Intel unveils 'Shooting Star' drone for night time light show

After announcing its first multirotor drone 'Falcon 8+ System', Intel has unveiled a quadcopter drone, the Shooting Star to redefine entertainment shows. The drone is designed to fly in unison with hundreds of other drones, all controlled by a single operator.

Each of these drones, which weighs only 280 gm or even less, are constructed with a soft frame made of flexible plastic and foams, without any screws. The quadcopter’s propellers are also protected by covered cages – all features designed to ensure the drone is safe to fly, is splash proof and can fly in the light rain.

It is loaded with full-color-range LED lights, enough to shine in any 4 billion color combinations.

In a press release, the chip maker said, "With the improved software and animation interface on the Intel Shooting Star drone, a light show can now be created in a matter of days instead of weeks or months."

"Intel’s proprietary algorithms can automate the animation creation process by an image and quickly calculate the number of drones needed, determining where drones should be placed, and formulate the fastest path to create the image in the sky. Previously, it would take animators much longer to manually determine these calculations."

The light show software also runs a complete fleet check prior to each flight and is able to select the most optimized drones for each flight based on battery life, GPS reception and more.

Recently, Intel also set a new Guinness World Record for having the most UAVs airborne simultaneously with 500 Intel Shooting Star drones lighting up the night sky.

The shooting is currently not available for sale, neither Falcon 8+. The company is yet to provide price or availability details.