Sports of the future
Drone racing (from English drone racing) is a rapidly developing high-tech sport. It implies competition by means of racing FPV drones on specially equipped FPV tracks.
The first official drone race in FPV mode took place in the fall of 2014 in Los Angeles on the Apollo XI RC field. Years passed and all this time this high-tech sport flourished rapidly. In June 2017, the Drone Champions League (DCL), one of the world's largest professional racing organizations, held a sporting event "Paris Drone Festival" along the famous Champs-Elysees in Paris. It was attended by over 150,000 fans. Another equally well-known competing organization, the Drone Racing League (DRL), will host a series of events this year in the United States, France, Germany and Saudi Arabia, which will be broadcast in over 90 countries on channels such as ESPN and Sky Sports. The winner, who is determined in the final event in November, will receive at least $ 100,000. And this is just the beginning!
Human beings are expected to compete with AI drones by 2020.
* The winner of the 2016-2017 Drone Racing League is Jordan "Jet" Temkin from the USA.
Basics
For those who do not know, drone racing is as follows: competitors put on FPV gogglescontrol equipment. Racing drones can accelerate from 0-100km / h in just 2 seconds. The task of the pilots is to fly a given route as quickly as possible, consisting of an obstacle course, including difficult turns, rings, somersaults.
* Example FPV drone track.
Drone
* 2018 Diatone GT200 racing drone. Max. flight speed 159 km / h.
The racing drone
* Drone Racing League - DRL X. In 2017, he set a Guinness record for maximum horizontal flight speed - 264 km / h. The weight of the drone is 800 grams.
Event
This is what a sporting event looks like on one of several drone racing tracks in the Drone Racing League :
As the sport is just starting to unfold, there are many racing organizations around the world. In the list of the most famous:
- Drone Championship League (DCL)
- Drone Racing League (DRL)
- Drone Sports Association
- MultiGP
Basic Rules
Like drone technology itself, drone racing is an ever-changing sport. As of 2018, according to the Drone Pilots Federation, the basic rules are:
- Racing Classes: 3S (more suitable for beginner riders), 4S (for more experienced riders) and open class (for all types of UAVs).
- For racing drones of classes 3S and 4S - the distance between the motors on the diagonal can be no more than 305mm. There are no restrictions for an open class.
- Carrying screws: for classes 3S and 4S can be no more than 15cm. Electric motors. There are no restrictions for the open class.
- Power: for 3S - 3-cell LiPo. For 4S - 4 cans LiPo. There are no restrictions for an open class.
- Drone weight: for all classes no more than 800 grams.
More details about the rules can be found here.
Stunning racing drone footage can be seen in this YouTube video - Johnny FPV:
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