3D Robotics gets Solo "smart drone" off the ground

3D Robotics gets Solo "smart drone" off the ground
3D Robotics, the company that grew out of the popular DIY drones website and the imagination of Wired Magazine Editor Chris Anderson, has announced a new consumer level quadcopter drone called the Solo. Touting its latest creation as "a breakthrough in intelligent flight," 3DR's new drone leans away from 3DR’s roots in hobbyist, DIY UAV flying in favor of a a slick, packaged, all-in-one consumer-oriented system that works right out of the box with a minimum of fuss.    

3DR is saying that this is the first time that full integration of the GoPro Hero 4 4K camera is available on an aerial platform. Thanks to the optional gimbal, all camera functions – exposure, frame rate, field of view, single frame pictures, and so on – are controllable from either the control unit or the app (iOS or Android) running on a mobile device. The owner of the Solo can start and stop recording from the ground, a feature sorely missing on earlier drones, where you might miss an entire flights’ video because you forgot to hit the record button on the camera before takeoff. The user can take 12-megapixel still photos with the camera remotely as well. 

The company also claims the Solo is the first consumer-level quadcopter that boasts dual Linux computers under the hood. There's one running in a 32-bit microprocessor onboard the drone, and another Linux micro in the control unit. Control and processing tasks are divided between the two computers, with the onboard system handing stability and control, while the ground-based computer handles higher functions. The onboard CPU is the PixHawk2 autopilot, an improved version of 3DR’s Pixhawk controller that came out last year.

The "smart battery" 3DR has developed to go with the Solo can be used to charge the GoPro camera via the gimbal to ensure you don't miss that all important shot when the camera's battery is running low. The drone monitors battery life and distance back to the controller, so the Solo will start back home while it still has enough power to make it safely back to where it started.

Other Smart Shots are the Orbit, which flies a circle around a GPS point, and the virtual Cable Cam, where the drone smoothly flies between two points. All of these features are intended to help novice drone pilots and videographers get good results from their investment.

Another new mode that is likely to come in handy is a pause button, which causes the drone to stop what it is doing and hang motionless on the spot. This is sure to save many an overly ambitious operator when they need to bail out of a maneuver.

Among several other innovative features that 3DR is announcing with the Solo quadcopter is a flight simulator mode in the app that lets novice pilots practice flying without endangering the house, nearby trees, or the investment made in this flying camera rig. The smartphone app is also capable of upgrading the firmware on the drone wirelessly if a software update becomes available. This eliminates a problem with many existing quadcopters that require a home computer and a micro USB cable to do software downloads. The drone's software is also supposed to monitor the onboard systems, and automatically place a service call back to 3DR if a fault develops.