Keeping an eye on kids all the time, especially while boarding the school bus in the morning or playing with mates in the neighborhood, is almost an impossible task for parents. Addressing the issue, an inspirational dad, Paul Wallich, has developed an innovative quadrocopter to escort his kids to the school bus stop. Equipped with a camera, the personal flying drone follows his grade school son 400 meters down a hill, as he keeps an eye on the trip from his computer.
Integrating a Smartphone with a video chatting app enabled to a quadrocopter kit, which he bought from the market, Wallich used a GPS beacon and a fancier antenna, together with open-source flight software, to read RFID tag from meters, so the drone could follow his kid down the hill. For this, he attached a beacon to the schoolbag/ backpack of his son and used a RF modem to receive real-time GPS signals or picture of the track.
Via: Gizmodo