Micro UAV, rugged with ducted air. I can't wait until these are childrens toys.

[ivankirigin]

http://blog.wired.com/defense/2007/09/spooky-new-micr.html

[jsjenkins168]

Wow, thats cool. So it just uses thrust vectoring to move around and hover? It would have to be pretty advanced to cope with the rotation forces of the impeller.

Seeing this fly reminds me of Armadillo Aerospace's Pixel: http://www.armadilloaerospace.com/n.x/Armadillo/Home

But obviously Pixel is intended to fly into space and is rocket powered..

[ivankirigin → jsjenkins168]

I _also_ can't wait until we have rocket powered children's toys.

[axiom]

Here's a toy that's close enough. A group at Waterloo made one of these things autonomous, and had it navigating GPS waypoints.

http://www.thinkgeek.com/geektoys/rc/79c7/

[ivankirigin → axiom]

RC heli's are plagued with stability issues. I suppose what I'm looking for is the performance at a toy's price. Considering the MUAV costs probably around $60,000, this might take some time.

[axiom → ivankirigin]

The product spec for this thing says it's automatically stabilizing, but I've never played with one so I can't vouch for it. I've seen some demo videos and it looked really impressive.

In any case, you can always buy one of these for a mere 90-450k http://www.moller.com/videom200x.htm

[ivankirigin → axiom]

Some can be really good.

Another big difference is live video from the heli. That means you can tele-operate it beyond line of sight if you have good enough radios. GPS waypoint following is also essential when going out of line of sight.

You can see how the platforms grow in complexity and cost just to be useful at all.

[shadowplay]

The first version of the Terminator hunter/killer. SkyNet will be pleased.