November 14, 2013

Making of "Swarm"- Quadrotors are "Amazing in Motion

Autonomous quadcopter drones aren't all about flying into dangerous areas where humans fear to tread. Besides being disposable, they also make for perfectly precise pint-sized pilots, as this Lexus ad entitled Amazing In Motion demonstrates. When you watch it, keep in mind that not a single quadcopter in the commercial was faked through CGI—they're all real drones flying in perfect precision.

The ad was made possible by the folks at KMel Robotics who've developed a whole suite of tools to program and control the swarm of quadcopters. They've even adapted an infrared motion capture system—typically used for computer animation—to keep track of all the drones mid-flight, and individually direct them to where they need to be. The results are stunning, especially if you've ever tried to pilot a quadcopter yourself, only to send it crashing into a wall.