Intel has introduced a quadcopter called Aero at its annual developers conference, and we’ll bet you can guess its target audience based on the event. That’s right, Aero was specifically designed not for hobbyists or for commercial purposes, but for developers who want to create and test apps for drones. The company said it’s the “fastest path available from Intel for developers to get applications airborne.” Aero is powered by an Atom processor and comes equipped with Intel’s RealSense camera for vision. It’s also preloaded with AirMap, an app that tells you where you can and can’t fly, gives you real-time info on wildfires and the like, as well as gives you an easy way to plot routes.
While the company didn’t mention a specific release date and price, it did say the drone will be available by the end of the year. If you want to make your own, though, you can get Aero’s compute board and RealSense camera kit as separate components right now for $399 and $149, respectively. Besides introducing Aero, Intel also showed off the Typhoon H, a hexacopter made by DJI rival Yuneec that has a collision avoidance system based on RealSense technology.
