ELC: Nano-copters! [LWN.net]

ELC: Nano-copters!

Posted Mar 20, 2013 9:30 UTC (Wed) by jezuch (subscriber, #52988)
In reply to: ELC: Nano-copters! by wookey
Parent article: ELC: Nano-copters!

> It's probably too noisy and intrusive, and a rolling robot would be a lot more energy efficient

Has anyone tried mini-blimps?

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ELC: Nano-copters!

Posted Mar 20, 2013 12:28 UTC (Wed) by wookey (guest, #5501) [Link]

That's actually quite a good idea. Should be do-able.

I've discovered that there are in fact a whole range of 'remote presence' robots already available: The VGO ($6000), Double Robotics 'Double' ($2000+ipad), Beam 'Texai'($16000+support contract), Robodynamics 'TiLR' ($10000), QB Anybot ($10000).

The double is the only one that isn't seriously expensive. It's really a segway-style frame to clip an ipad to - which is a quite a smart way to do things.

All of them are hopelessly proprietary of course, so no chance of common interfaces to whatever bot happens to be available at a site. I wonder if a double could be reverse-engineered to be driven by kosher software.