Ask any drone enthusiast & the pilot will describe the thrill in flying a drone is an amazing feeling. They are the future and easy to build. Almost all drones follow similar architecture, flight controls & fly on basic laws of physics.
I bought my first drone in mid-pandemic & started playing around with it’s firmware, architecture & the protocols. It was a Tello drone by Dji and it came with an iOS application. It’s an amazing programable drone, quite durable & cheap for first timers.
Hardware Limitations & iOS Walled Garden Approach
Being a $100 drone the hardware on the drone itself does an amazing job in controlling propeller speeds, VPS & stream a 720p video feed from the drone. You can send commands from your iOS application to the drone and it works fine. Where I saw an opportunity was to add autonomy to it, add Object Detection, Face Tracking, Human Pose Detection & tons of other AI features.
To run highly computational python libraries like OpenCV, pretty powerful hardware is required. You can’t do computations on Tello drone itself & iOS has locked developers out from running computational intensive equations. That leaves with one option, the computer machine.
Introducing Drone AI Software
So i designed my own AI Software to fly the drone. It works on both Windows 10 and macOS Big Sur. After extensive testing, i have packed the software with best Computer vision algorithms, Cinematography features, Flight planner, Voice control. You can fly the drone from UI, Keyboard or your Xbox, Playstation or Logitech controllers.
Drone AI Features
AI Object Detection — During flight the drone can recognise objects in it’s view. To activate object detection click on the bulb icon
AI Human Pose Detection — Drone software have the ability to detect human poses. It can recognise moving human beings & map out their behaviors & activity. To activate object detection click on the accessibility icon
AI Face Tracking — The drone will automatically follow the closest face in it’s proximity. The next upgrade in development pipeline is to allow user to track a selected object in UI. The face tracking tech makes use of PID (Proportional-Integral-Derivative). To activate the feature click on surprise face icon
Speech Control — This is my personal favorite feature & allows me to control the drone using speech. It makes use of Pocketsphinx Python library to take inputs from user microphone and send them to drone. To activate click on microphone icon. The voice commands are as following -
move left: drone travels left
move right: drone travels right
move back: drone travels backward
move front: drone travels forward
move up: drone travels up
move down: drone travels down
rotate clock: drone move clock-wise
rotate anticlock: drone move anti-clock-wise
Drone Control
Though speech control is awesome, but to have granular control over the drone movement you need something more precise.
Remote Control — Your xbox & play station controllers are compatible with our software. You don’t need to buy new controllers compatible with just iOS or android.
Keyboard — If you are a PC gamer, you will enjoy the keyboard control
E Key: Take Off
Q Key: Land
Up Arrow Key: Move Forward
Down Arrow Key: Move Back
Left Arrow Key: Move Left
Right Arrow Key: Move Right
W Key: Move Up
S Key: Move Down
A Key: Rotate Left
R Key: Rotate Right
AI & Cinematography features can be activated from UI while using Keyboard
Speed can be changed in UI
User Interface — The appliation UI allows you to click on button icons & control drone too
Drone Cinematography Features
All Cinematography recordings, snaps & images are stored in
- “Pictures/Vid_Recordings” on macOS
- “C:/Users/USERNAME/Pictures” on Windows
Record Video Feed — Click on the video button to start recordings. The recording will continue until it’s switched off by clicking on button again.
Capture Image — The images can be captured by clicking on camera button
Burst Mode — Takes around 5 images at a time
Panorama — Drone performs a 360 rotation to click a panorama
Timer — You can time the photos, the deafult time is set at 5 sec
Drone Flight Planner
Users have the ability to plan a drone flight, control the speed, direction & time of flight. Plan the flight & execute the plan. If the drone is not flying according to plan, you can take control immediately from controller or keyboard.
Pricing & Free Software
There are two subscription models -
- Drone AI Basic — The experience is limited to drone flying only. It’s a one time fee
- Drone AI Pro — With Pro subscription you unlock all the features, support & software updates with addition to new features.
Currently the software is only compatible with Tello Drones.We are working to add compatibility with other popular drones.
Free Software — We are giving away our Pro software to first 300 customers. To claim the software please click here. You will be asked to create an account before you can download the software.
For Students — If you are a school teacher or a student please contact us or email us support@aidronesoftware.com for discounted pricing.
Developer & Contributions
We are always looking for better ideas & contributors. If you believe your idea can add certain value to the software please contact us or email us at support@aidronesoftware.com
Summary
Our software will add same capabilities to your $100 drone that a $2000 Dji Mavic or $1500 Skydio drone costs. An expensive drone you are paying for is the cost of the hardware that will perform powerful calculations on it and you risk loosing a flying NVDA or Intel chip. However if the computational hardware is on ground & all your drone has to do is execute commands on a cheaper flight-controller it makes far more sense economically. You can invest on a better GPS, drone range & flight computer.
Let me know your thoughts in comments.
Links :
- Visit us on : https://www.aidronesoftware.com
- You can also checkout drone UI: https://www.aidronesoftware.com/application
- Youtube: DroneAI
