Review: AR Drone 2 From Parrot

Hardware

The AR Drone 2 is a quadricopter with a 720p camera onboard, and is controlled via wifi using IOS or Android devices.  Here is a photo from Parrot’s blog post:

The drone is a Linux device and has the following specs:

At 380 grams, it is a bit on the light side, and I’ve found it hard to fly in tight spaces in winds over 4 mph.  In addition, the propeller shafts and drive gears are not protected, so if you fly into something hard, they are likely to break.  I recommend buying a repair kit, including the circlip tool that is available, to keep your drone flying after any mishaps.

This drone is not water resistant so do not fly near water.  If it gets wet, the boards will be toast and you’ll end up replacing the drone.

The 720p camera is nice, and you can get some amazing shots with it.  I would prefer some degree of stablization, however, since shots are jittery due to the motion of the drone.  Overall, the hardware works well, as long as you don’t try to fly it in a backyard in 10mph winds!

The Drone uses a LiPO rechargable battery and provides about 15 minutes of flight time per charge.  This is usually enough time, but if you want more, you will need to buy an extra battery.  The battery charges in about two hours with the included charger.

The Drone 2 includes a USB port to allow you to record flight videos to a USB thumb drive.  Note that all video recorded here bypasses inclusion in the Academy and is not available to your mobile device.

Overall, the hardware is the high point in the Drone 2 story.

Mobile Applications

To hold down costs, Parrot opted for a mobile device controller strategy.  You fly this drone using an IOS or Android device.  First, you plug in the battery on the drone, then you connect to a wifi network that the drone establishes with your mobile device.  Once you are connected to wifi, you can update the drone firmware or fly.  The mobile control application is called AR FreeFlight and there is a version on the Google Play Store and the Apple App Store.

Flight Controls

Here is a screenshot of the iPad control scheme:

The Absolute Control mode uses the accelerometer and GPS chips onboard your mobile device to control the drone.  Your thumbs go over the on-screen buttons, and tilting the iPad or Android device away from you makes the drone fly away, tilting it back towards you makes it return to you.  The button on the right controls rate of climb and descent, and rotates the drone, while the button on the left controls the side to side yaw.  Double-tapping the right hand button also executes a flip of the drone, a real crowd pleaser.

Touching the circular arrow button changes cameras from the 720p one in the front to the 480p one mounted to the bottom.  I don’t use the bottom camera much as it intended for the navigation system to identify when the drone is approaching the ground and the picture is very grainy.