It always starts small with seemingly no connection to any practical applications and certainly we may argue that a robot bird (or UAV), one most probably targeted for warfare at that, has little connection with photography. Ah, but this tiny wing-flapping UAV carries a webcam that can transmit images and video wirelessly. It took only one year to design and build, weighs a mere 16 grams, can fly at up to 15 meters per second, hover, and even fly backwards at up to half a meter a second. The clincher: it can do all that partly autonomously and partly under remote control.
The following demo video of DelFly II (that’s what it’s called) shows it accomplishing a complicated indoor mission that involves flying into a mock building, identifying a number of targets, and then completing a safe landing on the roof. I see this technology migrating to real practical consumer video applications.
[ via FastCompany ]
