Researchers at Germany’s Ilmenau University of Technology are developing flying quadcopter robots that can be used to form a self-assembling ad-hoc wireless network in the event of disaster. Built with off-the-shelf parts (including VIA’s Pico-ITX hardware and a GPS unit) the robots are designed to provide both mobile phone and WiFi access — and they can do it far more quickly than a technician on the ground might be able to. The device comes in a kit for €300 (about $380), which includes all but the battery — the batteries currently run around €1,000 (over $1200) and only offer up 20 minutes of flight time. Once the device has found a perch, however, it can operate for “several hours.”

Full story via Engadget.

Designed to totally creep the living hell out of you at the same time that you’re terrorizing your dog/cat/iguana/Geico Gecko, this bat flies vertically, yes vertically in the air! What really impressed me was the charge vs. operating time being near equal. It took a mere 4 minutes in order to get between 5-7 operating time! Hey, considering these large humanoids getting like an hour or so tops for a 4-5 hour charge, this is really impressive!

What in the world is FlyTech you ask? FlyTech is a new series of really cool toy robots from WowWee. Yes, they all fly, and do a pretty good job at it too! You can check out all of the exciting new robots at FlyTech Online or over in RoboCommunity’s FlyTech Category.

via RoboCommunity

The heli, called "X-3D-BL Scientific," is from a German company called Ascending Technologies GmbH.  I knew it was easy to use the SRV-1 controller for other wheeled vehicles, but seeing it on a UAV is pretty exciting.  They don’t have too much info up yet, but it sounds promising.  Here’s a video of the aircraft (without SRV-1 controller) in action:

Check out the original post, and keep an eye on the Surveyor Robotics Journal for updates!

It took us a few minutes to figure out how to fly it. Here are the things we learned: The main thing to remember is to not try to throw it when launching it. It works best when you just let it go with a really gentle forward motion. It also will fly best in no wind environments, due to it being so light. It also needs a decent amount of room to get around so I really wouldn’t plan on flying this indoors too much.

The Dragonfly really is a lot of fun. It’s uncanny how fast you forget it’s an RC toy and feel like it’s a really a large insect flying around in front of you. The flapping wings and shape of this toy really seem to trick the mind in to thinking it’s seeing a real live animal.

We were surprised how well this product worked for under $50. You really can steer it around. For a foam toy it’s pretty crash resilient. We did break one wing, but after that we crashed it plenty of times with no problems. (It comes with a set of spare wings.) The battery life was also impressively long. We expected it to be really short like the PicoZ, but it lasted at least twice as long if not more. This is a great toy to play with in the yard or at picnics. The Dragonfly is a good gift idea. We don’t recommend it for young kids however, quick eye hand coordination is needed to fly it.

Thanks to Chicago Public Radio for covering this story while I was on my way to work this morning.  Their pledge drive is still going on, so head over to WBEZ.org and give them some money.

Story at news.big.net

Project CONDOR event posting at Metromix

I couldn’t find any Project CONDOR pictures, so I ran a Google image search for “psychedelic blimps” and this is what I got.

This army project has been making the rounds on the internet. The Flying Saucer works using the Coanda Effect which makes for a compact blade system to lift a larger bodied object. Pretty smart!

Related Links:
Wired – most in depth info
JNL Labs – Pictures of Assembly
Coandă effect @ Wikipedia