Different flying, riding and even aquatic drones are already firmly in our lives. And management often does not require special skills, and they are controlled from a smartphone or manipulator, like a controller. However, experts from the Federal Polytechnic school of Lausanne (in Switzerland) offer something totally new: they created a special exoskeleton through which the quality of the control acts as your own body.
The system is called FlyJacket. And as the publication of the Verge, to work with the operator of the drone has to wear a virtual reality helmet and a special soft exoskeleton. It is worn on the upper part of the body and sinhroniziruete human action with the movement of the drone. You need to take off the “spread your wings” (to place hands), and then turns and slopes of the body can be controlled directly by the flight. At this point, the VR helmet allows the operator to observe the flight. As stated by the developers
“At the moment the system is optimized to work only with drones fixed wing. The exoskeleton is equipped with a support system for the user to not get tired while driving. This approach to the control of the drone is more intuitive and efficient than the traditional way”.
The researchers intended that their development will be a commercial success, since the development of the exoskeleton engineers tried to use inexpensive materials and technologies for the final product as accessible as possible for the end user. In addition, because the suit is made of elastic materials, it easily folds up and fits in a backpack. Video demonstration of the technology you can watch below.
#video | FlyJacket: the first exoskeleton to control a drone
Vladimir Kuznetsov