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Drones Following Cars Could Became Driving Aids, Toyota Has One

I bet some of you play racing games from a third person view, because it lets you see further ahead, estimate the space around and better clip the apex. Well, this thing could become a reality soon thanks to drones programmed to follow your car and stream you live footage.
Drone following Scion FR-S 5 photos
Photo: Toyota
Drone following car appThe winning team, Eye in the SkyScion FR-S (Toyota GT86) Chief Engineer Tetsuya TadaScion FR-S (Toyota GT86) used in the Onramp 2014 Challenge
The idea comes from the Eye in the Sky team, which just won Toyota’s Silicon Valley App Design Competition, aimed at finding the best new app for the automaker’s new CAN-Gateway ECU platform. Yes, the one also used to import real life data into Gran Turismo 6.

A total of twenty teams had 6 Scion FR-S (Toyota GT 86) at their disposal for 24 hours to develop a cool and useful app using the automaker’s new Vehicle Data Visualizer, but only one was victorious.

Out of body experience

Eye in the Sky developed a simple looking app to work with a camera-fitted drone that follows the car and provides you instant footage along with some of the vehicle’s parameters like speed, engine rpm, gear, steering angle as well as the amount of throttle and brake applied.

It’s just like you’re driving in GTA, only with added realism and damage that won’t be as easy to fix at a Pay ’n Spray shop. Even better, the drone can keep an eye on the car from 8 fixed positions and you can zoom in.

Now imagine how useful a drone like this would be for parking jobs and other maneuvers in tight traffic, leaving your car (and others’) ding free. Or feeding all the video to an Oculus rift and just drive like that from time to time to admire your car from the outside more.
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