Drones have become of great interest this year and that does not look like it is going to slow down any time soon. That is because they are growing smaller and a drone will be affordable for just about everyone. The ones on the market right now are much smaller than the drone we think of which the military uses. But, if you look at the consumer drone of today, there are even smaller ones making there way to market this year. The DragonFly Drone, BionicOpter from Festo, is the kind of product which will be showing up for sale and will be one that everyone wants to have. This drone is only 17.3 inches long and has a wing span of just under 25 inches. Pretty impressive based on how well it flies and it weighs about 6 ounces. The video below shows you just what it can do. And best of all, you can control this with your smart phone. If you do not have a smart phone to use for this, there will be a wireless controller available.
With the 4 wings, the BionicOpter drone can easily hover and move about in any direction including backwards with ease. All of the details on this drone are available from the company in a PDF which is located in Germany. All of this is building on the previous flying drone from the company which is called SmartBird which demonstrated they could have realistic flight for a bird. This was shown at TEDGlobal in July 2011.
While there has been no announcements yet about when they might release this drone to the public, it may be that a much smaller model could become available to the public. That would reduce the costs and make this one more affordable. Exactly when that might be is an unknown, but with the successful presentations this month, it is only a matter of time before other companies jump in with cheaper models and attempt to grab the market. We would assume that some form of the BionicOpter drone will be coming to market this year.
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