Aviation Tests 1

As a straighforward approach, i got myself a simple model helicopter from Conrad called Gyrotor at the cost of 50 Euro, just to get an idea of what is possible with affordable helicopter technology. This toy is good fun indeed, but much too far away from what i expected. Granted, my navigation skill are surely not the best, but i can’t imagine this thing showing stable flight behaviour with automated remote control.I’m still waiting for a 150 Euro model to arrive, but i already ditched the idea of having several helicopters with swarm behaviour flying in space for the sake of saving me a lot of trouble.

 

Pixelito mini helicopter

“So just a little while ago I mentioned that Epson had created the world’s smallest flying robot. And while that may technically be the case, depending on how you define robot and if you define smallest by weight or by length or whatnot, this Pixelito helicopter hand-crafted by Alexander Van de Rostyne is pretty amazing. The frame is a single, twisted tube of 1mm carbon (fiber?), minus the tail boom which is 1.33mm in diameter, powered my a 6mm motor from the inside of a pager. It’s remote controlled by infrared, and weighs in at a total 6.9 grams (stupid Most Bestest Whatevers titles beside,the Epson robot is 12.3 grams, although it has more features, too).”

via gizmodo.com

Micro Flying Robot

Seiko Epson Corporation has developed the FR Micro Flying Robot, the world’s smallest (according to Epson’s research) flying prototype microrobot.
The first version was released in November 2003, the second lighter and more advanced successor version with an image sensor unit and bluetooth control was released in August 2004.

The company hopes it’ll be suitable for security, disaster rescue and space exploration. Well, maybe even for doing some degree project. A swarm of little robots flying in space? Why not.

»FR Micro Flying Robot
»FR Micro Flying Robot advanced version