This Homemade Turbine Drone Is Controlled by Iron Man Gloves
The six-turbine drone takes directional commands from wireless gloves controlled by the builder.
Garage-based inventions can often be way cooler than anything drummed up in a boardroom. In this case, a man invented a turbine-powered drone that is controlled by gloves inspired by fictional superhero Iron Man, which regulate direction and lift based on the movement of the user's hands.
As you can see in the video below, the drone has plenty of thrust, thanks to six turbines and various counter-directional fans. Although the builder has his drone tethered down for the video, you can see in additional videos that it is capable of lifting 200 pounds. By combining the turbine-powered drone’s ability to lift heavy weight and the "Iron Man gloves,” we could possibly see this Iron Man-themed drone hauling around its clever builder in the future. From what we can tell from the video, though, the directional thrusters seem a little on the weak side, which might cause some trouble while hauling someone around.
The biggest potential issue we did notice was that the wireless controls appear to have approximately a one-second delay in issuing commands to the drone. Other than that, the drone seems very responsive to the builder’s hand movements.
We guess the real questions are: How long would the drone be able to sustain flight for when loaded with cargo, and how easy would it be for the drone to change directions mid-flight?