The PowerEgg unfolds to reveal a fully-functional quadcopter (Credit: PowerVision)
From Gizmag
By: DAVID SZONDY FEBRUARY 12, 2016
Conventional drones are often billed as portable, though they're also often a collection of rods, rotors, and other bits and pieces that are perfect for catching on things and getting tangled. To make taking drones into the backcountry a bit less onerous, Beijing-based Powervision Robot has taken the gubbins of a quadcopter and built them into a giant PowerEgg that folds up into one smooth package shaped like a cackleberry for transport.
The product of 18 months of development, the PowerEgg is PowerVision's first mainstream commercial drone and draws on technology developed for the company's industrial drones. According to the developers, the egg design is not only to allow the quadcopter to act as its own carrying case, but also for compactness and stability.
When switched off, the PowerEgg folds up into a smooth ovoid shell, but when ready for flight the sides split and unfold into landing gear and arms for the folding rotors. Meanwhile, the bottom of the egg opens to reveal a 360-degree panoramic 4K HD camera on a three-axis gimbal. According to PowerVision, the rotors are larger than usual for comparable drones, which required a degree of re-engineering.
Full article and video here
Comments
@Joe Bloeski; hold it on the top and bottom, press the button with your thumb; it unfolds, you hold it by one of it's arms or on it's main body (under the props) and manually remove the camera cover. It seems relatively intuitive to me.
Sure is easier on the eye than some monstrosities that people actually attempt to fly!
10/10 for aesthetics, which is more important that some engineers give it credit for.
Moving parts = problems. Drones are hard.
Unrealistic, no carry handle. How do you put it down unless the feet are extended and how to you transform it from egg to extended feet, by pushing a button, but how do you hold it while you push the on/off button and the feet extend. They show a dome on the bottom and then a gimbaled camera on the bottom but not how one gets from one to the other if the cover pops off they the only way to hold it is lost. Nice marketing video but totally unrealistic
What's the hardware term for vaporware? Is it just vaporware?
The Chinese seem to be trying to be very innovative and competitive in the sUAS domain.
Regards,
TCIII AVD
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