We may earn revenue from the products available on this page and participate in affiliate programs. As a former elementary school teacher, I'm on board with any plaything that not only entertains but also increases skills, such as hand-eye coordination, or imparts knowledge on a potentially difficult subject like, say, physics. Our picks include a well-rounded quadcopter with a camera that's capable of tricks (our best overall, the DEERC D20 Mini Drone for Kids) all the way to a tiny but fun cameraless beginner's copter to get the little ones up to speed with flying at speed at a price. Here, then, are our picks for the best drones for kids of all ages … and a few adults, too. When choosing these drones, we considered various factors.

This paper presents the OmniRace approach to controlling a racing drone with 6-degree of freedom (DoF) hand pose estimation and gesture recognition. To our knowledge, it is the first-ever technology that allows for low-level control of high-speed drones using gestures. OmniRace employs a gesture interface based on computer vision and a deep neural network to estimate a 6-DoF hand pose. The advanced machine learning algorithm robustly interprets human gestures, allowing users to control drone motion intuitively. Real-time control of a racing drone demonstrates the effectiveness of the system, validating its potential to revolutionize drone racing and other applications. Experimental results conducted in the Gazebo simulation environment revealed that OmniRace allows the users to complite the UAV race track significantly (by 25.1%) faster and to decrease the length of the test drone path (from 102.9 to 83.7 m). Users preferred the gesture interface for attractiveness (1.57 UEQ score), hedonic quality (1.56 UEQ score), and lower perceived temporal demand (32.0 score in NASA-TLX), while noting the high efficiency (0.75 UEQ score) and low physical demand (19.0 score in NASA-TLX) of the baseline remote controller. The deep neural network attains an average accuracy of 99.75% when applied to both normalized datasets and raw datasets. OmniRace can potentially change the way humans interact with and navigate racing drones in dynamic and complex environments. The source code is available at https://github.com/SerValera/OmniRace.git.

This paper introduces the GazeRace method for drone navigation, employing a computer vision interface facilitated by eye-tracking technology. This interface is designed to be compatible with a single camera and uses a convolutional neural network to convert eye movements into control commands for the drone. Experimental validation demonstrates that users equipped with the eye-tracking interface achieve comparable performance to a traditional remote control interface when completing a drone racing task. Ten participants completed flight tests in which they navigated a drone through a racing track in a Gazebo simulation environment. Users reduced drone trajectory length by 18% (73.44 m vs. 89.29 m) using the eye-tracking interface to navigate racing gates effectively. The time taken to complete the route using the eye-tracking method (average of 70.01 seconds) was only 3.5% slower than using the remote control method (also average of 70.01 seconds), indicating the good efficiency of the interface. It is also worth mentioning that four of the participants completed the race with an average time that was 25.9% faster than the other participants. In addition, users evaluated highly the performance (M = 34.0, SD = 14.2) and low frustration (M = 30.5, SD = 9.2) with the eye-tracking interface compared to performance (M = 63.0, SD = 10.1) and frustration (M = 49.0, SD = 11.7) with the baseline remote controller. The hedonic quality (M = 1.65, SD = 0.45) was also evaluated high by the users in the UEQ questionnaire.

This article investigates a control system within the context of six-generation wireless networks. The control performance optimization confronts the technical challenges that arise from the intricate interactions between communication and control sub-systems, asking for a co-design. Accounting for the system dynamics, we formulate the sequential co-design decision-makings of communication and control over the discrete time horizon as a Markov decision process, for which a practical offline learning framework is proposed. Our proposed framework integrates large language models into the elements of reinforcement learning. We present a case study on the age of semantics-aware communication and control co-design to showcase the potentials from our proposed learning framework. Furthermore, we discuss the open issues remaining to make our proposed offline learning framework feasible for realworld implementations, and highlight the research directions for future explorations. Index Terms 6G, control performance optimization, communication and control co-design, Markov decision process, reinforcement learning, large language models. Wireless networked control systems (NCSs) have been focal in contemporary engineering and industrial applications, owing to the flexibility, scalability and cost-savings [1].

In remote control systems, transmitting large data volumes (e.g. video feeds) from wireless sensors to faraway controllers is challenging when the uplink channel capacity is limited (e.g. RedCap devices or massive wireless sensor networks). Furthermore, the controllers often only need the information-rich components of the original data. To address this, we propose a Time-Series Joint Embedding Predictive Architecture (TS-JEPA) and a semantic actor trained through self-supervised learning. This approach harnesses TS-JEPA's semantic representation power and predictive capabilities by capturing spatio-temporal correlations in the source data. We leverage this to optimize uplink channel utilization, while the semantic actor calculates control commands directly from the encoded representations, rather than from the original data. We test our model through multiple parallel instances of the well-known inverted cart-pole scenario, where the approach is validated through the maximization of stability under constrained uplink channel capacity.

TinyML is the latest from the world of deep learning and artificial intelligence. It brings the capability to run machine learning models in a ubiquitous microcontroller - the smallest electronic chip present almost everywhere. Microcontrollers are the brain for many devices that we use almost every day. From a TV remote controller to the elevator to the smart speaker, they are everywhere. Multiple sensors that can emit telemetry data are connected to a microcontroller.

Drone company DJI launched a $499 mini camera drone that lifts off from the palm of the hand. It captures and shares photos on the go, and can be controlled by hand gestures alone. It allows users to send the drone up and away, take a selfie and be called with a hand gesture – and weighs less than a can of soda. The drone, called Spark, weighs just 10.6 ounces (300 grams) and can be operated by a remote controller, a mobile device, or via hand gestures. The drone will be sold in five different colors: White, blue, green, red and yellow.

The Nintendo Switch video game console will sell for about $260 in Japan, starting March 3, the same date as its global rollout in the U.S. and Europe. The Japanese company promises the device will be packed with fun features of all its past machines and more. The Kyoto-based maker of Super Mario and Pokemon games announced details of the Switch's release Friday at the Tokyo Big Sight events hall. It said the console will sell for $299.99 in the U.S. Customers in Europe would need to ask retailers there for prices. In teaser videos, Nintendo Co. has shown players using a handheld whose remote controller section detaches from the left and right sides of the main part of the device's display.