Advances in software and sensing have given jaw-dropping powers to cheap quadrotor helicopters – ones with four rotors. The videos are YouTube gold: the flying robots nimbly slip through narrow windows, juggle a ball and team up to construct small structures.
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The Swarmanoid project (IST-022888) is a Future and Emerging Technologies (FET-OPEN) project funded by the European Commission.
The main scientific objective of this research project is the design, implementation and control of a novel distributed robotic system. The system will be made up of heterogeneous, dynamically connected, small autonomous robots. Collectively, these robots will form what we call a swarmanoid. The swarmanoid that we intend to build will be comprised of numerous (about 60) autonomous robots of three types: eye-bots, hand-bots, and foot-bots.
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Individual vehicles self-assemble, coordinate, and take flight
The Distributed Flight Array is a flying platform consisting of multiple autonomous single propeller vehicles that are able to drive, dock with their peers, and fly in a coordinated fashion. Once in flight the array hovers for a few minutes, then falls back to the ground, only to repeat the cycle again.
Developed in ETH
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