By Tekla Perry GMTIs Lily a Drone？ Or Is It a Camera？

Photo： Tekla Perry This Atherton， Calif.， garage is home to Lily Robotics; now a five-person startup. Pictured （left to right） are Antoine Balaresque， cofounder and CEO; Henry Bradlow， cofounder and CTO; Nghia Ho， computer vision engineer; and Robb Englin， industrial designer. （Controls engineer Roland O‘Flaherty was out of the

Antoine Balaresque and Henry Bradlow are worried. They have developed an autonomous flying video camera for use in filming action sports on land and water， capturing scenery while hiking and sightseeing， and covering family events （so everyone gets in the picture）。 They think they’ve made it simple enough that a parent could just toss it in the air and forget about it while coaxing a child to take her first steps. They have enough seed money （$1 million in investment） to get the prototype they’ve been developing for the past year into production. The technology is coming along nicely; they’ve been able to hire the experts in computer vision， controls， and industrial design that they need， and they’re on track to ship in February 2016.

So what’s the problem？ The problem is that their product looks an awful lot like a drone—and they don’t want to be a drone company， they want to be a camera company.

Says Bradlow： “People buy drones because they want to fly something. That’s not what this is， this is a camera. You frame shots with it; you can’t control its flight.”

There are drones， Balaresque says， that carry cameras. These cameras send images to a cell phone， and users can look at the images while separately using the drones’ flight controls to position them for particular shots. Lily is nothing like that， he insists. You don’t fly it， you take pictures with it.

Balaresque got the idea for the project that became Lily Robotics in 2013. On vacation with his family after graduating from college， he browsed through the photos they’d taken—and realized his mother wasn’t in any of them. Most people would probably think， “Oh， I should take some of the pictures.” But Balaresque， who， despite having been a business major， had worked on a number of robotics projects in college， instead thought， “A robot could solve this problem.” When he got back to California， he contacted Bradlow， with whom he’d worked on several of those collegiate robotics projects， and they started developing Lily.

Photo： Tekla PerryPrototypes of Lily’s autonomous flying camera line a worktable inside the Lily garage.

Lily could be the poster child for a classic Silicon Valley startup. Its founders， fresh out of college （in this case， University of California at Berkeley）， met at a hackathon. They are working side-by-side， assembling hardware and coding software， with the company’s first few employees in a crowded garage. The garage sits behind an even more crowded hacker hostel owned， I am told， by a long-retired venture capitalist. The house’s porch is jammed with bikes and Segways and other wheeled vehicles; the grassy lawn around the house is overgrown but spacious—plenty big for testing a drone. A table near the pool， surrounded by mismatched chairs， serves as a conference room; the pool itself is used for testing water takeoffs and landings.

Balaresque and Bradlow started working on their technology shortly after that summer 2013 epiphany. Initially， they focused on developing software， particularly computer vision software， in order to make a camera “watch” the user. Their thinking at that point was that they’d mount it on a commercially available drone. But after about six months of development， they realized that existing drones lacked the processing power needed to handle flight controls and the computer vision system simultaneously. They also wanted a waterproof drone small enough to fit in a normal backpack; that just didn’t exist at the time.

The system they came up with uses a video processor to handle the main， high resolution camera. There are three microcontrollers： one controls the motors to stabilize the drone; the other two control the low-resolution cameras for tracking the user， keeping an eye on the ground in order to manage takeoffs and landings， and providing addional help with stabilizing the gadget. Rounding out the list of parts are an accelerometer， a gyroscope， a barometer， a magnetometer， and a GPS device.

A separate puck， designed to be tucked in a pocket or worn on an arm， tells the drone， via WiFi， whom to track. It first identifies the user’s location with a GPS receiver （though once that happens， the vision system， with a faster response time， does most of the tracking. The puck contains some basic controls： to switch the flying camera from following， to， say， circling， or to trigger it to take off or land. （More precise adjustments can be made with a mobile phone app.）。 The puck also contains an accelerometer to detect sudden changes in motion such as a jump or a fall. These sensors can be used to switch the camera to slow-motion mode at a critical moment. The puck also carries a microphone so the drone can pick up audio as it’s buzzing around recording video.

