Look Who it Was Random video

Learning to fly my AR.Drone UAV

551 views · Published 3 April 2012 · 3:39 · Indexed 8 October 2026

Channel: Andrew Koch (Dobie Tanpaw) · 2012 · Science & Technology

Watch on YouTube

So I went out and bought a toy - it's basically an RC helicopter, but with 4 rotors. It's a ton of fun to fly, but the learning curve, like any RC craft, is steep. 

This is some clips from my first outdoor flight. I took it out into Schenley Park, in Oakland, behind the Tennis Courts and Soccer Pitch, to see how it performed outdoors.

Conditions weren't ideal - the wind was variable from 3-10 MPH, and shifting directions on me constantly. This lead to a bunch of crashes, but fun was had! No major damage was done to the aircraft besides some cracks in the foam hull, despite several hard crashes.

The aircraft is controlled by a graphical interface on an iPad (Or iPhone, iPod Touch or Android device) via an 802.11g WiFi link.  It has two cameras - one facing forward, and one looking directly downwards. 

The aircraft's on-board computer, an ARM9 468 MHz embedded microcontroller with 128 Megabytes of RAM running the Linux operating system,  uses the views from the cameras along with a MEMS 3-axis accelerometer, 2-axis gyrometer, a single-axis yaw precision gyrometer and an ultrasonic altimeter  to automatically stabilize the aircraft and hold it in place while awaiting control inputs (It also holds the aircraft steady should the WiFi link drop or if it flies out of range) 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AR.Drone

--------------------------------------------------------

Music by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons "Attribution 3.0" http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/"

More from this channel