Here's another cool idea for the "personal droid" concept that we've been messing around with. Ours uses the built-in "Follow Me" function with ArduCopter and a handheld GPS+3DR radio module to send your GPS coordinate to ArduCopter, but the Parrot AR.Drone doesn't have GPS. So they use a fancy t-shirt and the on-board camera instead!
From New Scientist:
The system, called Joggobot, is being developed by Floyd Mueller and Eberhard Gräther at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology in Australia.
The duo plan to allow users to enter their preferred running speed into a smartphone app that controls the drone so it flies ahead of a jogger at just the right pace. Or it could be set to maintain a distance of a few metres no matter what pace a runner is going.
They tested their idea using the foam-fendered AR Drone made by Parrot of Paris, France. Using custom software, they programmed it to follow a bright blue and orange pattern painted on a runner's T-shirt (pictured below).
As soon as an onboard camera sees the shirt, the craft takes off and hovers about a metre off the ground. If it ever loses sight of the pattern, the drone lands automatically.
Mueller says he and Gräther are tinkering with settings to test what motivates runners. "How will people interact with a robotic exercise companion? Should the robot be more like a coach or more like a pet?" he asks. "One might make the exercise more effective, but the other might make it more fun. Which one is 'better'? And is there a 'better'?"
Video here (sadly embedding doesn't work)
(Via sUAS News)
Comments
Could we use this idea to improve precision of landing position ? Use GPS to get close to the landing site then use downward facing camera to center the image and begin descent ?
@Chris
Ill try it out next time we get a calm day here.
Does it also work with ArduPlane? Its not mentioned in the ArduPlane wiki.
Yes, that's what I was referring to the in the post. We've had Follow Me implemented since last year. It's in the manual.
EDIT: John, sorry I misread your post and now see you weren't talking about ArduCopter. The same functionality can work with ArduPlane, but it will be a lot less reliable, since planes can't hover. Instead, it should circle overhead your position as you move, but to be honest I've never tried that myself.
APM has follow me implemented. It's in Planner. Ctrl+f
Is there a similar project for Arduplane? It seems like if you had a ground GPS feed you could make something like a continuously updating "Fly To Here" command to make your plane follow target.
Is it possible to purchase ready to mount fenders?
:) sounds smiliar to MK's follow me ...
Also worth pointing out that the "follow me" concept is an old one http://youtu.be/t-Sb6h131Bo
Americans wouldn't be able to exercise long enough to use the 10 minute battery life.