Wow! That’s some impressive control loops in there.

This guy certainly earned his MSME.

Cool, but requires the 20 camera system. Next task- 3d laser rangefinder so no cameras needed ?

The DOD will surly take interest.

That is really cool
As Japkin says, it probably can’t escape the velcro. I wonder if they could use an electromagnet instead…

It must be using variable pitch props, yes? I’m not sure how else you could get that level of control for things like rolls.

Wow, and the post never even mentions that it’s autonomous! Seems like a pretty important piece of information.
And yes, that 20 camera Vicon system would probably cost close to $1 mil. This will be amazing once they get the system self contained in the quadrotor and it can go wherever it wants.
Still, awesome work.

sweet, same day!

If they get rid of the noise police would have a great tool coming up. Minority Report stuff.

The only issue with internalizing the cameras is the processing power required to sort through all the data.

I’d be interested in what they use now and how much it actually requires, long way to go before these things can lift the processors needed for that much image processing.

cliff:

if it had a 9mm semi auto pistol on it, it would have been even better :D

Yeah, and that’s all fine until you consider that your comments might have thrown a fellow hackaday reader (with a modest $400 budget) into a murderous quadcopter-building rage and you live in the same area.

Why must people always jump from “Great work!” to “…and now let’s kill people!” with these things? Is it something they put in the water?

magetoo, I’m military, the job of the military, to put it in short terms, is to kill people and break their shit. everything else is a bonus, to give us something to do when we aren’t killing people or breaking their shit. For the purpose that I saw it used it was an awesome platform for recon, but being military, if something is awesome without a weapon on it, it is usually fucking awesome with one on it.

/from a dude who’s job it is to kill people and break shit

@magetoo
thats right, you don’t have to like it. “killing people and breaking shit” is NOT the job description of the guys on the opposing side, it is “kill everything i don’t like.” that includes the “home-grown” as well. i am sorry to be so brusk, but while you might be all for giving a hug, “they” would prefer it, as it means you will be closer to the explosive charge they wear on their vest. i have been there. i have seen it. “they” want us dead just as much, if not more, than we want to kill them. aside from that, this is some awesome tech. it can be used for all sorts of things, like looking for survivors of natural disasters, or amazing shots of a football game, or (when queit enough) for looking into natural settings disturbed by mans presence, or, maybe, even bad guys hiding in a building.

I just hope the machines don’t take it for themselves ‘judgement day’ style… It looks truly awesome.

Manhacks!!!

very impressive

You guys should really add a quadrotor tag, there’s a bunch of them lately kinda like the POV stuff a couple months ago…

@magetoo: It is called “human nature”. Look up our history as a species. Full of violence since the beginning. Sad, but it is reality.

For every new idea you will have non-violent applications and also the military applications. Personally, I rather have this weaponized by “us” rather than “them”.

sorry for the late return, but…

cj,
that point is moot. it doesn’t matter where or why we are aggressive. aggression not being our default does not mean we are not aggressive at all. people originally banded together for strength in numbers. this was for protection against hostile elements and other people. we might not be naturally violent, but we aren’t naturally nice either.

@ bzroom
The 5 white balls on top of the quadcopter are the fiducial markers tracked by the camera system, so the copter is certainly track to some extent by the camera system. It seems like using the cameras only to sense the initial conditions of the robot and obstacles would lead to many crashes, as small mistakes anywhere in the trajectory due to air currents etc. could have large effects.