By Evan Ackerman GMTCyPhy Works Launches Drone That Makes Aerial Video Easy and Intuitive

Image： CyPhy Works This camera drone can shoot stable video without a gimbal.

CyPhy Works makes drones that are unique predominantly because they use a microfilament tether to carry power and data that allows for unlimited flight time and flawless high resolution video streaming. We would have expected that their next drone would have leveraged this technology somehow， but apparently， some engineers at CyPhy had a clever idea and decided to Kickstart a new drone that takes advantage of it with the ability to fly around while remaining completely level.

If you want to use your drone to take good video， you usually have to spend an extra eleventy bajillion dollars （or thereabouts） on a stabilized camera gimbal. But seriously， gimbals are expensive： 3D Robotics， for ex le， sells a gimbal for its Solo drone that （at US $400） is nearly half the cost of the entire drone itself. The reason that you need a gimbal is that whenever the drone moves in any direction besides vertically， it either pitches or rolls， which messes up the orientation of your video unless the gimbal compensates for it. Additionally， a drone that’s pitching or rolling is much harder to steer， because control axes start to shift around.

This is all annoying. So can someone fix it， please？

Nice， right？ By adding a different horizontal thrust component to each rotor and varying the rotor speed （along with some “fancy math”）， the CyPhy engineers enabled the LVL 1 drone to translate in any direction， no pitch or roll required. The camera doesn’t need a gimbal， meaning that you can tuck it right into the body of the drone， saving on cost and weight and making crash landings a lot less destructive.

Here’s what we’re looking at with the LVL 1： It’s a hexcopter with a 1080p camera that can tilt 90 degrees， 20+ minutes of flight time， battery that charges over USB 3.1， GPS and optical flight stabilization， waypoint following and geofencing， payload mounts （with onboard data and power interfaces）， and you control it with an app over WiFi， although you can also use a traditional R/C controller， which is a feature that we love. Also， that level flight capability？ You can switch it off if you want to do acrobatics.

The LVL 1 is now on Kickstarter （seeking $250k in funding）; the first batch went for $400， and the second for $450， but $500 is now the going rate. That’ll get you one drone， a charger， a charging cable， and the app to control it is free.

There are a few other things that are worth paying attention to on the LVL 1， like visual feature tracking and the ability to follow you around based on the GPS location of your cell phone. The drone also has the capability of recovering from a motor failure or prop loss， and in some cases， it can even deal with losing two motors at once， flying on just four out of six.

We asked CyPhy CEO Helen Greiner about where the idea for this drone came from， and the answer is straightforward： “We invented this great technology that makes drones fly better. Seems a shame not to share it with consumers.” We were also wondering about just exactly how the level flight capability works and how it compares to a conventional drone， and Greiner promised to tell us all about it， just not in the middle of their launch day. We’ll put together an in-depth article on LVL 1， but for now， this thing looks totally cool， and you have until June 18 to decide if you want one for delivery in February of next year.

［ Kickstarter ］

自動翻譯僅供參考

CyPhy Works推出的無人機讓航拍視頻變得方便而直觀！ cyphy作品展開無人機航拍視頻圖像進(jìn)行簡單intuitive

這種無人機攝像頭可以拍攝CyPhy工程穩(wěn)定的視頻沒有框架。

CyPhy工場使得無人機是唯一的主要是因為他們使用微絲系繩攜帶電源和數(shù)據(jù)，允許無限的飛行時間和高分辨率的視頻流。我們希望他們的未來無人機將杠桿這一技術(shù)在某種程度上，但很顯然，在CyPhy一些工程師想出一個聰明的主意，決定創(chuàng)建一個新的無人機，利用它與繞飛而其余的完全水平的能力。

如果你想使用你的無人機拍好的視頻，你通常要花費額外的 111數(shù)不清的美元（左右）在一個穩(wěn)定的相機框架。但是說真的，后者是昂貴的：例如3D機器人，銷售其個人無人機的萬向節(jié)，（400美元）是 近一半的整個無人機本身的成本。你需要一個框架的原因是，當(dāng)無人機在任何方向移動，除了垂直，它的球場或卷，攪亂了你的視頻 取向 除非萬向補償它。此外，無人機，的俯仰或滾動很難控制，因為控制軸開始移動。

這都是討厭的。所以可以有人修理它，請？《 /對/對/很好，對不對？通過對每個轉(zhuǎn)子添加不同水平推力分量和不同轉(zhuǎn)速（連同一些 喜歡數(shù)學(xué) ），該CyPhy工程師 啟用1級的無人機在任何方向上平移，不俯仰要求。相機不能 rsquo 不需要一個框架，這意味著你可以把它放進(jìn)無人機機體，節(jié)省成本和重量，使迫降少了很多破壞。

這里 rsquo 是我們‘ 再看1級：這是一個hexcopter 一 1080p的攝像頭，可以90度旋轉(zhuǎn)， 20分鐘的飛行時間，電池，USB 3.1收費，GPS和光學(xué)飛行穩(wěn)定，點以下和地理圍欄，有效載荷支架（機載數(shù)據(jù)和電源接口）， nbsp 你控制它的WiFi應(yīng)用，雖然你也可以使用傳統(tǒng)的R / C控制器，這是一個功能，我們的愛。還有，那個級別的飛行能力？你可以關(guān)掉它，如果你想做雜技。

《 P 》 1級現(xiàn)在在Kickstarter（尋求25萬美元的資金） 第一批了400美元，第二450美元，但現(xiàn)在500美元現(xiàn)價。這會給你一個 無人機，充電器，充電電纜，和應(yīng)用程序來控制它是免費的。

還有一些其他的東西，都是值得關(guān)注的1級，如視覺特征跟蹤和跟隨你左右，基于你的細(xì)胞手機GPS定位能力。無人機也從電機故障或道具的損失中恢復(fù)的能力，并在某些情況下，它甚至可以處理同時失去兩個電機，在四出六飛。

我們問CyPhy CEO海倫Greiner關(guān)于這個想法的無人機來自，和答案很簡單： 我們發(fā)明了這個偉大的技術(shù)，使飛機飛得更好。似乎不與消費者分享這一恥辱。 我們也不知道到底 如何在水平飛行的能力，它與傳統(tǒng)的無人機和格雷納答應(yīng)告訴我們有關(guān)它的一切，只是不在他們中間的發(fā)射天。我們會放在1級 深入的文章，但現(xiàn)在，這件事看起來很酷，你要到6月18日才決定是否要一個明年二月交貨。