The tilt sensors or the accelerometers on the HTC Android G1 phone aren’t just for playing Super Monkey Ball. A team of do-it-yourself drone enthusiasts are channeling it to remotely control and access live video feeds from a robotic blimp.
"I am a techie and this is techie heaven," says Howard Gordon, founder of Surveyor, a company that makes robotic microcontrollers. "My interest was in creating a 3D vision development platform and this is a really good tool for that."
For hobbyists, the Android-controlled robotic blimp is a relatively inexpensive fun project. With a fairly easy guide, replicating this blimp costs under $600. "Everything we have done with the robotic blimp is open source,"
says Gordon. "We have the details right from where you can get the
blimp to how you can get the code on your G1 phone."
The first step involved getting a 66-inch helium blimp kit, which is available for for under $300.The blimp was modified to add an ultrasonic ranging module a Wi-Fi antenna, a compass and a camera module called the SRV-1 Blackfin camera that Surveyor makes.
Then there’s the Android app available for download through a Google code site that once installed can be used to control the blimp. To install it on the G1, Gordon and his team used the developer kit environment.
The accelerometers of the G1 control the motion of the blimp. "Those are our primary control signals and can also use the scrollball to tilt it." The app also has buttons to control the thrust vector of the blimp’s propellers adjusting it to say a 45 degrees angle.
The robotic blimp project took nearly a year. But the detailed
documentation of the project makes it much easier for others to
attempt it, says Gordon.
Check out the awesome video demonstrating the G1 controlled robotic blimp:
More pictures
Photos: Howard Gordon
