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Lily – Drone camera

news.ycombinator.com

461–470 of 496 posts

Re: Lily – Drone camera

#461
post #459

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Recent research has had controlled landing on 2 motors in real robots (and one motor in simulation only). The main trick is to spin the whole vehicle around the z axis (up-down) very fast, and modulate the speed of the remaining rotors to apply forces at different places around the centre of gravity. IIRC the one-rotor version didn't work on a real robot due to limits on the frequency response of the real-world motor…

Sounds plausible but I haven't read about this before and would like to know more, do you have a reference handy?

In regards to turning on the z-axis to be able to land with engine failure, I believe User is referring to Autorotation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autorotation

Re: Lily – Drone camera

#462
post #432

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As if there is a place where it can't possibly collide with anything! Oh, your Lily divebombed into the ground? Well, you shouldn't have launched it near the ground!

Perhaps I should have been more verbose. The information being asked is nowhere to be found through the official channels. The only mention of collisions and objects is in the terms document. I believe it's safe to assume the Lily doesn't have that and they made sure to add clauses that shield them against such claims (that it failed to avoid collisions). I just tried to contribute with relevant information and got t…

I read Zezima as being sincere, and Grue3 as being sarcastic towards the terms of service, not towards your helpful comment.

Re: Lily – Drone camera

#463
post #453
post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see it the other way around. This could help humans handle obstacles, at least if it could launch itself automatically and when it's a bit smaller so that it's really easy to carry around. African American males could carry it. Then, when police was nearby it could launch itself. Maybe it would be triggered by the sound of sirens or if there is a website that tracks police cars, maybe it could launch every time the…

Police do not react well to being filmed. What will likely happen is that your drone will be confiscated as "evidence" or destroyed. Its not as if cell phones do not exist to fill the same role here.

The ACLU makes an app that streams the video recording to an Internet server in real-time at the best possible quality given your data speed. It will also upload the full video when possible without additional action.

Re: Lily – Drone camera

#464
post #453

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Police do not react well to being filmed. What will likely happen is that your drone will be confiscated as "evidence" or destroyed. Its not as if cell phones do not exist to fill the same role here.

The ACLU makes an app that streams the video recording to an Internet server in real-time at the best possible quality given your data speed. It will also upload the full video when possible without additional action.

Im sure you can do that with a phone. Im not sure what the drone adds to the equation.

Re: Lily – Drone camera

#465

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Terminal velocity for these things will not be terribly high.

So, they go 25mph normally, i wonder if the terminal velocity is more or less than that. Too lazy to do the calculations :P

Way more. Probably on the order of around 120 mph

Re: Lily – Drone camera

#466

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The battery packs on those things have quite a bit of heft to them, hit anything at terminal velocity and it's gonna be pretty devastating.

Terminal velocity for these things will not be terribly high.

Probably on the order of 120 MPH or 55.8 meters per second. The drone weighs 1.2 Kilograms. The kinetic energy on impact would be 1800 Joules give or take. A 357 Magnum generates about 873 Joules.

The energy we are talking about is not insignificant. I'm actually in favor of allowing people to fly drones with as little restriction as possible but let's not pretend there aren't some risks.

Re: Lily – Drone camera

#468

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Intel last keynote demoed very capable drones. They're showing it off, it won't be long until it hits the market. They named the components RealSense, a miniature kinect I guess. Nice demo at 4:55: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Us0BqJvsF9k&t=295

RealSense uses projected IR and thus doesn't work outdoors. (edit: because short-range and little ambient IR are required)

Except the end of that video shows it working in a forest... https://youtu.be/Us0BqJvsF9k?t=6m14s

Re: Lily – Drone camera

#469

This is really, really cool. That said, flying objects are inherently dangerous. I was at a bike race and a guy was following the pack with a DJI drone. One motor suddenly failed and the thing plummeted to the ground from 40ft and broke into a bunch of pieces. Luckily, it didn't hit anyone but it would have been a major incident if it had. There's a lot of excitement about the cool, flashy features of these drones (f…

That is pretty unreasonable. Are 2-ton trucks and cars dangerous on the open road? Are they 99.9999% reliable?

Re: Lily – Drone camera

#470

This is really, really cool. That said, flying objects are inherently dangerous. I was at a bike race and a guy was following the pack with a DJI drone. One motor suddenly failed and the thing plummeted to the ground from 40ft and broke into a bunch of pieces. Luckily, it didn't hit anyone but it would have been a major incident if it had. There's a lot of excitement about the cool, flashy features of these drones (f…

I was walking down Hollywood Blvd one day when they suddenly shut the street down for about 5 minutes to do a fly-by RC helicopter shot. This was a few years before lightweight drones and cameras were on the market and this helicopter reminded me of a flying lawnmower! As it whizzed by me and thousands of other people, I was pretty sure it could easily have taken off a limb. I have a fairly cheap drone with a built-i…

They still make those same gas-powered RC copters. The ones you have are designed to be slower, low powered electrics.
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