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Posts Tagged ‘quadcopters’

The coolest part is that the robots on the ground aren’t actually communicating with each other. Rather, they are taking broad orders remotely but independently. For instance, the follower robots are commanded to arrange themselves in a box formation around the leader bot, but the followers don’t communicate with each other to make this happen. Rather, by knowing only the relative locations of their counterparts and the objective they are supposed to be achieving, they independently decide what action or role to take in order to achieve that objective.

In other words, they are problem solving as a team by “thinking” individually about the best way each ‘bot can contribute to the larger objective. And, as you can see in the video, they get it right--when commanded to arrange themselves into a tight square formation so the quadcopter can set down, they quickly move in to enable a successful landing. It’s like watching the future of robotic supply chain systems, military support technologies, and possibly even human transit (perhaps someday) unfolding on someone’s office floor.

[YouTube]

Until now. The Lab’s Daniel Mellinger has strung together a blooper reel of quadcopter FAILs, from payloads mishandled to maneuvers missed to midair collisions. Here’s what was left on the cutting room floor--no doubt alongside some bent propellers. Enjoy.

[via YouTube]

The whole thing weighs just over an ounce and measures about 4 inches on each side, yet includes a 3-axis accelerometer, two gyroscopes, a charging port and a tiny model airplane battery that gives it four and a half minutes of flying time. The battery and propellers are from a Silverlit X-Twin remote-controlled airplane.

The 64-mHz CPU uses data from the accelerometer and gyroscopes to make tiny adjustments 250 times per second, keeping the tiny copter airborne. It sounds somewhat like a bee swarm, or like an elegy on Autotune. Watch it in action below.

CrazyFlie is the work of the Daedalus Project, which is operated by the Swedish technology consulting firm Epsilon. Perhaps someday it will fly with its larger cousins in Switzerland, and learn how to play tennis or even the piano.

[via IEEE Spectrum]

That’s exactly what they are doing in the video below. A team of quadcopters working from a preset algorithm is shown constructing a cubic tower structure using specially designed parts that snap together via magnets when placed in the proper arrangement. The only human intervention is the design itself; once the algorithm is set, the ‘bots go to work. They can even judge the quality of their own construction, checking to make sure a piece is properly in place before moving on to the next segment.

Naturally, it’s not hard to see just how amazing this technology could be if scaled up and let out of the lab. Beyond the obvious applications in automated construction processes, swarms of construction ‘bots could be launched from naval vessels to autonomously construct shelters in disaster-stricken areas or to set up a forward operating base before live troops arrive in a combat zone.

Until that day dawns, we’re more than thrilled to watch these quadcopters do the heavy lifting around the lab. Several more GRASP Lab vids are available via team member Daniel Mellinger’s YouTube channel.

[YouTube via New Scientist]

The drone, made by Microdrones GmbH, can stay in the air for more than an hour, photographing large swaths of territory autonomously as it goes. It can also hover, providing aerial surveillance over a single target area for just as long.

Google's interest in such a drone is most likely its ability to supplement its Google Earth service, which currently relies on aerial and satellite photos to overlay Google Maps with actual bird's eye images of the earth. But Google is in hot water -- particularly in Europe -- for its collection of personal Wi-Fi data by its army of Street View cars that drive around collecting all those street images provided by that service. Street View itself has been called an invasion of privacy because it photographs people without their knowledge or consent.

It's tough to make a case that shooting photos on a public street is an invasion of privacy, but adding an aerial surveillance drone to the mix could stir the ire of privacy advocates and could raise legal issues in some countries as well. Assuming Google is only toying with the idea of raising a drone air force to provide cheap and up-to-date aerial images for Google Earth, this doesn't seem like such a big deal.

But given the fact that Google has a history of prompting privacy complaints and that the drone it acquired was designed with a military/surveillance nature, it will be interesting to see what shakes out of this wrinkle in the Google story. UK aircraft regulations have already been amended to reflect the new and growing role of surveillance drones in society and the FAA is currently considering how the U.S. might integrate commercial drones into American skies. Somewhere out there privacy rights, aviation law, and commercial interests are going to collide, and should Google roll out a fleet of camera-laden drone aircraft, the ensuing reactions of citizens and state could mark the preliminary steps in defining which direction our drone culture is heading.

[Register]

The team at UPenn devised a claw-like gripper that allows the quadcopters to grab onto flat surfaces and carry objects aloft. But the diminutive aircraft don't possess a whole lot of upward thrust, so to lift heavier objects the team introduced some team spirit to their software. A dose of cooperative logic allows two or more quadcopters to collaborate on the same task, lifting heavier payloads while maintaining impeccable balance. They can even carry the payload around without listing to one side or the other.

The degree of control and agility these things show is pretty amazing, and you can see it for yourself in the video below. Personally, we'd like to see the GRASP Lab put their quadcopters through the Tempur-Pedic test -- one glass of red wine riding atop those two-by-fours, four quadcopters, no spillage. By all appearances, it seems like they could do it. What's up, UPenn, feeling up to the challenge?

[via Engadget]

The DFA, developed by ETH Zurich’s Institute for Dynamics Systems and Control, consists of multiple fixed propellor aircraft, each with its own sensors and flight control system. Individually, the components fly somewhat erratically, but joined together they become a larger sensor-based flight platform, capable of maintaining level flight by rapidly sharing data between them. When docked together, if something disturbs the array’s level flight each individual rotor can compensate appropriately to bring the system back into balance.

While the current DFA is a proof of concept, such a scheme could have a variety of applications, not least of which is the relatively straightforward yet sometimes difficult task of picking stuff up. Since the DFA is modular, users could deploy enough lift to execute a task without wasting resources on overkill. Further, its modular nature allows for some degree of failure within the system. If one or two of the bots fail, the others could compensate and even reconfigure to allow fresh bots to swap into the places of those that aren’t working.

Swapping components mid-flight might seem like tricky business, but considering how far researchers are coming along with these kinds of autonomous vehicles it’s certainly feasible. Just check out the video below, also from ETH’s Institute for Dynamics Systems and Control. These two quadcopters don’t just hover with precision. Their movements are so well choreographed, they actually dance with each other. No, seriously.

[ETH IDSC via Bot Junkie]