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Comment by eigenvalue | Hacker News Reader

The first-person view seems like it would be a total blast to try out-- basically every kid's dream toy. I would have given anything for something like that when I was 12 years old. But from a pragmatic standpoint of using the drone to capture video footage, I feel like having robust "self driving" capabilities (in particular, obstacle avoidance and smart target tracking) is more interesting. I was blown away recently watching footage of this new drone from a US based drone company, Skydio:

https://skydio.com/skydio-2

I also like that there finally seems to be a decent alternative to DJI in the market-- it was a bit worrisome how much better DJI has been than everyone else.

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The difference is US startups releasing fake promotional/VC pitch videos vs DJI actually manufacturing and iterating over its designs for almost 10 years now. Here is how DJI recruits top talent https://www.robomaster.com/en-US https://www.theverge.com/2016/9/27/13059144/dji-robomasters-...

Note that Skydio isn't immune to thin branches - AFAIK no current tech can reliably detect them at distance sufficient for avoidance at high speeds. There are Youtube videos demonstrating Skydio crashes caused by these (and similar low visibility obstacles). Also note that while Skydio has technically superior avoidance tech (360 view vs forward only on DJI drones), it failed to capture non-negligible consumer market share and has pivoted to commercial drone niche.

I’m surprised there aren’t lower tech ways of detecting thin branches besides doing real-time analysis of the live video feed. Like some kind of primitive proximity detection using radar to augment the image based approach, and if there is any doubt, taking quick evasive maneuvers.

High res radar seems pretty energy intensive and doesn't scale down to typical drone size (especially considering the new registration requirements for over 250g drones). Dry branches have low radar signature but are still fully capable of catching props. Low torque motors paired with large props optimized for flight time and for smooth cinematic flight (remember, it's foremost a flying camera) aren't capable of super-fast braking either.

Maybe mirrored props could form a LIDAR?! :)

For the photography crowd, self flying just needs to be good enough, because you are controlling it most of the time anyways to get the shot you want.

what's really important is image quality, when the mavic 2 came out it really blew me a way with the one inch sensor. It was incredible to see that kind of image produced by such a compact body.

When Mavic 2 Pro came out its camera was better than most stand alone prosumer 4K cameras, really mind blowing.

I really like Skydio's product but they've priced themselves out of being a competitor to most of DJI's drones. Of course, all the hardware for their autonomy engine (Jetson TX2 with six cameras) isn't cheap. I'd still love to see a cheaper version (maybe $400?) with a less sophisticated autonomy engine compete with Mavic Mini. If they could open-source the design and allow for custom flight/autonomy code, it would be a superb value proposition.

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