“This instructable is a guide to transforming your R/C Drone into a Gesture Controlled Drone in under $10!
I am a person who is very much inspired by Sci-Fi movies and try to make the tech showed in the movie in real-life. This project is an inspiration from two such movies: “STAR WARS: The Empire Strikes Back” and “Project Almanac”. In both the movies, you see a flying object (X-wing Starship & an R/C Drone) which were controlled by just hand movements. This inspired me to make something similar…
Obviously I don’t own the X-wing, so, unfortunately, I have to work with my Mini R/C Quadcopter.
So the plan is - there will be an image processing script running on my laptop which will be continuously looking for my hand and track its position in the video frame. Once it gets the coordinates of the hand, it will send the respective signal to the drone and this will be done using Arduino connected to laptop along with an NRF24L01 2.4GHz Transceiver Module which can directly communicate with the receiver board of any R/C Drone.
Supplies:
Laptop/Desktop computer with a Webcam and Python installed. (I am using my Windows laptop with its built-in webcam and running Python 2.7.14)
Any R/C Drone running on 2.4Ghz Frequency. (JJRC H36 in my case)
Arduino UNO along with its Programming Cable. (I am using its clone as it is cheaper)
NRF24L01 2.4GHz Antenna Wireless Transceiver Module. (I bought this from here for just ₹99 ($1.38))
3.3V Adapter Board for 24L01 Wireless Module. (I bought this from here for just ₹49 ($0.68))
Male to Female Jumper Wires x7”