A student at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) Zurich developed an algorithm which enables two quadrotors to balance an inverted pendulum and juggle it among each other. In order to achieve this stunt, the researchers had to set theoretical models of the process, and engineer the complete system of balancing, throwing, catching, and… »
The Office of Naval Research (ONR) funded a Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative (MURI) program which examines birds’ perceptual and maneuvering abilities when flying at high speeds through complex environments, such as forests or urban settings in order to improve performance of small unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) in those settings. Aside increasing their agility, these small UAVs… »
Most flying robots aren’t built to recover from shocks after a collision, but a group of researchers from EPFL decided to construct a robot which is suitable for navigation in cluttered indoor environment. Named AirBurr, the flying robot acts like some flying insects and takes advantage of collisions in order to find its way around… »
We already published a fair share of articles regarding flying robots, but the robotics team at the Queensland University of Technology (QUT) recently got a grant to develop a couple of interesting robots. They are developing a low-cost flying robot that could be used to inspect the hard to reach places, as well as a… »
In our previous articles we wrote about quadricopters used in research regarding swarm algorithms and entertainment, but a group of people from Germany took the application of these electrically charged flying machines a step further. They created e-volo electric multicopter – a sixteen propeller flying vehicle which completed its first manned flight at the end… »
Remaining stable while going over obstacles is fairly tricky for small robots, so the researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, fixed a small robot dubbed DASH (Dynamic Autonomous Sprawled Hexapod) with lateral and tail wings borrowed from a store-bought toy to see if that would help. Although the wings haven’t enabled the robot to… »
Max Planck Institute (MPI) researchers are using computer simulations and prototypes in order to enhance the simulations control of multiple robots. They are developing flying multi-robot systems, which receive instructions from a user and fulfill the commands in an autonomous manner. Navigated by a human operator, four or more of these Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs)… »
Most of us had the opportunity to play with maple seed and observe it spiraling down after we throw it. Several groups of engineers around the world have been inspired by maple seed and applied biomimicry to construct small flying machines. Lockheed Martin came up with Samarai which was exhibited at the Association for Unmanned… »
