Researchers Are Turning Individual Drones Into A Hologram That You Can Touch
See the full story and watch the short video here: http://www.techtimes.com/articles/104080/20151106/researchers-turning-individual-drones-hologram-touch.htm
According to the university, the problem with augmented reality is that the picture that a user is viewing is airborne, however, physical objects are bound by gravity. To try and surpass that issue, the team has developed what it calls BitDrones, which are a set of small flying drones that serve a number of purposes.
The first type of BitDrone is called the PixelDrone, which essentially has a basic LED display and is there to show certain information. ShapeDrones are cubic objects that work together to form a 3D display, and DisplayDrones offer the user a touchscreen interface. All of the drones can be tracked using 3D motion-capture sensors.
The system currently supports as many as a dozen large drones, however, researchers are aiming to end up building a system that works with thousands of drones, essentially acting like individual pixels to form objects in real life. Of course, while it would be cool to see a swarm of drones making augmented reality in real life, it might simply be easier to put on an AR headset.