Techies in Silicon Valley are sending the three-to-six foot wide unmanned aircraft, guided by computers, radios and soon cell-phones, to survey fields, capture action shots from the air or follow them around to snap photos at optimal angles.About their only constraints: a 400-foot ceiling for amateur aircraft set by the Federal Aviation Administration—and battery life.
Jason Short, a product designer for design firm Smart Design in San Francisco, has built about a dozen unmanned aircraft for $150 to $1,000 each. He says he spends at least 20 hours a week tweaking and flying them. Mr. Short, 40 years old says the aircraft have allowed him to capture some hard-to-get photos of the Bay Area—including an image of himself on top of Corona Heights shot from far away.
Mr. Short, who helped design the Flip video camera, is working on technology that allows drones to be controlled via iPhones and Android devices. He also recently built drones with a fancy chip that can process inputs from three gyroscopes, three accelerometers and a compass. “We’re ahead of the phones,” says Mr. Short, who adds that he prefers the helicopters to the airplanes, because they are easier to test in his backyard.
At Berkeley Marina, 49-year-old Mark Harrison, a software engineer at Walt Disney Co.’s Pixar Animation, takes his airplane drone and “quadcopter” out for a spin almost every weekend. His fanciest drone is equipped with a camera that allows him to see what it sees by wearing goggles. “It’s very similar to being in the air,” he says.
Ace Monster Toys, a workshop for hackers in Oakland, plans to hold sessions for building 10 to 20 drones in coming months. Al Billings, Ace Monster’s president, who works on security communications for the Mozilla Foundation, says building a drone can be detailed, requiring soldering, other mechanical skills and uploading software to run the hardware.
“If things go crazy, it will fly in your face,” Mr. Billings says of the devices. One of the trickiest steps is calibrating a drone to fly outdoors based on the wind and other variables, he adds.
Some are proving drone-building can be a business. In 2009, Chris Anderson, editor-in-chief of Wired and a drone evangelist, co-founded 3D Robotics Inc. in San Diego. The firm sells drone parts, such as electronic pilots and sensors. He says it is growing at 50% a year and has multimillions in revenue.
Mr. Anderson likens the community of hobbyists to Silicon Valley’s Homebrew Computer Club in the 1970s, where Apple Inc. co-founders Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak showed off their first personal computer. At the time, the future uses of computers weren’t clear, says Mr. Anderson, with the software applications materializing over time. “I think drones will go the same way,” he says.
Source: The Wall Street Journal