Drones are fun, but still a technology in search of a killer application. Perhaps we have just found it - Star Wars style pod racing.

If you have seen the first Star Wars movie where they race on hover bikes through a forest then perhaps you have been waiting for a commercial hover bike. However, a French quadcopter group might have a better solution - drone racing with FPV. 

First find yourself a forest that you can use as a race track. As well as looking like the original movie scene, this has the advantage of providing a challenge to the drone pilot with overhanging branches and confusing light - as if the task wasn't difficult enough.

The FPV part of the description stands for First Person View. A camera mounted on the front of the drone links back to a pair of video glasses that the pilot wears to see what the drone sees. The pilot then flies the drone without actually seeing the drone for real. 

To see how it all looks watch this video. The commentary is in French, but there are reasonable captions in English if you select them: 

What can you say after that. 

It looks fun to say the least and if you are a programmer you must be thinking that there are things you could do to make the whole thing better. A better quality digital video link? Some sort of image stabilization? Virtual reality race markers added in real time? Stats on how other players are doing? The list goes on. 

There seems to be an intention of holding an international race sometime soon and I can't see why drone racing with FPV shouldn't catch on everywhere. 

Comments

Make a Comment or View Existing Comments Using Disqus

or email your comment to: comments@i-programmer.info