AR.FreeFlight on Android

The Parrot AR.Drone quadricopter, is an amazing remote control aircraft that can be piloted through a smartphone. Originally users could only pilot it from an iPhone, iPod touch or iPad via AR.FreeFlight app for iOS, and Lemberg was proud to be the development partner for the AR.FreeFlight for Android.

The AR.Drone offers a unique flight simulation experience, because the flight takes place in real life rather than a virtual space. Video from cameras on the nose and belly of the quadricopter are relayed to a smartphone’s screen via WiFi so you can control the flight. The user can easily switch between the two cameras, as well as fly the chopper both indoors and outdoors. They can control the AR.Drone using on-screen joysticks and by tilting the phone forward or backward, left or right.

The device requires Android 2.2 or higher and an accelerometer for the optimal operation of the AR.Drone. The tools used in the project development were the Android SDK, Android NDK, ARDroneLib, OpenGL, and the development platform was Ubuntu 10.10.