A RCToys DF competitor:




Microdrone:
- all carbon chassis
- attitude and altitude hold
- payload of 200g (7oz)
- brushless
- ...

Some videos:
http://www.microdrones.com/downloads..._200_part1.wmv
http://www.microdrones.com/downloads..._200_part2.wmv

The site:
http://www.microdrones.com/index.html

Enjoy!

Mart

gonna depend on price, looks promising though....................

Nice!

Yes, that is very interesting. I saw that a few weeks ago but didn't see that first video where the pilot is pushing on it and it self corrects. That was very impressive! [sm=thumbup.gif] Either the pilot is very good or it has some incredible stabilizing circuit. When they don't mention price anywhere on their site it has to be expensive.

I Want One! ! ! !

John

Maybe because it's still in the dev process. But, yeah, it should be expensice anyway...

Apparently this thing doesn't depend on environmental conditions to self level because I didn't see any visible sensors.

They use gyros, inertial sensors and accelerometers for sure. No need for theses sensors to see the horizon (like the thermal sensors)! And there not affected by surrounding heat sources (buildings, trees, etc.). The Carvec system ([link=http://www.carvecsystem.co.uk/]http://www.carvecsystem.co.uk/[/link]) is based on this technology (starting at $3500 US []) called MEMS.

And soon, the Spartan stabilisation board will offer a low cost solution based on them too ([link=http://www.spartan-rc.com/products/ap2000i/ap2000i.htm]http://www.spartan-rc.com/products/ap2000i/ap2000i.htm[/link]).

The stabilisation systems based on thermal sensors are already old technology. Only advantage: their low cost compared to MEMS device.

But who could afford MEMS. Don't know about you but I just can't justify spending several thousands of dollars on an r/c heli that just self levels.

You're absolutely rigth!

I think it all depends of the needs of those who are interested in these technologies...

A+
Mart

Thanks for that link phover. It turned up yet another very cool technology called skywriting. Check out the demo videos! Where does it end? [sm=cool.gif]

http://www.spartan-rc.com/products/s...skywriting.htm

Pretty cool isn't it? [8D]

Now, try to imagine the possibilities of this technology on a 4 rotors helis...

Ahh, that's where the money is for DF V pilots! Four seperate ads at once! The hard thing would be to find LEDs small enough and bright enough and then solve the weight problem by designing a self contained power supply for each rotor. This is similar to those billboards with faceted columns to create a whole new image every couple of minutes, currently up to four. I've done that with window blinds before and I thought about a printed image or word on the DF rotors to do what these LEDs are doing but couldn't figure out how to proportion the pieces to create a single image. I wonder if skywriting has been tried on real helos?

Check out the new pictures of the micro drones electronics board (link listed below). Pretty damn simplistic looking for what they say it will do. That is an amazing looking machine!

http://www.microdrones.com/downloads/downloads.html

Looks expensive to fix when I crash and break it...

I checked with them. The unit starts at 9,900 euros, which I think is 11,800 dollars or so.

Definitely quite expensive, but very impressive. Assuming no tricks were being played, the auto-hover demo video is quite cool. The unit was autonomously correcting both its altitude and attitude, in response to fairly severe upsets for a device of that weight. With less success, it was also correcting its position. Neat. If the application is aerial photography, sensing, surveillance, etc., such autonomy would be a major workload reducer, and make it practical for one person to handle both the flying and the shooting.

Knowing little about the technologies involved, I'm not surprised to hear it stated that the advantage of TI is low cost. The TI technology is still an ingenious and novel approach to solving the problem, though. Obviously, a unit equipped with sufficient gyros and accelerometers should be able to accomplish altitude and attitude hold without sensing a horizon (and TI only accomplishes the latter)...but those costs remain high. They will come down, though!

Now I want a MicroDrone, to add to my growing stable of four rotor 'copters. But there's no way I can justify the cost, unfortunately.

Will