Posted 06.24.2010 at 3:22 pm
6 Comments
Swarmbot's Perching Mechanism
EPFL
A swarm of buzzing dragonfly bots passes overhead. Suddenly, they make a kamakaze dive toward a nearby tree--but wait a minute, instead of crashing and careening to the ground, they're sticking to the tree. Resting, recharging, waiting for orders. All thanks to Mirko Kovac's new system allowing swarming robots to perch on nearly any surface, then take off again.
Working out of Switzerland's École Polytechnique Fédérale in Lausanne, Kovac's mechanism uses two needles mounted to the front of a small glider or robo-copter. When extended, the 'bot can fly straight into the surface it intends for its perch--no additional landing maneuver's necessary. When it's time to take off again, an electric motor and gearbox connected to the needles pulls them out, and flight resumes. Kovac claims the needles work on a variety of different surfaces, including concrete and wood. The whole assembly weighs just 4.6 grams.
What would you do with a swarm of lightweight, autonomous, sensor-laden flying robots? That's the question currently being considered by countless government agencies, research institutions, Bond supervillains--everyone--as miniature robotics systems continue their march onwards.
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Wouldnt the needles get dull and hinder grabbing capability?
What about landing on soft fleshy targets like people. "Ouch, that's one big mosquito"
Why yes thor it would. Although I can't think of anything on this earth that doesn't wear out with enough time and damage, but it seems that things that have been made in recent years fail even quicker than usual.
Now we are going to be chased by swarms of flying robots armed with poison needles all churned out automatically from robot factories ran by sky net.
Hidding indoors for several weeks won't help evade them because now the robots can charge themselves up while waiting for you to come out.
I suppose they could be programmed to home in on a particular cell phone found voice recognition software on the network which then transmits the GPS location for the swarm to pickup ... sounds like a movie plot
We should use these to pester the crap out of and spy on the terrorists in Afghanistan!
I'm wondering how the bot is supposed to resume flight backwards. Or does it regain flying speed by falling straight down the wall and then turn away? If so, better make sure it has enough room below to gain control again.