There are plenty of flying robots out there (up there?) -- DIY drones, quadrotor squads, autonomous UAVs, and little robo-insectoids -- but Parrot's AR Drone is perhaps the first to combine robotics with the emerging, and heavily hyped up, field of augmented reality, or AR. The quadricopter vehicle carries two cameras and can stream video to an iPhone via Wi-Fi. On the phone, the live video is overlaid with flight controls and additional graphics for a variety of games. Watch the video above and then tell us: Would you buy one?
Erico Guizzo is the Director of Digital Innovation at IEEE Spectrum, and cofounder of the IEEE Robots Guide, an award-winning interactive site about robotics. He oversees the operation, integration, and new feature development for all digital properties and platforms, including the Spectrum website, newsletters, CMS, editorial workflow systems, and analytics and AI tools. An IEEE Member, he is an electrical engineer by training and has a master’s degree in science writing from MIT.
