Three years ago, it was the biggest campaign in Indiegogo's history, having raised $1.14 million. Today, the Robot Dragonfly project is officially dead, having never overcome technical issues.
Most of the other crowdfunded drones are delayed, too. Hexo+ (due out in March 2015), looks on track to be about a year late. Airdog is a year and half late. Sprite is just a few months late so far, but it looks like there's a long way still to go. Etc. Drones are hard.
Comments
Slight thread necromancy here, but the TechJect CEO did a presentation for TedX in may that had some interesting designs near the end.
TedX Video
Not sure if a quad motor glider wing with wingtip folding (like a bird tucking/bending wings forward) for VTOL is actually preferable though.
too awesome,
I'm sure the military applications for the dragonfly will resurrect it. in nano size
I suggest that any project that uses C.G.I. must have it stated on the video BOLDLY.
"Go Fund Yoself" SP s18e1 :)
As a supporter/victim of this particular crowdfunding campaign, it makes me wonder if some measure of design/software/IP escrow in case of failure would appease some people? If the remaining designs and BoM could be shopped around to other major drone makers after a crowdfunding flameout, it might provide a means for recovering either via asset sale or contract design/manufacturing (assuming previous crowdfunders were willing to throw good money after bad and a major vendor was willing to take the risk...)
Though in this case, who would be even willing to take this on? The onithopter community within the world of RC/drones is already small. The guys behind Bionic Bird would probably be best from a tech standpoint, but they probably don't have the resources to take on a quadwing ornithopter project. From a hardware perspective one of quadcopter microframe manufacturers would be a closer fit, but the complex drivetrain is something those vendors have no experience with. The large frame vendors like 3DR may have the capability but don't want to blow their own resources on a potential money pit.
Is there really no other way than nobody getting a drone and the design work being lost to the void?
A couple million dollars ain't what it used to be!
I think that is a big problem with the (usually young) designers who put forward these projects. A million dollars used to be a lot of money. But these days it will get you a shack in the Bay Area (not quite.....maybe 2 shacks).
Also, as we all know, ideas are cheap. We could sit around all day long and brainstorm about concepts which have real merit.
10 years ago I came up with a neat idea about a new product. I patented it and then started doing some design and prototyping. I go really excited.....attended some trade shows and had great feedback. One large company even went 90% of the way toward either buying or licensing it from me. So I kept going and throwing money at it - before I knew it I was a couple hundred grand into it (my own money!) plus 2-3 years of work. The company that was gonna buy it got bought out themselves in the midst of this and the new management didn't want to innovate or take risks...
I could go on but you get the idea....Chinese manufacturing was a QC nightmare. I would have learned and fixed everything given enough time and money. But at some point I decided that I was crazy anyway for going back into the "atoms" biz when I was doing much better in the "bits" end of things.
I ended up selling a bunch of the prototypes and samples and then the company so I didn't lose real money...I worked for free for 3-5 years, but that's expected.
I remember hearing that only 1 out of 200 (or 2,000?) patents ever made any money. As others have noted, business of any type is a risky bet and the most important capital are the people who are hard headed enough to keep going when all the odds are against them.
If it weren't for dreamers and people willing to "go where no one has been before", we wouldn't have figured out that there was no (practical) northwest passage. VC money financed that too.
Ah, manufacturing in volume is hard and doesn't seem to pay so well. So that's why the west has abandoned it to China...!
That is good news.
A couple of them are successfull Kickstarters getting on vc for the next round.
Have you seen this information on the report ?
Frank Tobe of The Robot Report notified me of a few extra funding announcements, including: 3D Robotics (rumored $5Million)
I agree. But the jump from a $$$$$ car having hardly any weight, power or space restrictions operating on a 2D plane in a somewhat predictable environment with signs, marking etc. To something that can be used in a small copter with full 3D environment detection at a margin of the cost, is going to take time.
The 'drone' business is nowhere near large enough yet to justify the heavy investment in R&D that you see for autonomous cars. So we either have to wait for future car sensors to get mature and then be miniaturized and cost effective, or hope that some other field like Virtual/Augmented Reality in smartphones will drive the need.
John Arne I agree with your prediction.
And my guess is that, just kike the MEMS sensors came from the SmartPhone Industry, the vision system will come from the Automotive Industry and the push toward ADAS - Advanced Driver Assistance System.
Allow me to be-off subject for a while:
Texas Instrument, Toshiba and other leaders of the chip industry are pushing dedicated System On Chip with all the processing and embedded intelligence necessary to process realtime 360 degree environment aware systems. Texas Instrument alone reported that number SoCs in serial production vehicules recently surpassed 15 million.
The devices are used in the broadest portfolio of ADAS applications, encompassing camera-based front, rear, radar and surround view systems. These SoCs are pushed to maximum performance by 15 lead customers with impressive ADAS engineering, enabling over 25 OEMs to produce systems in more than 100 car models to date.
Take a look at this simple demo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qrRgahTV1Rg
And please bear in mind that this is not a fancy Kickstart demo, but a simple demonstration of a system that is operationnal and delivered on a very large scale...:-)
-
1
-
2
-
3
of 3 Next