Remote Control Helicopter Piloted via iPhone
I fly helicopters and write iPhone applications so if there was ever something straight down my alley, it has got to be this:
When you fly an RC helicopter, one of the hardest things to learn is how to control a helicopter that is facing towards you. As it happens, you have to swap all the controls around in your head. When the helicopter is facing away from you, all the controls act pretty much like they do when you are flying a real helicopter. If you want to go forward, you push the control forward, or away from you. But if an RC helicopter is facing towards you, pushing the control forward makes the helicopter come at you.
Now your standard .60 sized gas powered helicopter can do roughly 70 miles per hour and probably cut your arm off if it hits you. Given that your natural reaction to this killing machine flying in your direction might be to push the control away from you, you would probably be surprised when the helicopter flies towards you even faster! It is counterintuitive to think that you would pull the control towards you to stop the helicopter from hitting you.
The solution to this problem has always been to put a little camera and a radio transmitter on the helicopter and fly it by looking from the point of view of the helicopter. No matter how turned around the helicopter is in real life, you are always looking from the point of view of the pilot and therefore you never have to turn things around in your head.
To date, these solutions have been very expensive. However, with the Parrot AR Drone, you leverage the radio and video display already existing in your iPhone. All that is needed is a helicopter camera that works over WiFi. There is no reason why this idea wouldn't work on any RC helicopter (or car / boat / train / what have you, for that matter) but the helicopter is probably the most visually compelling idea. Actually, I could also see an underwater camera for the RC Submarine market being compelling as well, but I don't have one of those!
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