Category: Drone design

Micro-Drone Rolls, Flies, Gathers Intel

Although this looks like a toy called the “Sky Walker”, this drone is far from it. The Applicant, l’INSTITUT SUPERIEUR DE L’AERONAUTIQUE ET DE L’ESPACE, funded by the French Ministry of Defense, has invented a little drone to gather recon inside buildings. It was built as a “multi-mission microscale aerial vehicle. It comprises elements allowing a microscale aerial vehicle to move or roll across a surface, in particular on the ground, and making it capable […]

Falling Drone Damage Limited Thanks to Autorotation

Autorotation landing for a drone means a softer impact at crash.

Disney’s “Flixel” Drone will Replace Fireworks

With the wrangling over whether it’s safe to fly a drone through fireworks (http://www.wired.com/2015/07/youre-thinking-flying-drone-fireworks/), Disney thought about the idea from a different angle. Their patent application mentions how dangerous fireworks can be, and a swarm of drones with lampshades is not. If you thought about flying your Phantom through fireworks was ballsy, try it with a swarm of Flixels. It might feel like piloting the Millennium Falcon through a flaming asteroid belt. Here is an […]

Aquacopters Presents a Waterproof, Indestructible Drone

If there is anything I’ve learned from my failures to land, it’s the fragility of cheap consumer drones. Aquacopters to the rescue! This thing is basically a sealed fortress, waterproof and shockproof. It can fly in bad weather, land and take off in water, and still take more punishment. The specification says it can be made of Kydex, so you know it’s got ‘tude. There is also known the Game of Drones (gameofdrones.com), which lets […]

Disney’s Flying Eye Will Eavesdrop and Talk Back

Title: “Aircraft, Methods for Providing Optical Information, Method for Transmission of Acoustic Information and Method for Observing or Tracking an Object” US Patent Application Publication No: 20150078620 Filed (PCT): April 19, 2013 Published: March 19, 2015 Details: Did you know that Disney has a worldwide network of research facilities? Their Zurich branch has access to 21 Nobel laureates via the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zürich (ETH). As it happens, Disney Research and ETH are […]