Contrary to the Vigilus UAV from MBDA that we covered last week, this entirely different UAV is built for peace and will be released to the masses soon. A company called Rotary Robotics is now working on a project called Drones for Peace. The project aims to develop a $100 drone for aerial photography. The prototype drone can reportedly fly with speeds up to 20 to 30 knots. But due to its simple and cheap design, the drone cannot be controlled manually. Instead, it uses a smartphone app that users will use to select specific points on a map that they want to explore.
The drone is currently in its conceptual phase, but Rotary Robotics co-founder James Peverill expects to launch the drone in the near future. Peverill also expects that the consumer-ready version of the drone will be able take multiple photos around a specified point before returning to the base. “We are engineers who were working in the military UAV space for awhile. We wanted to a create an aerial surveillance aircraft that was cheap enough that it would be accessible to everyone,” Peverill said.