About the drone

Every component designed for Blue Jay is with the user in mind, and that is because we want to create a product that can be easily adopted by both our users and the environment they form part of. We aim to achieve the following core capabilities:

Safe

Blue Jay’s protective shell is composed of lightweight, shock-resistant, and noise absorbing materials, making it safe to touch and more pleasant to interact with. Also, Blue Jay can maintain a safe distance during flight mode from people and its surroundings due to its Active Safety System. This system uses sonars for collision avoidance and a path-finding algorithm, where the drone can create in real-time the optimal path to navigate around obstacles and the environment.

Helpful

Blue Jay can recognize a particular person and different objects, so it knows ‘who’ to bring ‘what’ whenever is needed. This can be accomplished by combining intelligent learning algorithms with cameras of high image-resolution and depth vision, thus resulting in effective face and object recognition. To fetch objects, the drone has an adaptable gripper that can be both strong and gentle, depending on the object of interest. The drone can determine when your hands or object are under the gripper, so it can smoothly grab and release pressure with its fingers. This function is particularly useful to caretakers that have their hands full and need extra help or for people with limited mobility that have difficulties reaching for objects. Also, you can assign tasks to Blue Jay in real-time through voice commands, or program tasks or reminders for later using the Blue Jay app.

Autonomous

Blue Jay can navigate any indoor environment all by itself. Through the use of Ultrawide Band indoor positioning, it can determine its own location and travel to other positions in the environment without manual intervention. When a user gives a command to Blue Jay, it decides upon the optimal plan and course of action. For instance, if Blue Jay needs to fetch an object with a known location, it can generate the path and bring the object efficiently; however, it can also search for objects with an unknown location by making use of the indoor positioning algorithms and object recognition. Also, once the drone senses its battery is running low, it can automatically fly back to its charging station.

Interactive

We create a complete intelligent system that can sense, learn, understand, and communicate with the user in a natural, intuitive way. The system is comprised of Blue Jay, its landing station, the ground station, and the Blue Jay app, all of which work together to fulfill the user interaction. Blue Jay is equipped with expressive eyes and a ring of light to communicate clearly and easily with users. When it is given a voice command, Blue Jay makes eye contact and acknowledges the task through subtle sounds and lights. Also, If a patient is feeling agitated, Blue Jay can adapt its lights to create a calming atmosphere in the room, aiding the patient to feel at ease. In case of emergencies, if a patient falls down or is in distress, Blue Jay can identify the situation and follow the necessary emergency protocols, such as contacting a doctor or bringing aid supplies. Whether you need an extra hand with daily tasks or an intelligent companion caring for you, Blue Jay is there to assist you and add to your wellbeing.

Indoor

Last but not least, we envision a drone that flies insights. This Blue Jay drone flies safe and autonomously in indoor settings to be helpful and interactive for all sorts of scenarios. This last core value is one of the biggest challenges for the Blue Jay team and that’s why it will be reached in the far future.

Each year, the goal to build an indoor drone seems more and more reachable. However, there are still enough challenges left, such as noice reduction, her size and weight, and the troubles that the aerodynamics cause.