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takyon writes:

Tiny Drones Team Up to Open Doors

In a move inspired by natural engineering, robotics researchers have demonstrated how tiny palm-size drones can forcefully tug objects 40 times their own mass by anchoring themselves to the ground or to walls. It's a glimpse into how small drones could more actively manipulate their environment in a way similar to humans or larger robots.

[...] The "FlyCroTug" drones also represent an evolution for ground-based robots originally developed by David Christensen, a coauthor on the paper who is currently employed at Disney Research. By turning to a custom-built quadrotor drone design, the team created micro air vehicles that combine aerial mobility with greater pulling or pushing strength based on ground anchoring.

Each FlyCroTug drone has a specialized attachment at the end of a long cable that can be payed out and then pulled back in through a winch. That means the drones can attach one end of their cable to an object, fly off, land, and anchor themselves before hauling the heavy load toward them. What might normally be one small step at a time for wasps becomes one giant flying leap at a time for the drones, Estrada explained.

The anchoring mechanisms based on technologies from Stanford's Biomimetics and Dexterous Manipulation Lab also took inspiration from natural design: microspines capable of attaching to rough stucco or concrete surfaces, and sticky gecko-inspired adhesives for attaching to smooth glass.

[...] As impressive as this all sounds, the FlyCroTug drones still face serious limitations. Their current battery life is sufficient for just five minutes of flight time, which severely limits what they can do. Complex and unknown environments would also require possibly many versions of the drones with different attachments and anchor mechanisms for various surfaces. But the latter may not be a problem, if such flying robots could be made cheaply and be deployed as swarms of disposable drones.

Also at The Verge.

Original Submission