Current drones definitely have their uses, but most of them are relatively limited in their practicality, especially if they were only designed to capture images and videos from above. However, next generation drones should be able to perform much more impressive tricks, at least according to a drone manufacturer named DJI, which is responsible for the creation of the very popular Inspire and Phantom quadcopters. Apparently, the company’s new Phantom X drone will include multi-angle shooting, obstacle avoiding capabilities, AI and even free-flight object tracking. Moreover, these devices will feature programming that will enable them to form a swarm and “paint the sky”, which is always nice to see, I imagine.
The primary problems that drones are facing right now are obstacle detection and avoidance, but a CSAIL PhD student named Andrew Barry is currently working on a special algorithm that allows drones to identify and avoid anything in their path. We’ve actually covered his incredible experiment not too long ago, and we were quite impressed with his drone’s ability to tackle obstacles through a dense forest at speeds of 30 mph.
You can watch DJI’s Phantom X drone in action in the video below. Make sure to let us know what you think about it so far.
I only watched the parts of the video with Chloe :p
Perfect face.