Using quadrocopters and some rope, researchers have woven together a bridge strong enough to walk across. Made at the ETH Zurich Flying Machine Arena in Switzerland, the bridge joins two scaffolds, and is the first full-scale load-bearing structure autonomously built by flying machines.
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James Bowles has been crowned UK champion following the first UK FPV drone racing national event organised by the British FPV drone racing association. The event was held at RAF Barkston Heath near Grantham, Lincolnshire, UK, last week.
Researchers at ETH Zurich have developed a new algorithm for robustly controlling a tailsitter flying machine in hover position.
Τhis video shows tethered quadrocopters flying steadily together at high speeds exceeding 50 km/h in a confined space. With the tether exerting more than 13 gs of centripetal force, multiple quadrotors are able to fly 1.7m- radius circular trajectories in formation across different orientations in space and then successfully perform a coordinated braking maneuver.
This research was conducted at the Flying Machine Arena at ETH Zurich, read more on Robohub.
In a 9-page legal letter, with 28 itemized conditions and limitations, the FAA issued an exemption to Amazon to enable Prime Air to test in US airspace.
The FAA letter, dated April 8th, was filled with pages of legalese, but still limits testing to VLOS (visual line of sight) instead of autonomous flight, and flight controlled by a human operator. Amazon’s drones can not fly faster than 100 miles per hour, fly higher than 400 feet above ground level, and can not weigh more than 55 pounds, according to the letter.
Read more onRobohub
Researchers from the Robotics and Perception Group from the University of Zurich, developed a new technology that allows a quadrotor to automatically recover and stabilize from any initial condition without relying on external infrastructure like GPS. The technology allows the quadrotor system to be used safely both indoors and out, to recover stable flight after a GPS loss or system failure. And because the recovery is so quick, it even works to recover flight after an aggressive throw, allowing you to launch a quadrotor simply by tossing it in the air like a baseball.
More info: Robohub & Robotics and Perception Group, University of Zurich.
During a two-day conference in Riga, the European aviation community found broad agreement on the main principles to guide the regulatory framework to allow RPAS (Remotely Piloted Aircraft Systems) operations throughout Europe from 2016 onwards.
This fall, Fjuze – an entertainment company from the Netherlands – hopes to launch a massive drone entertainment show at the Amsterdam Arena. Aptly called AIR, the event is slated to feature an as yet unspecified (but presumably large) number of drones performing “ballet and battles,” “races and lasers,” and “circus and illusions.” That such a large-scale entertainment event featuring drones is even being planned at all speaks volumes about the mainstreaming of drone culture.
Given the opportunity of the AIR show described above, Hallie Siegel wrote an overview on the general state of drones in entertainment, read more on Robohub: From sideshow to main event, drones are making their mark in entertainment
Canada’s relatively favorable framework for commercial UAV operations is attracting interest among foreign operators who are frustrated with restrictions in their home jurisdictions. The following provides a breakdown of Canadian regulations affecting foreign commercial operators:
This 5-minute short film featuring quadrotors was produced in collaboration between the entertainment company Cirque du Soleil, researchers at ETH Zurich’s Flying Machine Arena, and their spin-off company Verity Studios. Everything you see is real — no CGI, wires, or speed-ups/slow-downs were used in the production of the film.
Read the full article on Robohub
Six months ago, Typhoon Haiyan devastated the Philippine’s South East coast. Now Drone Adventures is helping the reconstruction effort by providing much-needed aerial maps of the region.
Read the full article on Robohub:
http://robohub.org/aerial-drone-maps-document-philippine-typhoon-devastation-aid-in-reconstruction/
Drone Adventures teamed up with Taichi Furuhashi, researcher at the Center for Spatial Information Science at the University of Tokyo and mapped three unique towns in Fukushima district: Iidate village, Hisanohama, and Tomioka.
Read more below about the details of this project and don't forget to look at the high-resolution interactive maps created by Drone Adventures:
This video presents the latest iteration of IDSC's Flying Machine Arena failsafe algorithm (previous post here). In this video there's a pilot flying the quadrocopter while the algorithm is executed on the quadrocopter's onboard micro-controller. The only sensors required are the quadrocopter's angular rate gyroscopes.
You can read more on the description of the video ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ek0FrCaogcs )
You can read an older article about the failsafe algorithm mentioned above with more details and photos here:
Quadrocopter failsafe algorithm: Recovery after propeller loss
(take a look at the comments below!)
You can also read Robohub's coverage on Amazon's Prime Air and other Quadcopter related articles.
(video link via M.Waibel)
Mark Mueller from the Flying Machine Arena website and the IDSC presents on Robohub a new failsafe algorithm that enables a quad to remain under control even after the loss of a propeller. The video shows up a quad that intentionally loose a propeller, with and without the new failsafe algorithm:
You can read the full article with more details and photos here:
Quadrocopter failsafe algorithm: Recovery after propeller loss
(don't forget to take a look at the comments below!)
You can also read Robohub's coverage on Amazon's Prime Air and other Quadcopter related articles.
Raffaello D’Andrea, and the ETH Flying Machine Arena will perform a demo on TED Global. Take a look at the preparation behind the scenes exclusively on Robohub:
http://robohub.org/ted-global-raffaello-dandrea-and-his-quadrocopters-machine-athleticism/
There'll be more in-depth coverage, you can find all TED Global 2013 articles on Robohub here: http://robohub.org/tag/tedglobal2013/
For their first humanitarian mission, Adam and Emanuele from Drone Adventures went to Haiti to explore the potential use of drones to map encampments, riverbeds and entire villages.
You can read more about the mission, the equipment and the results in the full article:
http://robohub.org/drone-adventure-in-haiti/
[copying from Robohub]
Two of the most challenging problems tackled with quadrocopters so far are balancing an inverted pendulum and juggling balls. My colleagues at ETH Zurich’s Flying Machine Arena have now combined the two.
As part of his Master thesis Dario Brescianini, student at ETH Zurich’s Institute for Dynamic Systems and Control, has developed algorithms that allow quadrocopters to juggle an inverted pendulum. If you are not sure what that means (or how that is even possible), have a look at his video “Quadrocopter Pole Acrobatics”:
You can read the full article with much more details and other photos here:
http://robohub.org/video-throwing-and-catching-an-inverted-pendulum-with-quadrocopters/
Angela Schoellig and the Flying Machine Arena team at ETH Zurich have developed and implemented algorithms that allow their flying robots to race through an obstacle parcours – and learn to improve their performance. The robot (a quadcopter on this example) learns from its mistakes and it improves its perfmormance and accuracy every time it performs a certain task.
You can read the full article and watch the videos on Robohub | Quadrocopter learns from its mistakes, perfects air racing
New video from ETH Zurich’s Flying Machine Arena, you can read more on Robohub:
http://robohub.org/video-watch-flying-robots-cooperate-throw-and-catch-balls/
PS. Robohub.org is an online platform that brings together leading communicators in robotics research, start-ups, business, and education from around the world. We just launch the beta version, take a look! http://robohub.org/
This is a new-platform from a Spanish start-up called Intelligenia Dynamics. It has four double co-axial motor/propellers and it is part of their upcoming product line of commercial uavs and services. You can read more at their website: http://www.iuavs.com/en/pages/index
(via robots.net / Robots Podcast news )
