Fun with collision-resistant drones

We wanted to share a fun video we made recently. Our drones can interact with obstacles and humans, which is opening amazing new applications, be it for accessing hard-to-reach places or for having fun with them. 

We achieve that through a passively rotating protective cage an control algorithms that keep the drone stable at all times. More than just a protective cage, the fact that it can rotate really prevents collisions from disturbing the orientation of the drone (see animation below). Also, because the cage is decoupled, the apparent inertia is quite low and the drone is very reactive. 

Animation_two_robots.gif

Hope you enjoyed, we look forward to show you more in the near future !

Flyability is a young spin-off from EPFL based in Lausanne, Switzerland. Please read more at www.flyability.com if you're interested.

Cheers,

Adrien

PS: We're currently shipping evaluation kits to professional users.

PS2: We're always looking for talented engineers (jobs@flyability.com)

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Comments

  • OK, so hot glue will also work pretty well. Just need to make a frame to hold all rod in place.

  • Actually, 3D-printing them works quite well !

  • Hi, 

    I am currently bulding one of those and I was wondering where I could find the plastic connectors  which connect the rod of the outter cage? because I cannot figure how to build those, I assume there are probably something already existing somewhere.

    Do you have a reference of such product ?

  • Very cool. I'll take one :)

  • Moderator

    Ah the Japanese ball drone bounces back.

This reply was deleted.