The Lily flying camera itself is still a work in progress. The prototypes I saw were 3-D printed， and carried low-res cameras; the production models will record HD quality video. But the system indeed does what its creators intended： It keeps the camera trained on the user in several different modes—following from behind， tracking from a set distance in front， circling， or hovering in midair as if held by an invisible selfie-stick （see video， above）。

Indeed， as I set up a camera and tripod to photograph the company’s founders and a short demo， I could definitely see the appeal of this gadget—not for extreme sports， but for day to day journalism. Wouldn’t I love camera gear that I didn’t have to juggle， but would instead follow me like an obedient puppy！

Lily’s camera will be priced at US $499 for preorders. The founders indicated that at this price， they wouldn’t be making money， but are looking for these early adopters to act as beta testers. Standard retail pricing will be $999. See Lily’s promotional video， below.

自動(dòng)翻譯僅供參考

Lily是一架無(wú)人機(jī)，還是一部照相機(jī)？ is百合無(wú)人機(jī)？還是相機(jī)？

照片：Tekla Perry這頓，加利福尼亞，車(chē)庫(kù)里有莉莉機(jī)器人 現(xiàn)在一五人啟動(dòng)。圖為（左至右）是安托萬(wàn)balaresque，聯(lián)合創(chuàng)始人和首席執(zhí)行官 亨利布萊特勞，共同創(chuàng)始人和首席技術(shù)官 義何，計(jì)算機(jī)視覺(jué)工程師 羅柏Englin，工業(yè)設(shè)計(jì)師。（控制工程師羅蘭與# 39 弗萊厄蒂不在

安托萬(wàn)balaresque亨利布萊特勞擔(dān)心。他們已經(jīng)開(kāi)發(fā)了一個(gè)自主飛行視頻攝像頭，用于拍攝運(yùn)動(dòng)的土地和水，拍攝風(fēng)景，同時(shí)徒步旅行和游覽，并覆蓋家庭事件（因此，每個(gè)人都在圖片中）。他們認(rèn)為他們 做的很簡(jiǎn)單，父母可以把它扔在空中，忘了它，哄孩子把她的第一步。他們有足夠的資金（100萬(wàn)美元投資）得到原型他們 已經(jīng)發(fā)展在過(guò)去的一年中投產(chǎn)。技術(shù)進(jìn)展順利 他們 已經(jīng)能夠在計(jì)算機(jī)視覺(jué)中，控制聘請(qǐng)專(zhuān)家，與工業(yè)設(shè)計(jì)的，他們需要的，他們’重新上軌道 到了二月的2016艘。

那么 的問(wèn)題？問(wèn)題是，他們的產(chǎn)品看起來(lái)像一架無(wú)人機(jī)在很多 他們不 不想是無(wú)人陪伴，他們想要的是一個(gè)相機(jī)公司。

說(shuō) 人布萊特勞購(gòu)買(mǎi)無(wú)人機(jī)，因?yàn)樗麄円w的東西。那是 不這是什么，這是一個(gè)相機(jī)。你的照片它 你可以‘ 不控制它的飛行。

Balaresque說(shuō)，有無(wú)人機(jī)攜帶攝像頭。這些相機(jī)將圖像發(fā)送到手機(jī)，用戶(hù)可以查看圖像，而單獨(dú)使用無(wú)人駕駛飛機(jī)的飛行控制，以定位他們的特定鏡頭。他堅(jiān)持說(shuō)，莉莉不是那樣的人。你不飛它，你用它拍照。

balaresque想到了這個(gè)項(xiàng)目，成為了莉莉機(jī)器人2013。在大學(xué)畢業(yè)后與家人度假，他翻閱照片他們 D采取 并實(shí)現(xiàn)了他的母親并 T在任何人。大多數(shù)人可能會(huì)認(rèn)為，噢，我應(yīng)該拍一些照片。但balaresque，誰(shuí)，盡管是商業(yè)專(zhuān)業(yè)，曾在一些大學(xué)的機(jī)器人項(xiàng)目，而不是思想， 機(jī)器人可以解決這個(gè)問(wèn)題。他回來(lái)到加利福尼亞的時(shí)候，他聯(lián)系布萊特勞，他 D曾在幾個(gè)大學(xué)機(jī)器人項(xiàng)目，他們開(kāi)始開(kāi)發(fā)百合。

