Open Source Motion Capture for Autonomous Drones

A low cost ($20), open source motion capture system with millimeter level precision at room-scale. Used to localize autonomous drones inside a room.

[emovardn]

Wow, you definitely deserve more views. Very cool project, also making it open source means a lot

[sabih]

Very rarely a maker actually shares the math and science behind their projects. You sir have earned my subscription. Cant wait to see what you make next

[googleyoutubechannel]

A college student in his dorm room... this is amazing, precise indoor location has been a constant challenge

[tom-stein]

Someone should give this guy access to a workshop: Very nice work!

[MKUMBRA]

Bro is an undergrad student and already better than SDEs with 10 YOE... he should be making 500k easily

[cheythompson]

So a couple bucks in hardware but a good few thousand in knowledge

[connerwwise]

I’m a senior graduating in Unmanned Aerial Systems and for my senior project I used an ESP32 and an ELRS transmitter to fly drones using any Bluetooth controller. And this project makes mine look like child’s play.

[mr.kybernaut]

Very cool work! I'm an robotics engineer, PHD, and flying drones in my free time. I thought about exactly the same project, but lack the time.

Very impressive, considering you are still studying. Keep up the good work. I see an upcoming excellent engineer / software developer. Don't underestimate the open paths that lie in front of you. If you keep up this pace, you can become whatever you want.

[mumblety]

Wow! I wasn't expecting you to actually explain how the tracking worked! It's really cool that you did! Thanks!

[theluckybead]

Bravo, well done. This just poked human knowledge as a whole a bit further in both science and art. Thank you for both doing this experiment and documenting it and sharing it in such an endearing way. You worked extremely hard on this and it inspired me to model the way you shared your work. Bravo bravo.

[cottsak]

As a full stack web dev whose day job is mostly just LOB apps, and a hobbyist understanding of drones and embedded programming (I’ve done a bit of esp stuff) this is really impressive!

Just looking at your react front end with the stream data blows my mind a bit hey.

Amazing work!!

[ivansergiienko]

The amount of effort needed for these kind of projects makes me cry 😢

[fixifaxhd]

Love the clip where you literally just toss the drone on the floor. Crazy project. Props on completing it!

[cachecaver]

Nice project that's pretty amazing. Better yet nice explanation of all the algorithms you used to piece it together. You have a bright future.

[tunnelcat]

We've been doing exactly this with a single camera for head tracking in the flight sim community for a decade. First time I've seen someone make a proper mocap system out of it!

[siegmundeurades]

Absolutely amazing work, wait until the VR community finds out about this.

[pjforde]

Genuinely impressive work. I'm reminded of a demo I saw years ago in which a drone would recognize that it was running low on juice, so it could land on a pad which would swap out the battery pack, like the Tesla S did for 15 minutes in a simpler time.

Anyhow, even more than getting it all working (which is a commendable feat) the real signal this project sends to someone who knows what they are looking at is that you're someone who can take a complicated problem that crosses multiple technical domains and then iterate on each aspect until you achieve an outcome. I would hire you in a heartbeat if I was in a position to do so.

[austindale]

Really impressive, and incredibly well explained for such a complex and deeply technical project! I think my favorite aspect is your resourcefulness in utilizing the cheap cameras and floppy disk filter (MacGuiver would be proud)!!! All around inspiring work!

[Legonigel]

I'm blown away by the work you put into this! Simply amazing!

[madeautonomous]

Super amazed by the tracking system. Off-the-shelf solutions are super expensive, but you managed to pull it off with just a lower budget. I'm saving this to potentially replicate it. Thank you for your hardwork!