Watch as Quadrotor Drones Build A Rope Bridge

Robotics  

Working like a pair of aerial spiders, a newly released video shows how quadrotor drones could be used in construction. Working with the flying robots, researchers created a functioning rope bridge that they could walk across.

A research team at Switzerland's ETH Zurich has used quadrotor drones in an experiment that might hint at the future of robotic construction. A video released by the team (below) shows quadrocopters autonomously assembling a rope bridge. This is part of a body of research in aerial construction, a field that addresses the construction of structures with the aid of flying robots.

In the video, a rope bridge that can a person walking across is built by quadrotors, showing for the first time that small flying machines are capable of autonomously realizing load-bearing structures at full-scale and proceeding a step further towards real-world scenarios.

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Except for the required anchor points at both ends of the structure, the bridge consists exclusively of tensile elements and its connections and links are entirely realized by flying machines. Spanning 7.4 m between two scaffolding structures, the bridge consists of nine rope segments for a total rope length of about 120 m and is composed of different elements, such as knots, links, and braids.

The rope used for these experiments is made out of Dyneema, a material with a low weight-to-strength ratio and thus suitable for aerial construction. Of little weight (7 g per meter), a 4 mm diameter rope can sustain 1300 kg.

The drones are equipped with a motorized spool that allows them to control the tension acting on the rope during deployment. A plastic tube guides the rope to the release point located between two propellers. The external forces and torques exerted on the quadrocopter by the rope during deployment are estimated and taken into account to achieve compliant flight behavior.

The assembly of the bridge is performed by small custom quadrocopters. The arena is equipped with a motion capture system that provides vehicle position and attitude measurements. Algorithms are run on a computer and commands are then sent to the flying machines via a customized wireless infrastructure.

SOURCE  Federico Augugliaro

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