LAS VEGAS -- Drones may occupy some controversial airspace: Are they dangerous? Do they spy on us? But flight enthusiasts just can't get enough of them. That's why when Parrot introduced its first AR.Drone at CES almost four years ago, the company quickly captured consumer imagination (a half million units sold since 2010) and, amid a fickle buying public, have shown enough staying power to spawn something new: the Minidrone.
Though still in project phase, this pint-sized quadrocoptor, which Parrot unveiled at CES 2014, can apparently perform many of the same tricks as its big brother. Like the AR.Drone, you control the Minidrone through your smartphone or tablet (via a Bluetooth connection). However, the new drone looks little like Parrot's first flyer. This one features two giant, albeit thin, wheels that it uses to roll along the floor, up walls and even across the ceiling.
[seealso slug="robotics-breakthroughs"]
Parrot's Minidrone is part robot and along with a 500 MHz processor and a Gigabyte of RAM, it includes a variety of sensors -- pressure, ultrasonic, accelerometer and gyroscope -- to help it stay stable and aloft. It also includes a vertical camera, though Parrot did not specify the resolution. The company says Minidrone is still in the project phase, so details like availability and price are currently vague-to-nonexistent.
Parrot is, it appears, also content to leave some things grounded. The company introduced Jumping Sumo (see below), a rolling "insectoid" robot. This bot -- also still a "project" -- rolls, jumps up to 80 centimeters high and can, according to Parrot, execute 90-degree turns.
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