[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3lqMRHwGsRA[/youtube]
Everyone deserves a burrito when they want it and so that dream has become a reality. Darwin Aerospace is proud to introduce: Burrito Bomber — truly the world’s first airborne Mexican food delivery system.
It works like this:
- You connect to the Burrito Bomber web-app and order a burrito. Your smartphone sends your current location to our server, which generates a waypoint file compatible with the drone’s autopilot.
- We upload the waypoint file to the drone and load your burrito in to our custom made Burrito Delivery Tube.
- The drone flies to your location and releases the Burrito Delivery Tube. The burrito parachutes down to you, the drone flies itself home, and you enjoy your carne asada.
The Burrito Bomber is a flying drone that can take food orders and air drop them at a person’s location within minutes
We built Burrito Bomber using a handful of open source projects and some new bits we created ourselves. All the code and 3D models we created for Burrito Bomber are on our GitHub page so you can build one too!
The group constructed a delivery mechanism out of a Quantum RTR Bomb System with a canister built from a 3-inch diameter mailing tube and some custom 3D printed parts.
The airframe is a SkyWalker X8 Flying Wing. The plane uses Ardupilot to navigate the skies. The Burrito release mechanism is the combination of a Quantum RTR Bomb System, a 3″ diameter mailing tube, and some 3D printed parts we designed in-house. The plane is controllable either manually via live video transmitted from the plane or autonomously using the Ardupilot autopilot. We use a Futaba 9C controller and EzUHF transmitter to manually control the plane.
The canister holds and protects a 500 gram burrito and deploys an attached parachute when dropped, so the contents arrive in one edible piece at their destination.
The web app is built in Flask. It gets the user’s location via the HTML5 Geolocation API, generates a Mission Planner compatible waypoint file, then sends that to the drone operator. The drone operator uploads the waypoint file to the plane.
Navigation is handled by an ArduPilot control system, which the developers can use to set waypoints for the drone to follow on autopilot or manually control the aircraft using the video feed from a built-in camera
Unfortunately, Burrito Bomber as a commercial product is not yet allowed under current FAA guidelines. However, the FAA Modernization and Reform Act of 2012 requires the FAA to hammer out regulations for commercial use drones by September 2015. This means in 2015 we’ll be able to take to the skies to bring you your burrito faster than you can say “¡Salsa roja por favor!”.
Via Darwin Aerospace