This is especially true if you use the "indoor" hull as shown the the photo Jarhead has in his post.  There's a smaller "outdoor" frame that doesn't have the protective rings around the rotors that is less affected by the wind, but I'd still recommend not flying if the breeze is strong.

2) Don't fly it over water!  The level sensors have trouble with water and will sometimes give a false reading.  The drone tries to keep a constant altitude based on feedback from the level sensors and this can be a problem when flying over stuff.  I had mine get confused by some long grass on a slope so that it shot up about 10 feet, then over-corrected and crashed.  This happens a lot with water and, as the circuit boards controlling each of the rotors are out in the open, a crash in water is pretty much a death sentence for the drone.

3) Using the downward looking cam to follow critters like pussycats as they slink through the bush is a lot of fun, but it's really easy to crash into stuff if you're only focused on the monitor.

4) If you fly your dronw in the park, single women will stare at you like you're even more of a freak than the flasher hiding in the bushes.

5) Children have no sense of slef preservation.  They will scream "UFO!" and try their damnedest to run finger or face-first into the rotor blades.

6) Single men will want to try it and pout if you don't let them.

7) There's a bylaw against flying remote controlled aircraft in the park near my place and the park-patrol cops have no sense of humour.
 

[MikeGER]

FPV seems to be a fascinating hobby 8)

Jarhead don't waste money on I.toys, better go the whole mile
(you wouldn't buy a BB gun when you really want -lets say- a Ruger Mini 14  ;))

i started looking into that hobby too (and only the money to spend keeps me on the fence)
At the moment i favor those Gaui 500X + GAUI INS  '...or a different brant, Flightcontroller: auto-home, fail-save, etc...  functionality'
I already have that dangling cam (+Wifi in the mail), so it would be more an ' expensive super luxury add-on' to the existing action cam for me   

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t0POj3htmOo&feature=related

its about 900€ +a 5 channel RC (xxx € ?)   + video sender / receiver -stuff
(i am waiting for the WIFI bacpac for my GoProHero 2 hopefully delivered end of month, finally! -ordered in March, which will stream the video about 180m max for beginning experiments, before i would invest in better/longer range boosting video TX/RX equipment) 

[Jarhead0331]

Thanks for the great impressions, SDR!

[eyebiter]

.

[Silent Disapproval Robot]

There isn't really much in the way of security.  When you plug the battery in, the drone creates a wifi connection.  According to the instructions, once you connect your device to the drone it will refuse other connection requests.  There is also an option in the drone app to pair your drone and device.  Not sure what the difference is between pairing and just connecting.

Anyway, I guess it's possible for someone closeby to jump in and take over your device in the few second window between the time you plug your battery in and before you establish a connection, but I can't see it happening.

Couple other things I forgot.  When you record videos, you can have it sent back to your device or you can use a USB stick.  I guess you get a bit longer flight time if you use the stick as opposed to the wifi.  If you do use a stick, do NOT leave it plugged in.  If you try to update the firmware and a USB stick is plugged in, it'll brick the drone.

There are some cool mods out there as well.  Guys have put in night vision, hooked up firework "rocket" pods, and even repeaters that give the drone a 2.5 KM range.

[Barthheart]

...
There are some cool mods out there as well.  Guys have put in night vision, hooked up firework "rocket" pods, ....

Rocket pods sounds cool! Any vids of that?

[Silent Disapproval Robot]

No vids, but here's a link on how to build it yourself (complete with horrible, horrible Euro-techno crap playing on the page for some reason)>

http://dronescapes.com/droradio.html

There is a vid of the prototype here, but it's not very good quality and it wasn't remote controlled at the time, just started with a lighter.

http://dronehacks.com/

[W8taminute]

JH, this is what you really want!  http://youtu.be/SNPJMk2fgJU

[MIGMaster]

Quadcoppters are great to learn on - then you need to move up the ladder a bit - all the RC guys are into the octocopters now - better stability and maneuverability.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/markabowers/5869176679/

Some models are frickin' huge -like the size of a car hood!

[Silent Disapproval Robot]

New firmware update released today.  It adds the ability to select the direction that you want the drone to flip.  Before it was always a right hand roll.  Now you can select left or right hand rolls or forward or backward flips.

They also went and stuck a bunch of social networking features in there so you can automatically upload any pics, vids, or coordinates of your flight to Twitter, Facebook, Picassa, or Google+.  I find that kind of stuff too intrusive for my tastes, so I just disabled it all.

Flight wise, the new firmware seems OK but I'm still getting the occasional rapid drop in altitude for no apparent reason.  I also wish they'd set the option to go back to the 4-way controller option for rotation/altitude control.    Controlling the craft is accomplished with two buttons on your iPad/iPhone screen (you can see them in that shitty photo above.  Note the guy's not even pressing them and he appears to be trying to ram some kid in the face with his drone).  One button controls the climb and rotation of the craft while the other controls horizontal motion.  Prior to the last firmware release,  the button that controlled climb/rotation was a 4-way selector.  Pushing up would cause the drone to climb.  Pulling down caused it to descend.  Left rotated it left and right rotated it right.  You could only enable one function at a time so if you wanted to climb, you couldn't also rotate at the same time.  Many users asked for the ability to control rotation and climb at the same time, so that was implemented in the last upgrade.

It's a nice feature but, with the iPhone at least, the screen is too small for fine control of the craft.  It's almost impossible to get the drone to climb without also causing it to rotate left or right as well as your thumb will slide a bit left or right as you're trying to push up.   

Other than that, it's still a lot of fun to fly. 

[Silent Disapproval Robot]

Today's lesson:


Do NOT fly your drone in parks inhabited by large flocks of Canada geese!  What a gong show.  As soon as my drone lifted off, the geese went apeshit.  All the males started honking, spread their wings, and would try to charge the drone if it was less than 10ft above the ground.  If it was higher, they'd all flap off into a huddle in the pond.  Buggers wouldn't let me land.  I had to interpose my body between the drone and the honking shit factories just so I could land and get out of there before some hippie accused me of molestering the birds.

[Martok]

I have to admit:  The day you actually manage to fly that thing without incident, it's almost going to be a letdown after all these "lessons"...  :P 

[Silent Disapproval Robot]

New firmware upgrade was released yesterday.  It's fantastic!  Flight transitions are much smoother resulting in fewer and less severe altitude changes.  Battery life reportedly improved by 15% (My flight was pretty short due to high winds), and smoother vertical and rotational controls.

Oh yeah.  Today's lesson:  Do not place your drone directly into the wind and then stand a foot behind it when it's time for takeoff.  You look like enough of a dork just flying one.  Spastically scampering out of the way doesn't improve the image.