Companion computers have enabled development of powerful applications on drones. One such companion computer is Intel Edison. Its small and compact size makes it a perfect device for powering all your custom drone applications. This article is all about drone with Intel Edison and the 5 cool things you can do it with Intel Edison.

This post talks about 5 interesting applications that you can easily build by coupling your drone with Intel Edison.

Coolest Things You Can Do With an Intel Edison and Your Drone:

#1 Build Mobile and Web Apps for your Drone

Building your own mobile and web drone app is easy.



You can develop custom mobile and web apps according to your needs. Some examples are object tracking, Follow me, and Joystick app. You can also build rich UIs for the commercial applications like agriculture, delivery, mapping, inspection etc. All it requires is an Intel Edison Board and a little bit of coding and you are good to go.

Follow the steps here to build your drone app.

#2 Do Live Video Streaming with your Drone

Video streaming is an essential feature of any Drone application. You can stream video from a USB Camera attached to the Intel Edison board to your phone/laptop over WiFi or Internet.

All your video content streamed by 4G can be uploaded to cloud for later viewing purposes.

If you need more help and guidelines, you can visit the Drone Video streaming guide.

#3 Create a custom Web or Mobile based Ground Control Station(GCS)

GCS app is an essential part of any UAS.

It provides users with a variety of options. You can set autonomous missions over cloud for your drones by setting waypoints and executing them. You can also do basic calibration and configuration using GCS

Follow this to create your custom GCS with the help of FlytAPIs. Also, FlytOS comes with an inbuilt modular Web-based GCS FlytConsole which is customizable. You can access this free GCS once you install FlytOS.

#4 Build Onboard Algorithms, Scripts, and Apps

Onboard computations on drone become vital when you’re building a real-time application like sense & avoid/collision avoidance, surveillance or hazard detection. You can customize your Drone and use it for such dedicated purposes.

To do this, you need to develop Onboard scripts and apps on your Intel Edison Board. These scripts or apps would contain algorithms that will enable drone to take real-time actions.

FlytBase Documentation contains a step by step guide and detailed information for creating your custom onboard scripts.

#5 Object tracking using Computer Vision

This is most popular application for any drone.

To implement Object Tracking, you will first need to download the Visual-Follow-Me app provided by FlytOS. This app talks to the onboard Object Tracking module using its FlytAPIs

This app requires a downward looking camera mounted on the drone. By default FlytOS automatically connects to any camera available.

Also See: Drone API for Gimbal Control

Intel Edison is a powerful companion computer and combining it with your Drone can result to developing some amazing applications. Sign Up Today to download FlytOS and build powerful drone applications.

For any queries you can reach out to us on Forums or FlytOS Developers Group