It's got six rotors on three arms, 11 sensors (including GPS) and flies like a dream. God knows what it costs, but if you have to ask you can't afford it. [UPDATE: I just got an email from them. They say "The base model starts at $14,995.00."] The new Draganflyer X6 is designed to carry cameras to get smooth aerial video or still photography, anytime, anywhere. The GPS allows you to fly it with a single stick to simply go up and down in a vertical column. Obviously it could fly autonomously to waypoints, but once again that feature is not enabled (presumably to avoid legal/regulatory issues).
Loads of videos here.
It even has a custom controller with a screen that shows inflight telemetry and other data:
Embedding the artificial intelligence on VicaCopter took a $200 embedded computer + $64 for the radio set + $13 for a microcontroller. Sending the telemetry to the ground is only using the $64 radio set + the $13 micro. She limits the angular rates on the micro while doing everything else on the ground. Everyone needs to make their own decision. A discount pocket UAV that flies 10ft in front of you and takes your picture is probably fully ground controlled. A weapon which needs be jam proof & doesn't need gigaflops is fully embedded.
That's a stretch, as the high speed radios will cost more than a processor and a low speed radio, but I'll grant some convenience in configuring software on a host instead of an embedded device. A more likely model has onboard and offboard computing. Certainly, that's Microsoft's vision with .NET and development environments such as Microsoft Robotics Studio running Microsoft Flight Simulator as the console.
It's a cost issue. That is all. The last few blog posts covered the advantages. It's "cloud" autopilot. Everybody loves the "cloud". Someday everything will fly using Google Autopilot. It's a lot less custom programming. A ground computer can do massive computations for a lot less money. Anything you move off the airframe is another part you don't risk in crashes. The wireless technology has probably gotten good enough that the cost advantage outweighs the risk of losing signal.
Yeah, I don't get Jack's point either. Doesn't Moore's Law work the other way, which is that the onboard stuff is going to get cheaper and faster, allowing us to do more onboard? They're not making any more spectrum but they're always making more silicon.
BTW, as far as I can tell, this ground station is not the autopilot. It's just RC control and telemetry.
What's the advantage of a ground-based autopilot ? You still need IMU, GPS and other flight data sensors onboard, and how does the aircraft recover if it loses link ?
Proprietary ground station? Looks like everyone's moving to ground based autopilots. 1 year of improvements in wireless communication & the game is over.
Interesting specs. The motors are quite small - maybe 75W max each, but blades are 15"-16" diameter, so the motors have lots of windings. With just a 2600mAh battery @ 14V, they're indicating 25 minutes of flight time, which works out to around 92W typical power draw. That computes to be a thrust:power ratio of 10.8 grams / watt, which is very efficient. No indication of price, but clearly they are not targeting the hobby market. Nice design.
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BTW, as far as I can tell, this ground station is not the autopilot. It's just RC control and telemetry.