There are many miniature drones available in the market, but their rotating blades make them difficult to place inside a pocket. The best way to make the propellers fit inside a pocket was to make them foldable. The aerodynamics company AeriCam had been developing a drone with arms like these for some time. They have finally succeeded and named it Anura. It can fly like any good drone and then fold into a rectangular shaped block once we are done with it. We all thought it was an excellent concept, so more competitors joined in the fray. The market has expanded and now Droidworx are also offering a similar copter named Blu.
Just like AeriCam’s product, this drone can fold its wings up into the rectangular carbon fiber body. The rectangular block can then be placed in a pocket that can support its size. Other features include an HD camera that can shoot 1080p video at 60fps and 2 Megapixel stills on its 4GB memory card. It has GPS at place and streams live data streams of video from the copter right to the user’s smartphone. To deal with obstacles more efficiently, the Ultrasound, and Infrared rangefinders are there that comprise of an early warning system that feeds data to the control system of the quadcopter. It can also be made to go on pre-programmed pathways based on GPS waypoints and then fly back. When it encounters a low battery, the drone flies straight back to the starting point, and the same SOP is followed once the connection with the users has been blocked due to some reason. The drone also smartly follows the user based on the Follow Me mode now common in copters.
The aircraft can be remotely piloted with the help of an Android or iOS app that pairs with the main system of the drone. The 1,000 mAh battery present in the drone allows it to undertake a flight of fifteen minutes. Driodworx is now getting preorders for the Blu drone that promises to be good enough for our urban video requirements. Price has been fixed at 499 $ and shipment will commence in October.