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Researchers at Stanford university built tiny drones that can work together to manipulate objects that are 40 times their own mass. The researchers say they mimicked the behavior of wasps, which drag large prey back to their nests along the ground instead of carrying it through the air.
Check out a preview of our impending doom here.
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. Researchers have not yet developed either sensing capabilities or artificial intelligence capabilities for such drones to operate even semi-independently, let alone in fully autonomous mode without human control. But Estrada believes that a teleoperation approach makes the most sense for near-future deployments of such technology. "Humans can intuitively read a room and predict what surfaces might be suitable to attach onto and [find] feasible paths towards these locations," Estrada says. "This could certainly be combined with some low-level autonomy for maneuvers such as holding a position or grappling a handle."
Check out a preview of our impending doom here.
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. Researchers have not yet developed either sensing capabilities or artificial intelligence capabilities for such drones to operate even semi-independently, let alone in fully autonomous mode without human control. But Estrada believes that a teleoperation approach makes the most sense for near-future deployments of such technology. "Humans can intuitively read a room and predict what surfaces might be suitable to attach onto and [find] feasible paths towards these locations," Estrada says. "This could certainly be combined with some low-level autonomy for maneuvers such as holding a position or grappling a handle."