Monday, October 14, 2024

UDrone: Control a drone with the power of your mind

Drone Technology is constantly evolving as new innovations and big investments are bringing more advanced drones to the market every few months. These drones can be controlled using remotes or gesture controls.

How about controlling or moving a drone with the power of your mind? Ahh… Seems unreal!

It’s no longer an imagination now! A bunch of engineers and designers at Chinese Company EEGSmart set out with the same mission and developed UDrone mini-quad and UMind Lite headset. They designed this extremely compact palm-sized drone with brain-machine interface (BMI) technology that they focused on developing for a long time.

UDrone mini-quad and UMind Lite headset.
UDrone mini-quad and UMind Lite headset.

With UDrone, it’s all have become possible to control a drone with brain electrical impulses. You only need to imagine the drone lifting off the ground, and there you are- it actually does! Sounds fascinating!

The UDrone is very small, just about the size of your palm, super compact, and super portable. It is a lightweight device with just 85 grams of weight and can easily fit in your backpack.

The headset has multiple inbuilt sensors that measure your brain’s electrical activity, as well as eye movements and response to your nerve’s stimulation of muscles. It sits over the ears across your forehead, just above your eyebrows. It comes with features like face tracking, subject tracking, and gesture recognition.

UMind Lite headset
UMind Lite headset

How does it work?

Simple! Concentrate and imagine the drone taking off. Once your concentration level is up to 150, the drone will whirr, rise, and buzz through the air with zero delays. It is all because of an electroencephalography sensor in the headset that monitors brain activity. Other sensors allow you to control the drone in various ways. You can adjust the altitude by imagining, and adjust the flying direction by tilting your head left and right.

In other words, the brain-sensing headband can read your brain waves, measure your brain’s electrical activity, track your slight facial movements, and convert these signals into instructions to control drone movements.

UDrone Construction
UDrone Construction

Also, UDrone is easy to land, simply bite the back teeth and keep for 2 seconds, and your quadcopter will land safely.

Moreover, it comes equipped with a powerful 8-megapixel, 1080p capable AI camera system with real-time image transmission. Capturing a photo with UDrone can be done with two blinks with your eyes.

Additionally, you can also shoot in auto mode by simply making a “V” sign with your fingers. The AI camera system automatically adjusts the camera focus, exposure, and position to ensure your face is ideally displayed in the frame.

It can be a great companion for the Vloggers as it can track and continually focus on you while you are moving, walking, or talking, which may add an extra dimension to your vlogs.

UDrone works indoors or outdoors and has a maximum operating time of 25 minutes, though Blain’s review notes a time closer to six or seven minutes per charge.

The detachable battery allows you to charge on the go. The interchangeable battery takes less than 30 minutes to be fully charged.

Though it is very compact, the acceleration sensor with three rotors enables the drone to maintain stability in flight.

The UDrone control App
The UDrone control App

In Addition, you can control or fly the drone using your mobile phone. The UDrone control App enables you to command the drone effortlessly. You can pair the headset to your phone through the UDrone app and then set the drone into “mind control mode” to activate it.

Specifications:

Udrone: Technical Specifications
Udrone: Technical Specifications

U-Drone can fly up to 60 meters away from your phone and up to 60 meters above the ground. Moreover, it can fly for up to 25 minutes on one charge, giving you enough duration for daily use.

It will only take you a few minutes to learn the tricks of flying with your mind.

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