Thank you all for submitting so many great ideas in our drone app contest. There were so many submission it was really hard to pick just 10.

What we looked for when picking the App ideas:
1. Ideas that will enable new drone functionality and will unlock new use-cases.
2. Ideas that will enable new creative and recreational use for drones.
3. Ideas that can be used as building blocks for various other drone applications

So with the final 10 app ideas listed below, we open up the voting to the public for you to choose which idea you like best, and want to see how it becomes a reality!

We would like to thank all our backers and to everyone who shared, posted and tweeted about our campaign! Because of your strong support, we've reached our goal!

We are officially one step closer to realizing our dream of community-powered computer vision drone innovation.

Marking the event, we are launching a friendly competition to find the most anticipated Percepto application.

How does it work?

• You submit your idea for an app that utilizes Percepto

• We will sort through your ideas and choose our 10 favorite apps, then open up the polls for you to vote for your favorites

• The app that gets the most user votes wins a Percepto kit to be used for building the winning app

• The app that the Percepto team likes best will also win a Percepto kit

• Both winners will receive support and hands-on advice from the Percepto development team

Schedule

Enroll:           March 27th until March 31st

Poles open:  April 1st until April 2nd

The goal of this promotion is to increase the exposure and awareness of Pecrcepto, and while we would like to see the winner build a complete app using Percepto, we understand that such a task is not simple and that the winner may not be able to complete the build on their own. That being the case, the winner should attempt to develop the app using Percepto, however if they are unable to finish they will keep the percepto and share the process.

LInk to the contest page.

Hi,

As promised, more details are now available. NVIDIA is our technological partner and Percepto is powered by the Tegra K1 SoC.

Thanks a lot for your feedback and interest in Percepto.

After getting many repeated questions I have decided to answer some of them here to clarify some things.

What exactly is Percepto?

Percepto is a drone add-on. Meaning it’s a device (about the size of a deck of cards) and a small camera that you connect to your existing drone. Percepto enables new features you didn’t have before. It enables your drone to use the power of computer vision in real time. With computer vision drones can “see” and understand the environment better than with todays sensors.

What exactly can I do with it?

You can develop and use computer vision based applications for your drone. By using our drone control API and pre-accelerated computer vision primitives, you can focus on your application, and get results a lot faster.

For example, let’s say you want to control your drone using hand gestures. With Percepto, you already got the hardware ready, so you can either write your own code or use Percepto’s core hand recognition primitive, as well as our APIs to easily direct the drone’s movement. Now all you need to do is decide what the drone should do after each gesture, and write a simple code that describes just that. After connecting Percepto, you’ll have a hand gestured controlled drone.

I am not a developer, is Percepto for me too?

Absolutely. Developers will only be motivated to create new applications if users will be there to appreciate and enjoy them.

Also, we will ship Percepto with a few applications of our own, like: .

Our filming app (Name ideas are welcomed)

Using your smartphone, mark any object and have the drone follow it, circle it or create any filming maneuver you desire with a click of a button. Since Percepto works onboard and in high rates it is very responsive and can create filming maneuvers in higher speeds and smoothness than todays GPS based features. We are constantly working with professional aerial photographers to improve Percepto’s filming capabilities.There is also a mode where Percepto controls the gimbal alone, leaving the drone control in your hands.

OSD (On Screen Dispaly) app (Again name ideas are welcomed)

A customizable heads up display, driven by our computer vision algorithms which can produce smart alerts such as obstacle advisory, object searching or even locations of additional Percepto powered drones flying nearby (We use it like a radar when we drone “dogfight” ;).

Percepto will constantly update with applications developed by us, as well as applications developed by our community. So, if you’ll own a Percepto, you will be able to experience any new exciting application released.

Does Percepto include a flight controller?

No, it integrates with existing flight controllers like 3DR Pixhawk and DJI Naza. After considering safety issues, ease of development, processing resources and the commercial drones ecosystem benefits, we came to the conclusion that the computer vision unit should be set apart from the flight controller.

How do I physically connect it to my drone?

Percepto connects to your drone the same way a camera gimbal, an FPV transmitter or DJI Lightbridge connects to your drone. It needs power from the drone battery, and a connection to the drone’s flight controller. All cables will be included.

Which drones can I connect it to?

We’ve already tested Percepto with 3DR Pixhawk and DJI Naza controllers, so, every drone that uses one of these controllers is compatible, but basically, you can connect it to every drone that has a PPM input in its flight controller.  Also, the drone can’t be too small, as it has to carry Percepto, which will weigh around 5 ounces (140 grams).

How is Percepto different from other development platforms?

Percepto is a state of the art processing platform tailored specifically for drones. The connectivity is designed for this specific use. The camera we’re shipping with Percepto is focused on frame rate and minimal distortion. Above all, our computer vision primitives are accelerated on Percepto’s CPU/GPU (NVIDIA Tegra K1) and our APIs make it easy to translate software decisions to drone flight maneuvers.

How will Percepto control the drone?

Depending on the application and the flight controller in use, Percepto can control the drone through PPM (just like an R/C receiver), or it can communicate with the flight controller through a digital connection (MAVLink, for example). Percepto can also be set to control only part of the control channels, leaving the others for manual control.

Percepto itself can be controlled either by your RC remote, or with your smart device through WiFi.

For some features, “follow me” for example, Percepto might fly the drone completely autonomously. In other cases, such as obstacle avoidance, Percepto might only intervene partly with the drones flight route or manual control.

Another option is to use Percepto for completely different tasks like augmented reality FPV or performance monitoring.

When will it be available?

We will start shipping Percepto to selected beta testers in July 2015. It will become publicly available by September.

How much will it cost?

We are now finalizing mass production costs with our different suppliers. This is why we have decided to launch our product in a crowdfunding campaign soon. I know it’s already became a cliche but it’s true, the more products we will have pre-booked and the more demand we will see for the product the lower we can make the cost.

Again thanks a lot for your interest!

We would really like to hear any thoughts, questions, remarks or expectations you have from Percepto

Please don't hesitate to contact us with any issue.

If you are interested in learning more please subscribe on www.percepto.co.

All the best

Raviv

Hi,

My name is Raviv Raz and I am a co-founder of a really cool startup called Percepto. I really hope you will like it since it pretty much grew out of reading and following this community.

Percepto is an add-on device, some may call a companion computer, that is designed to give almost any UAV computer vision capabilities.

It has been well discuss throughout the community that computer vision will play a crucial part in the future of drone technology. Understanding that, and being inspired by the power of open source community development, we have decided to create Percepto. A Platform that

makes the journey from a computer vision code to an actual drone application straight forward.

While we developed our first computer vision “follow me” application for our drone we’ve encountered many issues that were unrelated to our computer vision core algorithm.  Assembling the right hardware, integrating it with our drone and developing good testing methods consumed the majority of our time.

With Percepto we set out to change all that. We’ve created it to minimize the development time between a working computer vision code and an actual flying drone. We’ve included computer vision optimized and accelerated hardware, choosing each component in our system to best integrate with drones and designing our system to be “flight testing friendly”.

We strongly believe in open-source development, this is why we want Percepto to be in the hands and on the drones of as many developers and users as possible.

We are a team of experienced engineers from industry leading drone manufacturers, top tier communication and computer vision systems vendors and semiconductor producers. We hope to incorporate the best of these worlds into the hands of developers and users, helping create a new set of capabilities for drones.

I will keep updating our blog, technical and physical characteristics will be out soon.

www.percepto.co 

Thanks,

Raviv