I Bought a $30 Toy Drone and Started Reverse-Engineering It Into an Autonomous Machine (Part 1)
Autonomous vehicles are the future, and they're not just cars. Boats, trucks, aircraft, and everything is quietly going driverless. As an AI researcher, the corner of that world I care about most is fully autonomous, AI-integrated unmanned systems, including UAVs and UGVs. I've spent the last 24 months researching, breaking, and prototyping AI-driven drones.
This series is about my most recent obsession: Project Pelican, where I'm taking a sub-$30 RC drone and dragging it, kicking and screaming, toward autonomy. I originally planned one article. Then reality happened, and it became a series. Welcome to Part 1.
The victim: a P8 Pro
The test subject is a P8 Pro, and it is the kind of drone you can grab off AliExpress for well under $50.
Here's the catch with cheap drones: they're basically disposable. The hardware is proprietary and soldered into place. The flight controller isn't a module you...
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