https://www.techinasia.com/carbon-fiber-hover-camera-indoor-drone-launch
Chinese drone startup comes out of hiding, unveils Hover Camera designed for use indoors
A young Chinese startup specializing in drones came out of two years of hiding and secretive development today to unveil its Hover Camera. Unlike most drones, it’s designed for indoor use, with its rotors tucked safely inside its carbon fiber mesh bodywork.
Zero Zero Robotics‘ first product has an AI brain so that it can follow you around using face-tracking, explains startup founder Meng Qiuwei to Tech in Asia. The directional forward camera combines with a bottom sonar so that it can avoid some obstacles in its vicinity. It doesn’t have full obstacle avoidance, so don’t use it in a room full of Ming vases.
“We think of it as a robot,” says Qiuwei. The team designed the Hover Camera to be simple to use, with just a single button. “When you let go, it hovers automatically.” And if you throw it like a frisbee, it begins to hover and stays in place.
While DJI, China’s well-funded and increasingly well-known drone brand is going after the top end of the pro drone user market, the Zero Zero Robotics team is aiming at people who want a flying selfie camera. It’s not a cheap toy like some no-name drones you can now get in the supermarket, but it’s meant to be fun and accessible.
Eye in the sky
The lens on the Hover Camera is 13 MP and it can record 4K video. There’s electronic image stabilization to keep it steady, plus the drone itself with its AI is smart enough to keep itself on an even keel even if you venture outside and it’s a windy day, the startup claims. It can create a 360-degree panorama for you by hovering and spinning while in a fixed position.
The camera can look up and down, but it can’t move side to side as it’s fixed in the frame, with no gimbal. The whole drone is foldable so that it becomes not much bigger than a video tape (there’s a reference that ages me).
Whereas most drones require a remote control handset, the Hover Camera is maneuvered entirely with an app, with a bunch of gestures programmed for both the flight and the camera. “It’s more intuitive to average users who are not drone enthusiasts,” says Qiuwei.
Using carbon fiber, an expensive material usually only seen on Formula 1 cars or insanely pricey bikes, the drone weighs just 238 grams, putting it below the US Federal Aviation Administration threshold to require a US$5 flight license. Any drone over 0.55 pounds (250 grams) needs a license in the States.
The drone will first be sold to hand-picked beta testers. The co-founder says sales figures are not the priority for the moment – it’s about seeing people create quality content with the Hover Camera. Plus the team will be able to gather data on the gizmo’s performance before going on sale to the public. The application process for beta testers opens this morning.
Now’s the perfect time to get into robots.
The startup today revealed that it has just secured series A funding worth US$23 million from IDG, GSR Ventures, ZhenFund, ZUIG, and a few other participants. It also disclosed a previously unknown US$1.7 million in seed funding from a bunch of angel investors.
The Zero Zero Robotics crew now numbers 80 people. Aside from the HQ in the Chinese capital, there’s an office in Shenzhen in the south to be close to the factories, plus one in San Francisco.
Qiuwei has a PhD in computer science and has worked at Twitter and Alibaba – “building AI algorithms to power things like recommendation and search” – before branching out with his drone business. Co-founder Tony Jiang is a fellow Stanford alum with a PhD in mechanical engineering.
“What’s unique about the team and us is that we built the thing from the ground up. Everything is built in house by us. From the design to the structural mechanical engineering, to the PCB – like the electronics – and all the AI algorithms, flight control, computer vision. Everything.”
He says now’s the perfect time to get into robots like this because smartphone ownership is booming and component costs have plummeted, suddenly making it possible for you and I to buy and control incredibly sophisticated devices from our phones.
“Can I just show you our PCB,” he says, scrambling to find the circuit board that forms the Hover Camera brain somewhere on his desk. “This tiny board goes in here. It’s very small.” It looks about the size of a two-finger KitKat. There’s a 2.3 GHz quad-core Qualcomm processor on it so the little drone can process the AI and perform its autonomous functions. Qiuwei says the Hover Camera brain is more powerful than his laptop.