A 28-gram drone with no height sensor lands autonomously, piloted by Claude looking at camera photos
kfountou · x · 2026-10-23
The author recounts building a 28-gram autonomous drone: on Oct 22 it landed on the coffee table three times in one afternoon, flown entirely by an AI that looks at camera photos and types commands — about 25 attempts over five days plus two weeks of firmware work.
- Hardware: the ESP-FLY open-source micro quad (designed by Max Imagination, kit from Seeed Studio) around a XIAO ESP32-S3 Sense with a tiny 320x240 camera; no GPS, no height sensor, no optical-flow chip — just a 6-axis IMU and the camera.
- The pilot is Claude running on a Mac, talking to the drone over Wi-Fi: say "land on the white and brown table in front of the TV" and it takes off, looks, and corrects.
- Telemetry overlays (hover height 0.909 m, battery, air time) show how Claude estimates altitude from photos to land.
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