This was a project to build a prototype of a free-flying telepresence drone for the ISS, very similar to the 'Free Flying Robot' that NASA announced later.
We built a prototype with a selection of low-power fans, designed for safe operation in a pressurized microgravity environment. It's a bit like a quadcopter with a video camera, but since it doesn't need to fight gravity and does need to not break anything, the fans are much smaller.
The brains were supplied by an Odroid U3, a single-board Linux computer with a good bit more CPU power than the Raspberry PI. Fans were controller by a microcontroller and custom motor driver PCB. The UI was a web interface which presented low-latency streaming video, and gamepad and keyboard control to a Firefox or Chrome browser with no additional plugins or client software. A relay server was placed between the bot and users to handle video load and provide a security override.
Control software and misc. other things available in our GitHub repo.
We also submitted a proposal to CASIS for an earlier smartphone-based version of this project.
