Hover Camera quadcopter drone is more than a drone to selfies!

The Chinese start-up Zero Zero Robotics has unveiled its very first model of autonomous Hover Camera quadcopter drone that allows to take pictures from remote and ultra-stable.

The company is located in Beijing, with offices in Hangzhou, Shenzhen and San Francisco. The reason for its establishment in China: “Get closer to suppliers and manufacturers. Much of the R & D work is to know the least seller, the smallest chip …. At Silicon Valley, you have much more limited access to this information than if you are based in China, “said Meng Qiu Wang, one of the founders.

The company was founded in 2014 by two former students of Stanford University. Meng Qiu Wang holds a master’s degree from Carnegie Mellon and a PHD in machine learning from Stanford. Before starting his own business, he started his career as a software engineer at Twitter and then as a Big Data specialist at Alibaba. Tony Zhang is a graduate of Stanford Computer Software.

At the same time it unveiled its very first model of autonomous Hover Camera quadcopter drone, the company raised $ 25 million from multiple investors including IDG, and Chinese GSR Ventures and ZhenFund. It now has close to 80 employees who are actively working on a wide range of consumer robotics products.

Hover Camera quadcopter drone

It is a true jewel of technology. With a 13 million megapixel camera and 4K video recording, the drone is equipped with state-of-the-art technologies that allow it to map its environment in 3D and move in an optimal and fluid way. But the real plus is its tremendous stability of flight. Barely released in the air, the Hover Camera quadcopter drone stabilizes its flight and adopts the best position alone, thanks to a sonar and cameras, which allow him to follow a person and take a 360-degree photo.

So far there’s nothing new. Camera drones that follow their user are out there like Lily Camera, or Hexo +. But it seems that Zero Zero Robotics has more than one trick in his pocket. “Our approach differs from that of Lily Camera or Phantom 4. Lily mostly uses a GPS to follow you, which means you have to wear a device on your wrist,” or a smartphone. As for the Phantom 4, “it works through visual computation, but relies mainly on motion tracking. But we use a system of body recognition and facial “explains the designer of the Hover Camera quadcopter drone.

To do this, the engineers of the start-up have developed in-house algorithms that run on an ultra-compact printed circuit board and operate on the Snapdragon Flight platform. Its quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon processor allows it to run artificial intelligence in a compact yet fast way. Designed in carbon fiber, the Hover Camera weighs only 238 grams (just below the threshold of 250 grams above which drones must be registered in the US Federal Aviation Administration records) and measures 18 cm by 13 cm. If you plan to go to the top speed of selfies, you will have to pay $ 600. It’s already less than the Mavic Pro at $999. You will receive your boom at selfies 2.0 from the summer holidays.

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Parrot bebop vs DJI Phantom 3 comparison of my experience with both

Since I now have both, a Parrot bebop 2 and a DJI Phantom 3(advanced) i thought it might interest some to read a quick comparison of my experience with both.

Flight characteristic/stability/speed

In fairness, I think both are impressive. The Phantom 3 is heavier, has more inertia and you feel that, but on the other hand, its more stable too. It can descend much faster and without wobbling, the GPS position and altitude hold also seems to work even more accurately. Parrot bebop 2 is good enough here for me. Maybe when doing time lapses it matters, otherwise, not so much. The bebop is a more nimble, and because its so light and small, its more fun to toss around without worrying too much.

Video/photo quality

It won’t surprise anyone the Phantom 3 wins this handily. The camera, particularly of the advanced version I have, is WAY better. Even when shooting in the same resolution and frame rate as the Parrot Bebop, its so much sharper and with more detail.  Its like comparing a gopro hero black with a 720p keychain cam. No more blurry trees or grass, everything is razor sharp and shooting in 60FPS makes it oh so much more smooth. The gimbal also just works a lot better than the electronic stabilization, particularly when tilting/panning. On my first landing, I managed to tip the phantom over. On the video, you cant even see that anything happened. If the video of the phantom is clearly superior, still images are in a different league all together. Yeah, same megapixels, everything else is beyond comparison. But you probably already knew that. One major disadvantage of the Phantom 3 for me is the minimal interval time of 5 seconds. When doing mapping, 5 seconds is too long and I end up waiting or slowing down a lot for the camera.

Range and endurance

I haven’t fully range tested the Phantom 3 yet. But I’ve gone out about 1km with no impact on reception at all, video remained completely smooth and free of artifacts. That’s despite missing one antenna. The resolution with lightbridge may also be better, but I’m using a 5″ phone right now, so I would lie if I said I noticed. I do notice the reduced lag. Light bridge really works pretty well, I have to admit. Using the skycontroller, I generally found the range of the Parrot Bebop to be more than adequate. It does suffer a lot more from freezes/artifacts at > 3-500m, but Id still call it good enough. The latency is more annoying in my opinions, lightbridge is much closer to an analog FPV experience. Closer than I would have thought.

As for endurance, the surprise winner there is actually the Parrot Bebop. It comes much closer to its advertised flight times than my Phantom, which only lasts 18 minutes in my tests. In fairness, that was in windy conditions, and I have a crashed one with one motor that’s turning a bit rough and that will be replaced. Maybe a new motor will increase flight times.

Features/flight modes

In general, the Phantom 3 is a much more complicated platform with a ton of features that you may or may not find useful. A few things that stand out for me because I missed them on the Parrot Bebop: POI circling mode. This truly helps making cinematic shots. And is very useful for my photogrammetry experiments. I’m also delighted to discover the Phantom 3 has a FPV mode for the gimbal, that makes it roll in turns, which can make dynamic flight shots all the more, well, dynamic RTH, flight mode and navigation features are a lot further developed, to the point where I actually had to read the manual to figure it out.

Robustness

Neither platform is a real winner in this regard, they both are fragile. My Parrot Bebop wouldn’t take a 3 meter drop on grass without the cross frame breaking, the Phantom 3 I bought had suffered a slightly more serious crash, but the damage was also a lot more substantial. Particularly the camera gimbal is unbelievably fragile. On mine, one of the alu gimbal arms was bent by nearly 45 degree. I couldn’t imagine what crash it would take to do that, since its normally protected by the landing gear, until I tried straightening it. The aluminium bends almost as easily as rubber. Except that it breaks, where rubber doesn’t. I’ll still grant the Parrot Bebop this category if for no other reason than that repairs are a lot cheaper. Most of parrots spare parts are actually reasonably priced.

Portability

What you see is what you get in this regard. When paired with the skycontroller, the Parrot Bebop requires about as much space as the Phantom + controller. Of course the drone itself is in a league of its own for compactness, so if you don’t use a SC, easy win for the Bebop. Fun fact: the Phantom controller is almost as small as the Bebop, and the skycontroller comparably large as the Phantom 3.

Price

Now the Phantom 3 Advanced version is $699 and Phantom 3 Standard costs $499,while the Parrot Bebop 2(white) is $499.

So which one should you buy?

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