Raspberry Pi Pilots Drone with PS4 Controller

Engineer Mohammad Reza Sharifi has created a platform to control his DJI Tello drone using a Playstation 4 controller with the help of a Raspberry Pi. This drone is designed to operate using mobile devices over Wi-Fi.

This isn’t the first Raspberry Pi project we’ve covered by Sharifi. In the past he’s created a Pico-powered robot that can be controlled using the accelerometer in a smartphone, and most recently a robotic car that can be driven using AI to read hand gestures.

It doesn’t take much to create this project at home. You’ll need a Playstation 4 controller, a Raspberry Pi, and a DJI Tello drone. The Raspberry Pi acts as a mediator between the controller and drone, providing the wireless connectivity necessary to bridge the connection.

Sharifi decided to make the project open source, releasing all of the source code at GitHub for any interested parties to explore. A library called Easytello is necessary to install on the Pi as it allows communication with the Tello drone. The pyPS4Controller library provides the tools necessary to interpret the controller input.

To see this project in action, check out the original thread shared to Reddit and be sure to follow Mohammad Reza Sharifi for more cool Pi projects.