unmanned air vehicles

A User-Friendly Drone

Punch in a few directions on a PC, and this two-foot chopper will lift off, shoot video, and land-no pilot or remote required

Learning to fly a helicopter takes hundreds of hours, and even then few pilots feel safe maneuvering one over enemy terrain or forest fires. Yet missions such as these are precisely what choppers are good for, where on-the-fly surveillance may mean the difference between life and death. It doesn´t take a genius to appreciate the potential benefits of a miniature copter, mounted with a remote-control camera, that flies itself.To build one, though, takes real ingenuity, as choppers are not inherently aerodynamic.

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December 2009: Best of What's New

In our December issue, Popular Science names the 100 best innovations of the year: bombproof wallpaper, self-parking cars, the fastest helicopter, and 97 more. Plus inventor profiles and videos.

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