Researchers launched a drone from a pneumatic baseball pitching machine strapped to a truck traveling 50 miles per hour. They hope this ballistic launch method might lead to drones that are better suited for emergency response and space exploration m...
Drones are a great search and rescue tool, but they would be even more impressive if they could change their size to fly through small holes. Well, the University of Zurich’s Robotics and Perception Group is showing off a shape-shifting drone that can do just that.
The Morphing Quadrotor Drone is a foldable micro aerial vehicle (MAV) with vision-based navigation that allows it to fly on its own without the help of a human. It uses onboard cameras and inertial sensors to “see” the world around it and to orient itself. There’s no GPS, laser, or any other form of external positioning system, so it can enter and explore damaged buildings and caverns easily.
The coolest thing about this drone is the smart computer vision that allows it to morph. It can detect the size of an entryway and change its size on-the-fly. As a bonus, it can also pick up objects using the folding arms. Very impressive indeed.
The ability to change its size quickly while maintaining stable flight the entire time could be a great aid to search and rescue operations in the future.
Scientists have borrowed a few tricks from Mother Nature in order to create a drone capable of landing flush against a wall. The Multimodal Autonomous Drone (S-MAD) looks like a small airplane and flies like a glider, but on approaching a flat surfac...
There are a bunch of drones on the market today and most of them need a pilot to fly them around and record video. A new drone has landed on Kickstarter seeking funding that needs nobody controlling it. It uses computer vision and a companion Android app to follow its subject.
The drone is designed with four rotors and it carries a GoPro camera (sold separately) in a motorized gimbal, and has as a built-in camera for tracking subjects. Using an app on the Android device, the drone launches automatically and hovers while the user tells it who in the image to follow. People are singled out by touching them in the image and then the drone follows them.
The drone also responds to hand signals with a raised right hand telling it to come closer, two raised hands telling it to take a still shot, and pointing to the ground telling it to land. The Mind4 drone is far from cheap at $899(USD) on Kickstarter, assuming it hits the $100,000 it wants to raise. Assuming it hits its goal, shipping is estimated for September 2015.
Parrot has been making automated flying drones for a while. The first of them was the AR.Drone. While at least one person has hacked their AR.Drone to be controlled using an Oculus Rift, Parrot has unveiled that it’s next drone – dubbed the Bebop – will offer optional Oculus Rift support.
Using that VR headset, and the optional Parrot Skycontroller, users can have an immersive view of what the drone’s camera sees as it flies. The Bebop’s fixed camera is a 14MP unit with a fisheye lens that can shoot 1080p video. The camera also has a robust image stabilization system, and its software lets you zoom in and move around the image, rather than using a motorized gimbal like other competing quadrotors. The Bebop also has GPS support and can be programmed to fly between waypoints autonomously, and return home when done.
The Skycontroller also extends the Wi-Fi range for the video and control to over a mile. Power for the drone comes from a rechargeable battery good for only 12 minutes of flight time per charge. Pricing isn’t announced at this time, but it’s likely to be somewhere North of the $300 price of the AR.Drone. The Parrot Bebop is set to launch in Q4 2014.
Back in December when Amazon announced that it wanted to use drones to deliver packages to Prime users in only 30 minutes, many folks thought that sounded farfetched. Word has now surfaced from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) that the government wants to trial its own delivery service in Dubai using drones.
The service would feature drone aircraft to deliver items to citizens such as driver’s licenses and other government documents. A prototype drone was unveiled this week and the UAE government plans to test the drone for six months.
The battery-powered quadrotor will carry packages in an upper cargo compartment. It also will have fingerprint scanners and retina scanners to ensure delivery to the correct person. The team behind the drones says they could cost as little as $1100(USD) each, and carry loads up to 3.3 pounds distances up to 1.86 miles.
Assuming a successful test in Dubai, the government wants to roll the drone aircraft out to the remainder of the country in the next year.
Despite tremendous technological advancements over the last several decades, there are still numerous challenges which face the world every day. The Air Force has just launched a new website to encourage collaborative problem solving, and to create solutions which could someday be used in the field to help save troop and civilian lives or improve operational efficiency.
The newly launched website is called The Air Force Collaboratory, and it presents different projects which could use your help. The site introduces participants to situations which could use innovative technological solutions, ranging from search and rescue operations, to using quadrotor technology to autonomously navigate its surroundings, to helping to launch its newest GPS satellites.
Participating in The Air Force Collaboratory is open to anyone. You start out by watching a briefing video before joining a specific project, and then have access to research on the subject to help provide a foundation for your contributions. Of course, you’re encouraged to bring your own perspective and experiences as well.
The site then poses brainstorming challenges to stimulate ideas and encourages discussion among participants which may drive further research and development.
There are already some fascinating ideas that have been posted to this particular thread, including one submission that suggests that a set of quadrotors could be used to generate X-ray and thermal imaging to help locate trapped survivors and determine their medical condition.
Individuals on the site are rewarded with achievement badges for their participation, and the site offers real-time leaderboards so you can see how well you’re doing compared to your peers. There are even special achievements handed out by the Air Force project lead for those with truly outstanding contributions to the program.
The site is definitely a great idea, taking a cue from the popularity of crowdsourcing, and applying it to real-world challenges the military faces. But it goes beyond simple crowdsourcing and provides a truly collaborative experience where you work with real Airmen to solve problems. The Air Force just isn’t asking for ideas and implementing the best ones, they are working with the students step by step to bring these ideas to fruition. It’s also a great interactive experience for students and an opportunity for them to both contribute and learn from their peers.
If you’d like to check out the site for yourself and start participating, head on over to The Air Force Collaboratory now.
It seems as if the robots are getting ready for an assault from both land and air these days. Just yesterday, we saw a creepy hexacopter that could also crawl, and now we have a drone that can both roll along on the ground and fly.
The Hybrid Terrestrial and Aerial Quadrotor (HyTAQ) robot was designed by Arash Kalantari and Matthew Spenko at The Robotics Laboratory at Chicago’s IIT. At first glance, it looks like an ordinary quadrotor, set into a cage. But that cage serves more than just a decorative purpose – it provides the means for the robot to roll on the ground.
The polycarbonate and carbon fiber cage is attached to an axle which can spin freely around the center of the quadrotor. By landing the quadrotor on the ground and and using the same actuators to drive it along the terrain. It’s a really cool and elegant design that also is able to protect its rotors from damage. Check out HyTAQ in action below:
Man, that thing can switch from ground ops to air ops so fast. The robot apocalypse can’t be far behind now – or at least the coolest robot toys you’ve ever played with.
Modern security cameras are rather limited: if an incident doesn't happen within a pre-defined field of vision, a company won't know what's happening until it's too late. Secom is giving anxious offices a rare solution in what's supposedly the first airborne drone for private security. Its customized Ascending Technologies quadrotor can take to the air if there's a break-in and record what's happening, even in areas that would normally represent blind spots. The automaton can also track moving subjects with a laser sensor and knows enough to keep its distance. Japanese firms wanting Secom's robot sentry will have to wait until after April 2014, when they can rent one at about ¥5,000 ($58) per month; the investment could be worthwhile just to freak out a few would-be burglars.
Researchers launched a drone from a pneumatic baseball pitching machine strapped to a truck traveling 50 miles per hour. They hope this ballistic launch method might lead to drones that are better suited for emergency response and space exploration m...
Scientists have borrowed a few tricks from Mother Nature in order to create a drone capable of landing flush against a wall. The Multimodal Autonomous Drone (S-MAD) looks like a small airplane and flies like a glider, but on approaching a flat surfac...
