CNXSoft – Embedded Software Development

If you can’t wait until 2014 to get the MeCam, Seeedstudio has something for you: The Crazyflie Nano Quadcopter, which looks similar to the MeCam, but does not feature a camera, its control board is powered by STM32F103CB MCU @ 72 MHz with 128kb flash and 20kb RAM (so, no it won’t run Linux), and at $173 the price is significantly higher.

Here are Crazyflie key features:

The Crazyflie is sold as a kit with a Crazyflie control board, a Crazyradio, one Antenna 2 DBi, 4 motor mounts, 5  Coreless DC motors, 4 CW propellers, 4 CCW propellers, and a LiPo battery. You’ll need a tweezer, a soldering iron, and some hot glues to assemble this together.

Crazyflie Kit

Once this is all assembled, you’ll need a standard micro-USB cable for charging, a PS3 compatible joystick to control it via a Windows or Linux PC which is used to control, log, and/or upgrade the Crazyflie.

This devkit is fully open source, and you can now download documentation and development tools, and (presumably) before it ships, you will be able to download the schematics, gerber files, and firmware source code on Crazyflie wiki.

The short promo video below is pretty interesting. It first shows some of the abilities of the kit (e.g. stability, even in windy conditions, programmability, etc..), and then hacking possibilities: keychain camera, inductive charging, training wheels (to safely hit the walls), flying LED light, etc…

SeeedStudio takes pre-order for the Crazyflie until the 18th of February, and will ship the kits on the 25th of April.

Via: Liliputing

Earlier today, I’ve posted a list of some interesting sessions for the upcoming ELC 2013, and one of the talk entitled “Lessons Learned in Designing a Self-video Self-hovering Nano Copter” by Gregoire Gentil, Always Innovating CEO, caught my attention. In this presentation, he will talk about the technical challenges the company encountered when they designed MeCam, a self video nano copter to point-and-shoot yourself, that should sell for just $49 retail.

Always Innovating MeCam

The MeCam launches from the palm of a hand and hovers instantly. It streams video to an Android or iOS phone or tablet that can be easily shared on social media platforms such as YouTube, Facebook, Google+ and Twitter. There’s no remote control for the MeCam as it’s either controlled by voice commands, or it can be setup to follow you around thanks to the follow-me feature. It can also do panorama shots automatically.

Always Innovating Cortex A9 CoM (Click to Enlarge)

The products is still in development, so the detailed specs are not available, but it’s based on a CPU module with the following characteristics:

• SoC- Cortex A9 processor @ 1.0 to 1.5 GHz
• System Memory – 1GB RAM
• Storage – SD card
• Connectivity – 2.4GHz/5GHz Wi-Fi and Bluetooth

The device also includes 14 sensors including side object detectors, and makes use of 3 stabilization algorithms (2 auto-pilots and a unique video stabilize) by Morpho. There’s no information about the camera, and battery capacity (and expected battery life), which are kind of important for this type of device. However, those 2 components are flexible, and may vary on different versions. I’m pretty sure it’s running embedded Linux since they will give a presentation at the Embedded Linux Conference. Always Innovating MeCam is said to be based on open source and open hardware, but I don’t expect the design to be open sourced…

I could not find a proper live demo of the MeCam, but Gregoire uploaded a promo video for the device that explains what it’s capable of, including a short peak at the MeCam in action, and that just looks awesome. It could lead you to say “Want!” or even “Shut up and take my money!”.

Always Innovating is a design company, not a manufacturer, so they are currently looking for licensees, and expect the MeCam to hit the shelves in Q1 2014. You can find more information on Always Innovating’s MeCam page.