You might recognize Chris Anderson as a world renowned journalist. Former editor-in-chief atWired, author of The Long Tail, and recent author of Makers, he has traded in his pen to become CEO of 3D Robotics, a manufacturer of unnmanned aerial vehicles (UAV).
So when I saw he was speaking at the annual Hardware Innovation Workshop, I was intrigued. Just how does someone go from being an editor to CEO of a robotics company? I knew he was an awesome writer, but seriously, a CEO?
Chris’s story starts five years before he quit his job at Wired. Passionate about hardware, Chris was spending his weekends building products with his kids, hoping they would gain his same affinity for science and technology. Like any Dad he wanted to impress his kids, but unfortunately most of his projects ended with them saying, “Is that all it can do?”
Wanting to step up his game, Chris decided it was time to build a robot that could fly!
In this blog, I’m continuing my exploration of what Chris Anderson’s company DIY Drones has done in using open-source methods to create products that are exponentially less expensive to make.
In the latest work presented at ICRA 2013 in a paper titled “A Perching Mechanism for Flying Robots Using a Fibre-Based Adhesive”, the AirBurr V11 is shown attaching on walls using a deployable perching mechanism with gecko adhesives. Robots, similar to the AirBurr, capable of exploring cluttered indoor environments have many applications in search and rescue missions: they overcome ground obstacles easily and provide a high point of view. The new perching mechanism allows a flying robot to extend its mission time by turning off its motors while it scans the surroundings.
The video shows the perching mechanism that allows indoor flying robots to attach to vertical surfaces. The gecko adhesive pad is optimized for maximum attachment force and is mounted on a mechanism that stays within the structure of the robot during flight and that can be deployed for perching. The perching maneuver is very simple; the robot starts on the ground, takes off in the middle of the room, and when a perching maneuver is initiated by the pilot, the adhesive pad is deployed and the robot flies directly towards a wall. Once the robot is attached to the wall, the motors are shut down to save energy.
Perching on several surface orientations using a micro-quadrotor at UMD’s Autonomous Vehicle Lab (Dr. Sean Humbert) with directional adhesives and attachment mechanism from Stanford’s Biomimetics and Dextrous Manipulation Lab (Dr. Mark Cutkosky). The mechanism converts the kinetic energy of the quadrotor into opposed forces to load the gecko-like adhesives. The surface is a sheet of acrylic. This project was completed by Stanford’s Morgan Pope and UMD’s Andrew Kehlenbeck partly under ARL MAST.
Drone Dudes are a team of filmmakers and designers who use RC copters to capture stunning aerial cinematography. In this video we interview Andrew Petersen and Jeff Blank, who operate a radial octocopter capable of lifting cameras up to 12lbs. on a 2- or 3-axis gimbal. All the gear stows away inside their Transit Connect, which doubles as a camping vehicle when they are on the road.
The guys at Mad Lab Industries are at it again, now with a Pro Level Hex-copter custom built platform. This time they didn’t add legs or anything like that this time… They decided to make Taco-slinging Copter. After a few quick ideas and a Lexan graciously donated by a nearby booth, Mad Lab Industries team quickly modified the Camera system on their Grasshopper Hexacopter with a delivery tray. Then we started dropping tacos on unsuspecting attendees at RoboGames 2013!
Luckily, Grant Imahara managed to take a break from judging the event so he could try an airborne taco. He was not disappointed.
Fresno Wedding Photographer http://www.chrisgeigerphoto.com. Jason proposes to his girlfriend Christina at Alamo Square park in San Francisco on April 7th 2013. Jason told Christina that he wanted to take some photos of her in the park. During the photo session the engagement ring flies in on top of a small RC helicopter and he proposes to her on the spot. Jason was shooting with a 5D mark II. Two aerial cameras were used on the helicopter, a Gopro Hero 3 black and an 808 keychain camera. Additional ground footage shot with my 5D mark III.
3D Robotics is the leading open source unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) technology company. It was founded in 2009 by Chris Anderson(founder of DIY Drones) and Jordi Munoz, and today is a professional, venture-backed enterprise with more than 70 employees across three offices in San Diego (engineering), Berkeley (business and sales) and Tijuana (manufacturing).
3D Robotics designs and manufactures electronics and aerial vehicles, including multicopters and airplanes. It created the APM autopilot line, along with the ArduCopter and ArduPlane UAVs. It is the commercial sponsor of the DIY Drones community and the exclusive manufacturing partner of the Pixhawk UAV research team at the renowned Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich (ETH).
Conservation group WWF has announced plans to deploy surveillance drones to aid its efforts to protect species in the wild, as the South African government revealed that 82 rhinos had been poached there since the new year.
The green group says that by the end of the year, it will have deployed “eyes in the sky” in one country in Africa or Asia, with a second country following in 2014 as part of a $5m hi-tech push to combat the illegalwildlife trade.
more people, including startups, an opening in the $1.6 billion market for drone design, which will almost double in a decade, according to the aerospace and defense consulting firm Teal Group. Online support is “quite a game-changer,” says Jeff Moe, chief executive officer of open-source 3D printer company Aleph Objects. “You have collaborative worldwide development of hardware and electronics.”
The teamwork extends from pilotless aerial vehicles that spray crops or map coral reefs to those that detect radiation. DIY Drones, an online community founded by former Wired Editor-in-Chief Chris Anderson, has more than 35,000 members and provides free access to thousands of schematics. Its pages receive more than 2 million views per month, says Anderson, whose own company, 3D Robotics, is making use of the crowd-sourced R&D. “We’ve been able to bring this huge amount of energy, ideas, and talent to bear for free that otherwise would have taken millions of dollars,” he says, citing his drone autopilot software, radios, video components, and camera controls among the designs he developed with help from DIY.
The Summer of Drones is an epic series of up to 34 Nodecopter community events to take place in North America and Europe from June to September 2013.
Our goal is to highlight the non-military potential of UAVs, bring together people from different programming communities, and learn some interesting new stuff while having fun with flying robots.
The sky’s going to be dark with these things,” said Chris Anderson, the former editor of Wired, who started the hobbyist Web site DIY Drones and now runs a company, 3D Robotics, that sells unmanned aerial vehicles and equipment. He says it is selling about as many drones every calendar quarter — about 7,500 — as the United States military flies in total.
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