The aptly named Flybox [opens PDF] is just that, a thin flying box shaped six-blade helicopter. It comes from Skybotix, an offshoot of the Autonomous Systems Lab at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology.
As with all such flying helicopters, the possibilities are only limited by your imagination and what you can think to do with it. It could be used as a spy drone, you could use it to drop things where you want them, monitor weather situations, etc. A good all purpose research bot. It comes with ROS already installed, providing APIs for controlling it. The Flybox uses an ARM 32 bit controller and it can do it’s thing for up to 30 minutes at at time.
You can get it outfitted with a USB camera, WiFi, XBee and Bluetooth. No word on whether you can put an action figure of an X-Wing pilot on top, but that would be cool and it’s the best use I have for this one. No info on price yet, but it is likely out of my range.
[via Robotliving]
