Samsung Developing Facial Controlled Drones

Straight from a science fiction novel, you might soon be able to control a drone using your eye movement. A patent from Samsung has secured the technology.

The proposed drone has an integrated display that can observe face and pupil movement, along with hand gestures and positioning. The technology has been described as “a display device capable of changing an angle thereof based on a gaze of a user while moving along with the user by automatically tracking the user, without an additional operation performed by the user.”

The system tracks the drone controller’s movements in real time, and the information is transmitted to the drone’s main control unit. The drone also has sensors that could accommodate future voice recognition, GPS and Wi-Fi-based positioning, and smart device communication capabilities.

A Global Market Insights report predicts the commercial drone market will hit $17 billion by 2024, and Samsung made sure that they would be a big part of that market, should the patent get to the production stage.