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Joggobot, Your Flying Robot Running Friend (Video)

Michael Kwan — Tue, 05 Jun 2012 14:51:03 +0000

Do you want to have a jogging buddy but none of your human friends want to go for a run with you? Enter Joggobot, an AR Drone that’s been modified to be your jogging companion.

The concept comes by way of Exertion Games Lab at RMIT University in Melbourne. What they’ve done is taken the standard Parrot AR.Drone quadracopter and loaded it with some specialized software. By doing so, the drone will lock in on the user (you) and follow you around as you go for your run around the neighborhood. It’s also designed to help you maintain a certain pace, so if you start to lag behind, it’ll fly on ahead and “motivate” you to keep up. Because you wouldn’t want to lose your $300+ toy.

There is definitely room for improvement, of course. You could equip Joggobot to keep the path lit when you go for a run at night, for example, or they could set it up to have better controls… perhaps with Kinect-esque motion-based waving to get the Joggobot to speed up or slow down. The other snag is the 20-minute battery life, which doesn’t leave you with a very big window for a good jog.

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HD Video Sample from Parrot AR.Drone 2.0

Michael Kwan — Mon, 28 May 2012 15:28:48 +0000

Parrot is a company that you probably know better for Bluetooth headsets, but the original AR.Drone really took off when it was introduced in 2010. The Parrot AR.Drone 2.0 picks up where its predecessor left off, adding HD video recording to the mix, as well as some neat aerial tricks.

I saw the AR.Drone 2.0 in action when I attended CES earlier this year, but now it’s out in the wild and a sample of the HD video shot by the quadrocopter has been uploaded to the Internet. The video sample, embedded below and available in 720p, provides an aerial view of San Francisco Peaks and Mt. Elden from Flagstaff, Arizona.

Not surprisingly, the video is filled with wavy undulations as the quad-rotor aircraft makes its way up into the skies. The quality of the video isn’t the best either and the lack of audio really takes away from the experience. Even so, I imagine the AR.Drone 2.0 is a really fun toy to have, especially since all you have to do is double-tap a button in the provided iOS or Android FreeFlight app to make it do a flip.

There are better ways to spend $299, but a sensible desk or a nice toaster oven just don’t sound as fun.

[Source]

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Skynet for Real: Organized Swarm of Nano Quadrocopters (Video)

Michael Kwan — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 23:43:32 +0000

What’s that? You thought the Parrot AR Drone was pretty cool? What if I told you that researchers at the University of Pennsylvania have developed a squadron of quadrocopters that can organize themselves into a swarm, flying in formation and automatically evading obstacles? Yes, Skynet is here and I, for one, welcome our robot overlords.

Developed by the General Robotics, Automation, Sensing and Perception Lab (GRASP), these nano quadrocopters (or quadrotors, if you prefer) are able to fly in various complex formations, navigating through the environment with complex “autonomous swarm behavior.” The very sound of the swarm in the video below gives me chills.

I’m instantly reminded of Michael Crichton’s Prey. The thing with a swarm is that they have a “collective intelligence” of sorts, so it doesn’t matter if you take out one or two units from the group. They operate as a collective, making them virtually unstoppable. Where’s John Connor when you need him?

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