Here at Discovery News World HQ, we
know that life is increasingly busy in
the digital age, and there are a million
things you could be doing at any
given moment. However, may we
modestly propose you take a moment to watch this frickin’ robot ride a hoverbike. Developed by a small operation out of
the U.K. called Malloy Aeronautics, the Drone 3 hoverbike is exactly that
— a flying motorcycle powered by
four turbine fans. But the current
vehicle is a 1/3 size scale model — a
drone, essentially — with a robot rider
to approximate the proportional size and weight of a human rider. The
drone is controlled via remote, similar
to other UAV designs. Drones Banned From All U.S.
National Parks The Drone 3 is a proof-of-concept
demonstration of a more ambitious
plan. In an interesting strategy, the
1/3-size drone is being sold via
Kickstarter in hopes of funding
development of a full-size quadcopter hoverbike, designed for human riders.
Think Return of the Jedi, forest moon
of Endor, this sort of thing. Designers say the quadcopter
approach, which uses four different
overlapping fans, offers improved
stability, maneuverability and payload
capacity than competing two-fan hoverbike designs . In fact, the Malloy hoverbike is
intended to share the skies with
helicopters, planes and other aircraft. “This hoverbike is a helicopter — it
takes off like a helicopter, flies and
lands like a helicopter,” says Malloy
Aeronautics’ Grant Stapleton in the demonstration video. “It’s designed to fly to an altitude of over 9,000 feet
and do so at over 100 knots [115
mph].” Drone Bartender Wants To Mix It Up
For You The company is currently finishing up
the full-size prototype, with flight tests
expected in a few months. Meanwhile, you can still get on board
at the Kickstarter campaign, running through Aug. 31. For a pledge of just
under $1,000 USD, you can get a bare-
bones Drone 3 kit. For larger pledges,
the team will throw in the robotic pilot
(named Buster, in case you’re curious)
, plus a mounted Go Pro camera and dedicated control unit. Source: http://news.discovery.com/tech/robotics/robot-rides-hoverbike-nuff-said-140828.htm?utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=DNewsSocial

I love this innovation.