Freedom Flies
Welcome to the Freedom Flies repository. This is a reduced, static version of our internal development site.
Freedom Flies is an exploratory technology aimed at offering basic
Unmanned Aerial Vehicle technology to the journalism and human rights
NGO communities. Typical UAVs cost on the order of $500,000 per
system. In contrast, ours is targeted at a few thousand, but more
importantly it's open source. Hardware, software, and fabrication
techniques are easily reproduced. Some information is online,
more will follow in early 2006.
The unit itself is built from commonly available parts (a weed-eater
engine, bicycle rim, water bottle, and kite-surfing kite), glides to
the ground via a parachute in case of system failure, and travels quite
slowly (30mph). It can carry over 15 lbs, allowing it to lift
video, gps units, pamphlets, water, food and other payloads.
This site is a reduced version of our development site for the
project, in anticipation of our first release (we have to admit that
we are still crashing quite often). As a result, visitors will
only be able to see a subset of the entire site. We encourage you
to come back, or email us at [uav (at) media dot mit dought eee dee u].
Here is a short video showing aerial footage from our system.
Also, see related links.