Designed by the students of the Hongik University, the Traverse is a conceptual drone powered by AI that’s designed to be a personal trainer for recreational runners. The autonomous drone comes with the quad-propeller layout, and also features multiple fish-eye cameras that help it navigate through spaces without requiring any external controls. A main gimbal-mounted camera focuses on you, the runner, and the camera focuses on you as you run, monitoring your speed, performance, technique, laps, and charts your overall progress. While running, Traverse takes photos and videos of runners to give them Form correction & visual running feedback by tracking their posture with deep learning.
The Traverse drone is accompanied by the Pod, a wearable that sits around your neck. The drone uses the wearable as a tracking tag, while the Pod itself works as your personal coach, giving you audio feedback to improve your form and performance. A simple button-based interface on the Pod lets you toggle between various functions without having to look at your smartphone screen. After your workout’s done, detailed stats are sent to the Traverse’s companion app on the smartphone, allowing you to view every aspect of your run, from your route to your biostats and even your posture.
In keeping with its sports-based focus, the Traverse drone comes with a design that almost resembles the muscular physique of a fit human. The drone’s form is a combination of aerodynamic and curvy, creating something that looks sinewy and energetic – the orange and white paint-job simply reinforces this, and the speckled finish gives it a beautiful contemporary touch! Other interesting details on the drone include fold-out silicone-tipped legs that allow the drone to autonomously land near you after your session is over, and the presence of lights on the rim of the drone that allow it to be visible as it flies around during your night-run!
Designers: Soomin Son & Jinseon Lee
Mockups supported by Model Solution