Intel Drone follows biker radness through trees
AscTec Firefly with RealSense 3D camera (click to enlarge).
Ever since the introduction of the Airdog Follow Me drone and the Lily Drone visions of a personal videographer have captured the imagination of mountain bikers world-wide. After all, reliving your adventures is fun, but video shoots and even photo shoots are not.
//www.youtube.com/watch?v=EnwRkGiptqk
Mountain biking is about flow, exhilaration and speed and a single video shoot can take many minutes or hours. So who wouldn’t want a drone that captures all the shots and footage of the best moments while not having an interrupted good time in the woods.
But reality dictates that this is a hornet’s nest of technical issues. One of the biggest issues is that of obstacles and safety. Mountain biking is sometimes done in the open but it is most often done in the woods, between and under trees. Follow-me drones can’t do that. They’re starting to follow a rider or a sensor on the rider, but the whole issue of trees and obstacles is a deal breaker. Think Star Wars and the stormtrooper chase scene through the woods.
Using an Intel RealSense camera and CPU with the collision avoidance technology, this drone can follow a rider even when confronted with obstacles (click to enlarge).
Mtbr has been in discussion with a few drone manufacturers about a controlled demonstration of their ‘follow-me’ capability. But it’s always been dogged by delays and a full evaluation of the route, line of sight and ‘non’ presence of trees.
//www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gj-5RNdUz3I
So this new technology from Intel is huge. It features spatial, real-time obstacle recognition that allows a drone to follow a target and react to the environment. The fact that a $150 billion company is focused in this area is exciting indeed. We knew that this problem was not going to be solved by a Kickstarter project here and there.
Will it the hands of consumers soon and at an affordable price? Will there be trail access and safety issues? There’s a lot of questions to be resolved for sure. But the bigger question is “Will you ride rad enough for the footage to be interesting?”
The post Intel Drone follows biker radness through trees appeared first on Mountain Bike Review.