What once sounded like a throwaway science fiction gag has taken physical form, as a YouTube inventor has successfully built a drone-powered umbrella capable of hovering above a person and following them automatically during rainfall. The project, dubbed Flying Umbrella 2.0, represents nearly a year of development by the creator behind the I Build Stuff channel, who set out to create a genuinely hands-free solution rather than a novelty stunt.
The concept of a flying umbrella has circulated online for years, usually as a joke or a brief experimental clip. This version was designed with real-world usability in mind. The goal was to eliminate manual control entirely and allow the device to maintain its position above a moving person with minimal intervention.
An earlier prototype made clear why that level of autonomy mattered. The first iteration depended heavily on constant human input and manual corrections, making it unstable and impractical. According to the inventor, it became obvious that without reliable tracking and automated control, the idea would never progress beyond a curiosity.
The key technical breakthrough in version 2.0 is the tracking system. A time-of-flight camera mounted beneath the umbrella emits light pulses and measures how long they take to reflect back. By analyzing these signals, the system constructs a three-dimensional map of the area below, allowing it to identify and track the person it is meant to shelter with far greater precision than GPS.
That depth data is processed in real time by a Raspberry Pi, which calculates the user’s position and continuously feeds corrections to the flight controller. The controller adjusts the propellers accordingly, keeping the umbrella centered overhead as the user moves. The result is stable hovering over short distances, both indoors and outdoors.
Portability posed another challenge. The drone’s arms are built from carbon fiber nylon and fold inward, allowing the entire unit to fit into a backpack. Once deployed, the arms lock into place to maintain rigidity during flight. Balance issues, common in flying designs that place a canopy above the motors, were addressed through extensive testing on a separate drone frame before integrating the final structure.
Development was punctuated by hardware failures, including a damaged Raspberry Pi and unreliable camera connections. GPS tracking was ultimately abandoned after proving too inaccurate for close-range movement, reinforcing the decision to rely on depth sensing instead.
After multiple restarts and the addition of a collaborator who helped stabilize the tracking code, the Flying Umbrella 2.0 finally took flight. While far from a consumer-ready product, the project demonstrates how persistence, off-the-shelf computing, and clever sensing can turn an implausible idea into a working prototype, hinting at how personal aerial devices may continue to blur the line between utility and imagination.