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Tiny Drones Can Grab and Haul Objects 40 Times Their Size

A new type of tiny, flying robot called a 'FlyCroTug' can both perch and move objects 40 times its weight with the help of powerful winches and two previous inventions – gecko adhesives and microspines. Stanford University  's Mark Cutkosky and Matthew Estrada partnered with EPFL and NCCR Robotics in Switzerland to develop the micro aerial vehicles. Outfitted with these gripping technologies and the ability to move and pull on objects around them, two FlyCroTugs can lasso a door handle to pull the door open.

Topics:
Aerospace Automation Materials Motion Control Robotics

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    Transcript

    00:00:00 [MUSIC PLAYING] Stanford University. [WHIRRING] It gets more interesting if you say, what else could they do besides take video? What if you want drones to interact with the world? These are FlyCroTug robots. They're flying micro tugging robots.

    00:00:26 And they are micro air vehicles that also have the ability to anchor onto their environment and tug with large forces. Micro air vehicles typically have payloads that are about their own weight due to the amount of thrust that they can produce. And so what we did was combine some attachment mechanisms onto these micro air vehicles so that they could latch on to their environment and tug with forces much larger than they could with their available thrust.

    00:00:58 We have two ways of anchoring on services and they both come out of the prior work that we've done on climbing robots. If you have smooth surfaces, then we have a gecko-inspired adhesive that works on a table top, or on the floor, or on a window. We have a different technology that we developed for climbing robots that's inspired by how insects climb. They have many little tiny spines on their legs.

    00:01:19 And those interact with bumps and pits on the surface and allow them to latch on. And again, to hold with a force much greater than their own weight. So we have adapted that now to these flying robots. We've looked at lifting heavy sensor payload to inspect a collapsed building. We also as a proof of concept, opened up a door. So one of these vehicles grabbed onto the handle. Another one slips a hook underneath the door.

    00:01:48 And was able to pull the door open. All of these were manually piloted within line of sight. So it was really testing the capabilities of the hardware. What we've done so far is we have a proof of concept that says yes, you can have these small air vehicles that are able to interact very forcefully with the world by anchoring themselves and tugging. So if you've got a sight of an earthquake or an explosion, you want something that can rapidly go over to a building, get inside, look around, but then

    00:02:19 also, maybe move a piece of debris out of the way. Or make something become unobstructed. And for that, now it needs to anchor itself and pull with a hard force. For more, please visit us at stanford.edu.