Parrot AR.Drone - Yellow hull

The AR.Drone is a remote-control quadricopter drone designed by French company Parrot. This groundbreaking drone is designed as recreational equipment suitable for young and older and combines the best of many worlds, including modeling, video gaming, and augmented reality. AR.Drone can be used both indoors and outdoors and connects by Wifi. It is controlled from a smartphone (iPhone, Android, Nokia, Samsung ...) and also has some autopilot features to help flying the drone. AR. Drone is very easy to pilot.

AR. Drone is equipped with internal sensors as well as two external cameras (front and below) that send a video stream in real time to the smartphone for remote monitoring or for recording.

Finally, several applications for smartphone using augmented reality allow you to use the AR. Drone drone in a real race or in a virtual one.

Caractéristiques techniques du drone AR.Drone

The technical specifications of the AR.Drone are as follows :

The general technical specifications

• Dimension with external hull : 52.5 x 51.5 cm
• Dimension without external hull : 45 x 29 cm
• Weight : 380g
• 4 Brushless motors 15W (3500rpm)
• Battery Lithium-Poly 3-Cell 1000 mAh (Fly time autonomy : 12 minutes, Charge time : 90 minutes)
• Security: Automatic locking of propellers when in contact and emergency stop button engine
• Range: 50 meters (horizontal ) by 6 meters (vertical
• Maximum velocity: about 5m/s (18km/h)
• Anti-vibration system
• On-board computer
  ARM9 RISC 32bit 468MHz
  • 128MB DDR RAM
  • USB port
  • Linux OS
  • Wi-Fi b/g (The Parrot AR.Drone generates its own Wi-Fi network to which you connect your iPod touch or iPhone to control).

The external sensors of the Parrot AR.Drone

The AR. Drone has external cameras to capture and to stream live video to the piloting device. The first camera is placed on the front of the drone (front camera) and the second on the bottom for pictures of the ground (vertical camera). The technical characteristics of these cameras are as follows:

Front camera:

• CMOS sensor, resolution of 640x480 pixels (VGA)
• 15 fps (frame per second)
• 93-degree wide-angle lens

Vertical camera:

• QCIF (176 x 144) High-speed camera (CMOS)
• Horizontal stabilization
• 60 fps (frame per second)
• 64-degree diagonal lens

An ultrasound-based altimeter:

• Ultrasound-based
• Range: 6 m
• Emission frequency: 40 kHz
• Vertical stabilization

The internal sensors of the Parrot AR.Drone

The AR. Drone has also internal sensors to help the user piloting the drone and to get a better flying experience. These sensors are sensors that are typically found in autopilot:

• A 3-axis accelerometer
• A 2-axis gyroscope
• A 1-axis yaw precision gyroscope
• MEMS (micro electro mechanical system)

The autopilot of the AR.Drone facilitates takeoff and landing. After takeoff, autopilot stabilizes the AR.Drone at an 80-centimeter altitude. When you remove your finger from the iPhone/iPod touch, the autopilot function automatically puts the AR.Drone into stationary flight. Lost connection with the AR.Drone? Autopilot takes over again and stabilizes the device before attempting a soft and safe landing.

The hulls of the AR.Drone

The hulls are made of very resistant injected expanded polypropylene (EPP). Two hulls are delivered by default with the AR. Drone. A full hull shield for indoor flights and a more aerodynamic hull made for outdoor flights.

What's in the Box of the AR.Drone?

The box of the AR.Drone contains:

• 1 AR.Drone
• 1 profiled hull for outdoor flights
• 1 full hull for indoor flights
• 1 battery
• 1 charger
• 4 adaptaters (EU, US/JP, UK, Aus/NZ)
• Sticker for outdoor hull (for multiplayer battles)
• 1 quick start guide

AR. Drone is easily repaired and many parts are available for sale on this website.

The available applications and games

The AR. Drone is mainly controllable from Iphone, Ipad and Ipod Touch. It is also possible to control the AR. Drone from a PC running Linux and equipped with a joystick. Finally, applications for smartphone such as Nokia N8 / C7 / E7 Symbian, Android or Bada Wave Samsung are also available.

The main softwares for Apple devices are:

The 4 applications above are available for Iphone but only AR.Race and AR.free Flight are available for Ipad.

Many third-party applications are also available. Visit the iTunes Store and type AR.Drone in the search engines to list them all.

Programming the AR.Drone

An SDK (software development kit is available to allow you to create your own virtual reality applications with the AR. Drone. The developer community is very active. To know more, go to https://projects.ardrone.org