
Personal Surveillance Drones are here. - olefoo
http://www.sensefly.com/products/swinglet-cam/
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yellowbkpk
For those thinking that a homebrew version of this may come in the future,
you've got it backwards. This is a professional version of homebrew. Check out
<http://diydrones.com/> as a good starting point, but this design is quite
popular for hobbyists and is relatively simple to build. Definitely less than
$10k-worth of time and materials.

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makmanalp
How about these, for $300?

<http://www.parrot.com/usa/>

Or if you're more adventurous, you can chop 4 30 dollar helicopters from
amazon, add in an arduino and IMU with xbees, and come up with your homebrew
solution, like my friend who I've been helping:

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lvZKr47qt-A>
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dk_uS9clTDY>

(These are pre-arduino, pre-IMU. Now it's hung from the ceiling and is
controlled through the computer with an xbox controller. It's on a PID control
right now, but eventually it'll be swapped out with a kalman filter based
system.)

~~~
fab13n
As long as an iPhone is used by Parrot as the controller, you're stuck with
the AppStore's diktats; in this case, Apple won't let them record videos.

Also, Parrot's drone is fun to play with. The idea with sensefly is that you
don't control it in realtime: you give it an itinerary before launching it, it
follows it and comes back on its own. That's not as good for a toy, but more
efficient for a professional tool.

~~~
pornel
ARDrone has an API, so you may be able to write your own Apple-free
controller:

<https://projects.ardrone.org/projects/show/ardrone-api>

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compumike
List price: $10,600 ([http://farmindustrynews.com/crop-protection/drone-plane-
your...](http://farmindustrynews.com/crop-protection/drone-plane-your-
future-0))

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gamble
Don't try operating this commercially in the US or Canada. Drones aren't
exempt from FAA rules just because they resemble RC aircraft. (In fact, the
rules are more stringent since drones are still new and have failure modes
that traditional aircraft don't) Pretty much the only cases where the regs
don't essentially ban UAVs are small-scale hobbyist projects and academic
research.

See:

<http://cryptome.org/faa021307.htm>

[http://www.tc.gc.ca/eng/civilaviation/standards/general-
reca...](http://www.tc.gc.ca/eng/civilaviation/standards/general-recavi-
uav-2265.htm)

~~~
kiba
I suspect that there will be a war on unlicensed UAV in the near future.

~~~
rdtsc
There might also be a war on licensed onces as well. UAVs currently are used
mostly in combat zones, but I think it won't be long before they are zooming
above restricted govt. areas, large cities, are used to track and chase
fugitives, and even by small town cops to patrol and issue traffic tickets
remotely.

As this happens there will be some who will take it as a challenge to destroy,
capture, and most of all, to take over these drone. That does not entail
injuring or harming an officer or a human so those who would never try to mess
with a real helicopter or police cruiser might not have a problem messing with
flying remote robots.

~~~
chopsueyar
I've always envisioned a near-apocalyptic, autonomous flying drone, resembling
a large flying mosquito, about the size of a large pit-bull, that randomly
targets parked cars, and siphons several gallons of gas from their tanks, in
order for it to 'survive'.

~~~
icegreentea
I think that was a car commercial actually...

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ra
There's a neat subculture of RC who do some amazing DIY work known as "FPV" or
first person view.

Basically they hand build RC aircraft to carry a payload of onboard
electronics, and also ground stations with aircraft tracking antenna from
which they pilot and record their flights.

The legality of this varies from country to country, however as hackers of
their discipline, some of these guys are particularly impressive:

<http://vimeo.com/riscyd/videos/sort:date>

~~~
inm
There's a bunch more here from trappy.

<http://vimeo.com/trappy>

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dotBen
Looking at their product, I wonder how hard and how much $$ it would cost to
make your own home-build type version?

I was trying to work out why there was something that looked like an LCD
screen on the upper-side of the wing and then I realized that is just a
regular point-and-shoot camera.

An EyeFi card (perhaps with an antenna built into the wing) would make a
relatively easy upgrade from their current setup which looks like you have to
wait to retrieve the plane before you can view the images.

As the website states local laws may not allow you to run a UAV domestically -
anyone know what the laws would be here in US?

~~~
Devilboy
In the US you can fly AUVs like this one as long as you keep it in visual
range at all times (and stay away from restricted airspace)

~~~
cameldrv
Not necessarily true anymore. The FAA has said that using these for commercial
purposes is a violation of the FARs.

~~~
mableflapster
Can you provide a reference to this info? So you can't buy this for comercial
purposes?

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lukestevens
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't a tiny drone above you
taking pictures.

~~~
danio
I predict a rise in crossbow sales in the near future

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Alex3917
I'm guessing it's less than three years until there is a YouTube video of some
kid being tazed for flying one of these over the white house or area 51.

~~~
noonespecial
About 6 months after that, progressives will start agitating for "common sense
UAV control" while conservatives will demand their constitutional rights to
arm theirs with hellfire missiles.

Whatever happens, sanity will be the first thing to leave the building.

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DanI-S
Man, I love living in the future.

~~~
andreyf
Connect it to an iPhone and you'll be able to sell it to a new breed of 7 year
old techno-hipsters.

~~~
JabavuAdams
This? <http://www.parrot.com/usa/>

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amino
<http://mikrokopter.de/ucwiki/en/MK-Hexa>

This is awesome. it has a gps in it it will return and hover where it first
powered up at your command. there is a video of it carrying a 2 litre bottle
on a string. cost is about $1500 i think.

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motters
A commercial application which comes to mind is in farming - monitoring crops
and cattle. Also for a small lightweight device it might be an idea to make
the wings out of a solar material which can charge the battery and extend the
maximum flight time.

~~~
chopsueyar
Why would it have to fly, though?

~~~
motters
Monitoring the state of crops or cattle could be done by ground vehicles, but
far less efficiently.

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acabal
That looks incredibly cool, and must have been so much fun to work on. I could
imagine someone making a homebrew version with maybe a few year's tinkering in
a garage and with a compiler.

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savrajsingh
Wired Magazine's Chris Anderson makes these in his spare time, and you can
too: <http://www.diydrones.com>

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scrrr
Ah nice. Could be useful when looking for something or somebody, f.ex. ppl
lost in the woods or similar. How long does it fly on one charge?

~~~
just_a_someone
~30 minutes; ~20 kilometers

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ck2
$1000 Chinese clones of this in one year. I'd bet on it.

Now I hope someone invents an emi pulse to take this thing out when the
neighbor gets nosy.

~~~
jamii
EMP? A $5 catapult would do the job nicely.

~~~
noonespecial
Or a couple of kites!

You keep what you catch?

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recampbell
Now, start a business that lets you rent these per minute. You get to set the
way points and receive all the photos/video via your browser or smartphone.

It may not be this exact device, but I predict such a service within 3 years.

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thefool
Wow, the camera quality is pretty astounding.

MAV's are pretty sweet as well: <http://www.draganfly.com/>

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konad
Time to build an anti-drone SAM

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sitmack
This is really cool, but not legal esp if flying for money. You cannot let
anything get out of visual range and within regular air traffic.

