Awesome Stuff: Towards The Future Of Drones

from the fleye-my-pretties dept

I've seen crowdfunding projects for personal drones that promise the moon and obviously fail to deliver — and it's not surprising that this happens and even sometimes works, given the automatic sci-fi appeal of an autonomous flying assistant that hovers at your side. Today, we're looking at a project by someone who shares that dream, but who recognizes it's not going to materialize overnight: Fleye, the personal drone and developer's platform that represents a step in the direction of that sci-fi future.

The Good

In a world increasingly saturated with drones, there are two things that make the Fleye stand out. The first is its design: unlike most drones, it's not a quadcopter, but rather is powered by a single blade concealed entirely within its round outer shell. Aesthetically, this is just cool: the Fleye doesn't look like it should be able to hover and maneuver the way quadcopters do, but it is. Functionally, this serves a key purpose: if the goal is a future where small flying robots operate regularly in human-filled spaces, then the safety factor becomes a real concern, and little bumper rings around exposed high-speed blades simply isn't going to cut it. The Fleye has nothing on the outside that can hurt you — and watching it gracefully recover after being bumped or shoved is delightful.

The second notable aspect is that the Fleye is focused on being a platform for developers. The creator clearly has a vision of a future full of small autonomous and semi-autonomous drones, hovering over our shoulders and running errands for us and taking our selfies for us — but he also gives the clear impression that he knows this future isn't "right around the corner" and, in fact, may never even arrive in the vague way we envision it. Rather, he wants to offer a real opportunity for people to explore and experiment in that direction. The Fleye has WiFi, an HD camera, and an on-board computer available in two different models: one with a dual-core and half-gig of RAM, the other with a quad-core and a full gigabyte. All this is wrapped up with an API and an SDK that lets developers create autonomous tasks for the Fleye, leveraging its ability to recognize its surroundings and make split-second adjustments to its course. The Fleye itself, as it is right now, probably isn't the drone that goes mainstream and starts appearing everywhere — but it may well be the platform that trains the generation of developers who go on to achieve that dream.

The Bad

Drones still face some severe technology limitations, and the Fleye is no exception. For one thing, though the video isn't entirely clear on this point, it surely makes the same loud and somewhat grating noise that we were all disappointed by the first time we saw a drone flying in person rather than doing graceful silent maneuvers in an audio-dubbed video. Secondly, it still has the limitation of a 10-minute flight time on a full battery charge. Neither of these things are the fault of the Fleye itself, but they do represent technological bottlenecks that diminish the usefulness and appeal of personal drones in general.

The Platform

By default, the Fleye is controlled solely by apps for iOS and Android. Normally this is a very irritating choice, but in the case of the Fleye, it's actually just a starting point: the drone is controlled by WiFi through an API that uses JSON-over-UDP, meaning virtually any WiFi-connected device is capable of become a controller. The creator is working on SDKs for iOS, Android, NodeJS and Python so people can begin creating their own control software for any and all devices. But that's just for remote control — the Fleye itself runs on Linux and can be accessed via SSH, deploying custom software directly to the drone so it can then operate autonomously or semi-autonomously to complete tasks you've designed. Custom apps don't need to train the drone from the ground up, as a low-level API within the Linux environment gives custom software easy access to the autopilot functions and video pipeline.

With all these capabilities, I'm excited to see what developers start creating once they get their hands on the Fleye.

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Filed Under: awesome stuff, drones, uav


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  • identicon
    Glenn, 12 Dec 2015 @ 11:05am

    Another solution looking for a problem.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Anonymous Coward, 12 Dec 2015 @ 12:38pm

      Re:

      That's not fair ... I'm still looking for something that can dodge my lightsaber.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Mr Big Content, 12 Dec 2015 @ 1:44pm

    Yuk! Horrible Lunix!

    I dont know why poeple bother with that terrible Linsux OS. Whats wrong with Microsoft Windows? Look at all the apps in can run!

    I want the choice to put Microsoft Office or Adobe Photoshop on this thing. Why, you may ask? Well, thats exactly the kind of closed-minded carping I would expect from those who dont understand Computer Innovation. Stick a screen, keyboard and mouse on this thing, and you have a whole new concept in mobile computing! Thats why you should stick with the Worlds Best OS, I say!

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      alternatives(), 12 Dec 2015 @ 4:16pm

      Re: Yuk! Horrible Lunix!

      Thats why you should stick with the Worlds Best OS, I say!

      Yea, FreeBSD.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Anonymous Coward, 13 Dec 2015 @ 7:48am

      Re: Yuk! Horrible Lunix!

      Would you like WINE with your whine? What I want to know is what sort of PCIe lanes it's got(imagine Knight's landing on this thing).

      link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 12 Dec 2015 @ 3:25pm

    are these things real? 'cause that video sure isn't!

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Anonymous Coward, 12 Dec 2015 @ 7:17pm

      As real as unicorns!

      are these things real? 'cause that video sure isn't!

      I also noticed how it almost looked like it was being supported by a wire or something. The kickstarter page is also light on real information on how it works. Based on just what is revealed there, I don't think it would do what they show it doing.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Laurent Eschenauer, 16 Dec 2015 @ 4:45am

      Re: Yes it is real

      Yes, the video is real, as explained in the FAQ and Fleye has been demonstrated live at multiple public events. Happy to answer any question you may have!
      http://gofleye.com/blog/meeting-the-public/

      link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    Ray Trygstad (profile), 14 Dec 2015 @ 8:21am

    Counter torque?

    Real helicopter pilot here. With only a single blade, there has to be a counter-torque mechanism to prevent the body of the device from rotating in an opposite direction equally to the blade rpm. That's why helicopters have tails rotors. I don't see any counter-torque mechanism so I do not understand how they are negating the torque from the rotor blade into the body.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Anonymous Coward, 14 Dec 2015 @ 9:54am

      Re: Counter torque?

      It probably has a flywheel.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Lawrence D’Oliveiro, 14 Dec 2015 @ 11:09am

      Re: Counter torque?

      It’s mentioned in the video. There are ducts to redirect part of the airstream in the opposite direction.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

      • identicon
        Anonymous Coward, 14 Dec 2015 @ 11:13am

        Re: Re: Counter torque?

        It’s mentioned in the video. There are ducts to redirect part of the airstream in the opposite direction.

        All they show are static ducts with no control mechanism. That ain't gonna fly.

        link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Laurent Eschenauer, 16 Dec 2015 @ 4:48am

      Re: Counter torque?

      We use static elements within the body to produce a nominal counter torque (in fact to straigthen the airflow) and then the rest of the torque is managed by the control vanes which are controlled using servos.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

      • identicon
        Anonymous Coward, 16 Dec 2015 @ 8:10pm

        Re: Re: Counter torque?

        ...control vanes which are controlled using servos.

        Why don't you reveal that in the video?

        link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Rekrul, 14 Dec 2015 @ 1:25pm

    So now that we have V.I.N.CENT, where's Maximilian?

    Seriously though, how long before the government starts imposing regulations on how drones can be built, how much they can weigh, what capabilities they have, etc?

    As it is now, people/companies can basically build and sell pretty much anything they want. As long as this was limited to hobbyists flying in remote locations, they didn't care, but with drones becoming mainstream consumer items, I can't see the government continuing to allowing people/companies free reign to build and sell whatever they want.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    Stringlearning (profile), 23 Dec 2015 @ 5:39am

    great, very interesting!

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    wisp, 4 Jan 2016 @ 1:46pm

    Cool

    This is so cool! I can't wait until these are common on the streets.

    link to this | view in chronology ]


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