Parrot AR.Drone

Specification

Dimensions:

• With protective cover: 52.5x51.5 cm
• Without casing: 45x29 cm

Weight:

• 380 g - with housing for the street
• 420 g - with housing

Flight speed: 5 m / s; 18 km / h
Maximum ceiling: limited by the radius of the wifi (50-120 meters depending on weather conditions)
Flight Duration: About 12 minutes (with standard battery)

Motor and Power

• The apparatus is driven by four brushless 15-watt electric motors of 35,000 rpm.
• Li-polymer battery (3 cells, 11.1V, 1000 mAh), charging time 90 minutes

On-board computer

• 469 MHz ARM9 processor
• DDR SDRAM 128 MB 200 MHz
• Wifi b / g
• USB high speed
• Linux OS

Management System

Inertial control system uses:

• Three axis accelerometer
• Biaxial gyroscope
• Uniaxial gyroscope for determining the yaw angle
• 40 kHz ultrasonic altimeter with a range of 6 meters providing vertical stabilization

Camcorders

• On the nose of the quadrocopter. A wide-angle VGA 640x480 camera with a shooting speed of 15 frames per second and a 93 ° lens. CMOS sensor
• At the bottom of the quadrocopter. High-speed camera 176x144 with a shooting speed of 60 frames per second and a 64 ° lens. Helps stabilize the device

Mechanical Properties

The quadrocopter case is made of EPO foam, plastic elements reinforce the motherboard and navigation board. The EPO foam casing in the indoor flight housing protects the screws.

Security

• Auto landing when signal is lost
• Screws automatically lock in case of contact
• The control interface allows you to immediately stop the screws
• Protective cover for indoor flight screws

The software installed on the aircraft can be updated via usb by downloading new firmware versions from the Internet

The latest firmware update 1.8 was released on May 26, 2011.

• Now you can save different settings for different iPad / iPhone / iPod
• The best video codec is used to reduce bitrate

AR.Drone is very popular among modders due to the simplicity of structural solutions, the fully modular design and the ease with which you can completely disassemble and assemble the device, the high engine power, thanks to which you can lift the payload into the air and the ability to purchase all parts of the device separately, including including improved options.

Among the most common modifications, replacing the factory battery with a more capacious one for a longer flight duration, reducing the weight of the device, improving aerodynamic qualities, replacing the front camera.

The results of improvements using the Arduino microcontroller and a GPS receiver for flying at control points have been published on the Internet ^[1] .

Modifications issued:

• AR.Drone OG (PF720000AM) -----?
• AR.Drone OY (PF720001AM) -----?
• AR.Drone OG Zone 2 (PF720020AM) -----?
• AR.Drone OY Zone 2 (PF720021AM) -----?
• AR.Drone OB Zone 2 (PF720022AM) -----?

Due to the low cost, the large number of installed sensors and devices, as well as the open API, AR Drone has become a popular platform for scientific and educational purposes ^[2] . It is used in experiments on automatic control, AI training, autonomous video surveillance, human-machine interaction, etc.

On January 8, 2012, Parrot announced the release of an updated version of AR.Drone for the second half of the year.
Among the improvements of AR.Drone 2.0 ^[3] :

• Compass
• Barometric Altimeter
• HD camcorder 1280x720
• Simplified machine control mode

Motor and Power

4 brushless motors 14.5 W 28 500 rpm
Maximum flight speed - 18 km / h

Parrot AR.Drone received the 2010 CES Innovations Electronic Gaming Hardware Award

• Unmanned aerial vehicle
• Augmented Reality

Similar quadrocopters

• VC-450 Quad

• http://ardrone.parrot.com (inaccessible link)
• http://ardrone-flyers.com
• Overview of Parrot AR.Drone 2.0