eyedea is a Korean group of engineers working in the computer vision industry. The company was founded in 2015 and started working on lane departure warning systems and image tracking and detection. The team is now moving from research to application and running a crowdfunding campaign for PITTA, a device they say will transform from drone to action cam in seconds.
When designing the system the engineers used size and weight as their main constraints The goal was to make the system as light and portable as a smart phone. The drone weighs under 200 grams and fits within 170 millimeters of diagonal distance, without the propellers. Because the drone weighs less than 0.55 pounds, the campaign page says that the device does not need to be registered with the FAA in the United States.
PITTA's lithium polymer battery will power the drone for fifteen minutes on a charge and one hundred minutes in camera-only mode. Several sensors including accelerometers, magnetometer, barometer, object detection, optical flow positioning, ultrasonic and gps are built into the system. The camera itself is 4K resolution at 30 frames per second and the H.264 codec. Burst shots, panoramic views, time lapse, slow motion and follow modes are demonstrated on the campaign page.
The community pages are very active for this project, with 23 questions answered in the FAQ and 170 comments from users asking focused questions about the system specifications. There are fine details to be found about the drone, the camera, the charging system and the vision system. Based on the responses there seems to be some fluidity in the production design as the engineers work out the differences between theoretical design and final applications. PITTA will be demonstrated in January at CES 2018 and shipping is expected to begin in May 2018.