The Long and Winding road to USA recovery...

[AeroJ]

Stumbled across this video from iVue robotics the other day, which was quite interesting. It's a new company that is trying to work towards some sort of home-grown UAV platform, which is encouraging, and should be encouraged, but it does feel a bit like going back in time and watching a video from the early 1990s with how far along they are !

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A few moments of surprising humour make this a surprisingly entertaining watch nonetheless.
Good luck to 'em I say... but as becomes quickly obvious, there is 'some way' still to go...

 

[Meta4]

Clunky video, clunky drones.
It's like they've built their own homemade drones, having never seen or flown a DJI product.

 

[Rchawks]

Put’s thing's in perspective, doesn’t it.

 

[AeroJ]

It goes to show just how many problems there are to solve to get anywhere near DJI's level and quality... and now they are having to do it with bastardised parts not designed primarily (or at all !) for flight.

 

[RangerEd]

Long before DJI came along there was a company out of San Diego that had been selling parts for building your own quadcopter. They're still around and it might see a resurgence of interest for them.

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[AeroJ]

Long before DJI came along there was a company out of San Diego that had been selling parts for building your own quadcopter. They're still around and it might see a resurgence of interest for them.

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I wonder how many of their parts are of Chinese origin ?!

 

[jaja6009]

OP, thanks for sharing!

I have a home built that needs a new frame. I am going to probably buy his frame kit along with arms, and landing gears.
The current build scares people by its frankenstein vibe.

 

[AeroJ]

There have been several more videos from these guys - it's turning out to be quite an active channel !
This video demos some new sensors and stable Atti mode flight without a GPS connected; good that they are focusing on features DJI consumer machines don't have, and the option to choose to fly without GPS could be very useful indeed in todays world where we increasingly may have to worry about GPS spoofing and blocking.

Also shows us how they have folding arms coming, and that they are working on OA systems / sensors.

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And I checked out their pricing, which, so far, is not ridiculous. Their mini systems start in the $600 range, and their larger DevelopAir standard model starts at around $1K. And because everything is modular there are a LOT of configuration options and additions available, though no specific sets / kits yet - all models it shows on their website merely dump you over to the parts sale pages when you click a model.

I'm sure it's not just the colours that remind me of the DJI flame-wheel self-build days of yesteryear !
I hope they pick up enough developer type pilots to encourage / support them through to the next phases of development as they work towards more consumer friendly versions, pre assembled / tested models and kits.