Parrot ARDrone Closeup 300x175 The Parrot AR Drone: CES 2010Having looked into what has been going on at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show I’ve decided to post up a few things over the coming days to show some of the cool and interesting tech that has been shown in Las Vegas.

One of the first things to jump out at me was the AR Drone, an iPhone controlled remote helicopter.


The helicopter has 4 rotors to power it into the air and is controlled using the in-built accelerometer of your iPhone. 2 cameras are mounted onto the helicopter, one is a front mounted, forward facing camera which streams video straight onto your iPhone so that you can see where you are going. The second camera is mounted on the underneath of the helicopter and helps the vehicle track it’s height and positioning.

You are only restricted by the range of your in-built wireless connection for communication between the helicopter and your phone. The company responsible for making the helicopter has also included some AR (Augmented Reality) funtionality into the application allowing you to play games on the screen whilst piloting the craft around.

Currently the tech is only available for iPhone and iPod Touch users. But Parrot, the company responsible for making the helicopter, have created the software on an open source platform, potentially opening the door for Android and Windows Smartphone users to join in with the adopters of Apple technology.

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