Drone Experience
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
In this festive season, I managed to get hold of a Parrot Mambo drone. On a recent trip to Hong Kong, I have managed to purchased this device in the airport at a discount.
Short description of the Parrot Mambo drone:
- Small device: 180 mm by 180 mm (7.9 in by 7.9 in)
- Weight: 63g (2.22 oz) lighter than a mobile phone
- Flight time: about 9 minutes
- Controlled by mobile phone
Experience of playing with Parrot Mambo Drone
Flying the drone indoor is a good experience. It is relatively stable because of a sensor underneath of the drone.
Taking off and landing is also easy. There is a big green button for you to press to activate that function.
The drone hovers like a humming bird. Moving around, however, takes a bit of practice.
Potentially, you may move the controller too much, causing the drone to crash into a wall. It’s a good thing that there are 4 bumpers protecting the propellers.
I have shared a post on using drone for warehouse operations in last week’s post.
With this experience, I do foresee that it is possible to use drone in a warehouse environment, provided certain criteria are met.
- The flight time has to be more than 9 minutes. Ideally, it should be at least 1 hour. 9 minutes is too short for a good recording of either video clip or data tracking.
- The drone has to have the autonomous function to fly within the warehouse. Manually controlling the drone takes time and effort. There is a chance of crashing the drone to the inventory.
- Usage of SLAM (Simultaneous Localization and Mapping) and LIDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) for both autonomous flight and object collision avoidance should be built into the drone.
- To further enhance the functions, barcode reading can be incorporated to the device for potential stock take function.
With additional functions, there is a requirement to have a bigger drone for all these additional functions.
It will be fantastic if the overall weight of the drone is kept to a minimum.
P.S. A video clip of the drone in operations indoor. Video taken by my 7 year old daughter while I was controlling the drone.
