Samsung Patent Suggests Tech Giant is Drone Curious

Following the lead of Amazon, Intel, GoPro and Google, it looks like another technology giant is ready to step into the drone industry. 

A patent discovered by LetsGoDigital suggests that South Korean company Samsung is making plans to develop a drone. As outlined in this PDF, Samsung’s drone could have an integrated display with facial recognition technology and the ability to read gestures.

Instead of a conventional photography drone, the patent appears to be more like a flying screen. Quite what the point of that sort of device would be, we have no idea.

Reading into the patent description, it looks as though Samsung wants to pack every kind of drone-related technology into the flying device, including obstacle avoidance, GPS and a ‘vibration unit’.

The Samsung drone has a central display with four propellers on each corner. Presumably, it would have to fly at an angle to be a useful screen while in the air. However, a clue to how it might operate can be found later in the patent:

This side view appears to show what the patent describes as the “joint manipulator” in action. The propellers can be reconfigured to change the angle at which the drone sits.

Samsung steps into the drone industry?

From the patent, Samsung’s flying device looks very different to anything else on the market. It seems as though entertainment would be the focus, rather than photography. For that reason, the closest thing we can compare it to is perhaps one of Intel’s Shooting Star drones.

Flying screens could be great for, er, hands-free skyping and relentless targeted advertising. That’s all we’ve got at the moment.

Whatever the intention of the device, no doubt Samsung bosses will have seen the many public failures of ambitious drone industry projects. Let’s hope they know what they’re getting into.