photo：Tekla perryprototypes百合 的自主飛行相機(jī)線(xiàn)內(nèi)的百合車(chē)庫(kù)工作臺(tái)。

百合可以成為經(jīng)典硅谷創(chuàng)業(yè)的典范。它的創(chuàng)始人，剛畢業(yè)的大學(xué)生（在這種情況下，加州大學(xué)伯克利分校），在Hackathon。他們并肩工作，硬件組裝和編碼軟件，與公司 的幾個(gè)員工在一個(gè)擁擠的停車(chē)場(chǎng)。車(chē)庫(kù)坐在一個(gè)更擁擠的黑客宿舍后面，我告訴，我告訴，由一個(gè)長(zhǎng)期的退休的風(fēng)險(xiǎn)資本家。房子 的走廊上擠滿(mǎn)了自行車(chē)和電動(dòng)踏板車(chē)和其它輪式車(chē)輛 房子周?chē)牟萜弘s草叢生但寬敞 amp;mdash 足夠大的測(cè)試無(wú)人機(jī)。游泳池附近的一張桌子，四周的凳子，作為會(huì)議室 池本身是用于測(cè)試水上起飛和降落。

balaresque和布萊特勞開(kāi)始工作后不久，他們的技術(shù)，夏天2013頓悟。最初，他們專(zhuān)注于開(kāi)發(fā)軟件，特別是計(jì)算機(jī)視覺(jué)軟件，為了使相機(jī) 看 用戶(hù)。他們的 在這一點(diǎn)上的想法是：他們 D安裝它在商用無(wú)人機(jī)。但是經(jīng)過(guò)了大約六個(gè)月的發(fā)展，他們意識(shí)到現(xiàn)有的無(wú)人機(jī)需要處理飛行控制和計(jì)算機(jī)視覺(jué)系統(tǒng)所需要的處理能力。他們還希望有一個(gè)防水的無(wú)人機(jī)足夠小，適合在一個(gè)正常的背包 只是沒(méi) 不存在的時(shí)候。

系統(tǒng)他們想出了利用視頻處理器處理 主要的，高分辨率的相機(jī)。 有三微控制器：一個(gè)控制電機(jī)穩(wěn)定無(wú)人機(jī) 其他 兩控制低分辨率攝像頭跟蹤用戶(hù)， 留意 地面以管理起飛和降落，并提供額外幫助穩(wěn)定 小工具。完成零件的清單是一個(gè)加速度計(jì)、陀螺儀、氣壓計(jì)、磁強(qiáng)計(jì)和GPS裝置。

單獨(dú)的冰球，可以放在口袋或戴在手臂，告訴無(wú)人機(jī)，通過(guò)WiFi，誰(shuí)跟蹤。首先將用戶(hù) 與GPS接收機(jī)的位置（雖然這種情況一旦發(fā)生，視覺(jué)系統(tǒng)，具有更快的響應(yīng)時(shí)間，做大部分的跟蹤。冰球包含一些基本操作： 切換飛行相機(jī)后，說(shuō)， 盤(pán)旋，或觸發(fā)它起飛或降落。（更精確的調(diào)整，可以用手機(jī)的應(yīng)用程序。）。冰球也包含一個(gè)加速度計(jì)來(lái)檢測(cè)運(yùn)動(dòng)中的突然變化如 跳躍或跌倒。這些傳感器可以用來(lái)在一個(gè)關(guān)鍵時(shí)刻切換到慢動(dòng)作模式的相機(jī)。冰球還帶有一個(gè)麥克風(fēng)，無(wú)人機(jī)可以接音頻它 的周?chē)宋擞涗?視頻。

百合飛行相機(jī)本身仍然是一個(gè)進(jìn)展中的工作。我看到的原型是三維打印，并攜帶低分辨率相機(jī) 生產(chǎn)模式將記錄高清視頻質(zhì)量。但系統(tǒng)確實(shí)是其創(chuàng)作者的意圖：它使訓(xùn)練在幾個(gè)不同的模式-用戶(hù)的相機(jī) 從后面，從前面的跟蹤，設(shè)定距離盤(pán)旋，或懸浮在半空中，好像被一種無(wú)形的selfie堅(jiān)持持有（見(jiàn)視頻，上面）。

“的確，我設(shè)置了一個(gè)相機(jī)和三角架拍攝公司 的創(chuàng)始人和一個(gè)短的演示，我可以看到這個(gè)小工具 amp;mdash上訴 不是極限運(yùn)動(dòng)，但每天的新聞。不是 T我愛(ài)我沒(méi)相機(jī) 沒(méi)有變魔術(shù)，而是像一個(gè)聽(tīng)話(huà)的小狗跟著我

百合 的相機(jī)售價(jià)將在499美元的預(yù)購(gòu)。創(chuàng)始人表示，在這個(gè)價(jià)格，他們就 不賺錢(qián)，但在這些早期采用者作為測(cè)試。標(biāo)準(zhǔn)零售價(jià)格將為999美元?？吹嚼蚶?的宣傳視頻，下面。