On the white wall, flickering film footage of a destroyed city. Rubble everywhere, and dust. On the surface of the picture, a young man appears in a blue jumpsuit. He stands in front of a collapsed building, and explains how his new invention will help in the recovery of the Victim. Davide Falanga hopes that he needs to say only “Go inside and search the building!” and everything works from alone.
The engineer from the robot research group, Davide Scaramuzza, together with his colleague Kevin glue, as well as researchers from ETH Lausanne a self-navigating drone with foldable arms designed, which works for a short period of time without any external control. At the end of last year you have presented this Quadro copter in the journal “Robotics and Automation Letters.” Currently, the Zurich are now working on a new Version and continue to develop the Software for the Autonomous flying drone.
Especially in the smart UAV is that it can fold when needed his arms to the side. Similar to an owl, creates when passing through narrow Openings their wings, he can fly through holes and cracks. Due to the deformability it is to explore, among other things, after the earthquake, places and buildings are for people hard-to-reach and dangerous. In this way the rescue could make teams immediately after the disaster, in advance of your risky use of a detailed picture of the Situation.
Independently
this is actually possible, fly Falanga has demonstrated to a building collapse on the training ground of the Swiss army in Wangen an der Aare, BE, and live filming. The drone finds there alone its way through a small hole in a damaged house wall. You can’t manage without GPS for localization, the works in the interior of buildings, and even without a pilot controlling it from the outside.
for this To work, have to be programmed to the researchers own Software, which evaluates the camera images from the drone, together with measurements of the acceleration sensors, and gyro compasses. The developed algorithm registered points on edges and in corners of structures and can track them in flight. In addition, the researchers use a second camera for the live broadcast so that the Operator knows in front of the building exactly how it looks in there.
Falanga and glue the foldable drone together in the Flying Room at the University of Zurich. On the floor is a carpet with the pattern of a city from the bird perspective, in addition to a wall of a carton stacked boxes, and on the tables, charging stations, spare batteries and Laptops are more Battery. But why the thick work gloves?
“These drones will be able to cut off a Finger,” says Falanga, half serious, half joking. There are also safety nets, which separate the test zone of the drones-the game room from the other devices. Today, however, they are not tight, but hanging like curtains at the edge of the area.
Similar to an owl of the
quadrocopter can fly through holes and cracks.
Falanga takes the drone and holds it with one Hand. “Arming, Starting!”, glue commands to the control computer. A loud buzz cut now the silence of the test period. The four rotors rotate all the time. Then the Quadro lifts off the copter and flies a few laps.
to demonstrate how the drone can change in a delicate Mission, its Form, brings Falanga a Joystick. Because, she decides, while still self-employed, where you fly, but can also respond to manual commands. The flying robot stretches during the flight, two arms to the front and two to the rear, as he wanted somewhere to squeeze through. He then returns to the starting position.
His camera records are transmitted directly to the screen. There you can see how the Software points to the Patterns of the carpet track and the drone can be guided easily along the painted road network.
low battery
place a glimpse of The large collection of batteries and chargers in the Flying Room, that the prototype has a weakness in the power supply. “The short battery life is currently our biggest Problem,” says Falanga. Just four minutes can keep the foldable drone in the air. This is because especially the small, compact shapes of the drone are energetically very costly and the battery life in addition shorten. Nevertheless, he believes that the prototype can be further optimized, and on eight minutes of flight time will come.
Before the drone runs out however, in the case of the Demonstration of the energy, fishing, he quickly from the air, its rotors stop. As he drops it next to the battery charging station, shines on the inside of his left wrist is a Tattoo. A Triangle. The rotor blade of his favorite drone? The researcher laughs. No, it is the mathematical Symbol Nabla, is an upside-down Delta is. In a figurative sense it means to him: “The direction of the greatest progress is maintained.”
His Motto seems to be paying off. With the Faltdrohne the Team has already won several awards. And while he and Kevin adhesive demonstrate the sophisticated drone in Zurich, is the rest of the Team in the USA, and takes part in Orlando at the international final round of the drone race, Drone Racing League. Each group receives the same drone, then tried but, with the own Software so equipped, so that you can quickly and autonomously fly through a previously unknown obstacle course. And, if possible, even faster than the one that is controlled by a professional drone pilot.
learn From mistakes
Not always the Autonomous flying works smoothly, there are glitches. So, Falanga shows an older Video, in which the foldable drone for the first Time through a hole in a plastic frame, it should fly. With high speed you raced to the Opening, a cherished but wrong and slammed against the obstacle. This was out of balance, bounced uncontrollably on the rear wall of the room and crashed to the ground.
Like a crushed beetle, you remained on your back, lying and stretched her arms in the air. Awkwardly, the rotors spun up even more. But this, too, belongs to and is part of the research. Because each crash helps to Refine the algorithm for Autonomous flying. It is planned that the foldable drone in ten years, is ready for use.
For Falanga and glue it is not a case of replacing the people by the robots , but rather their cooperation. You’ll need people for the search of work in the disaster areas, said adhesive, and adds: “with the help of our drone people could do their Job faster and better.”
Created: 28.10.2019, 18:39 PM
