University researchers create networked flying robots that build complex structures
By Stephen C. Webster
Wednesday, January 19th, 2011
Imagine a future where massive, flying robots assemble complex structures like skyscrapers or houses, with all the machines working as one, coordinated through a wireless network and custom algorithm.
Granted, a similar process already takes place today on a much smaller scale, albeit guided by human pilots.
But with the potential for human error eliminated, construction times could be drastically reduced. Ultimately, a hyper-streamlined system could result in thousands of construction jobs being eliminated and a surge in urban sprawl.
Such an invention, properly scaled upward, would be simply revolutionary -- and that radical vision, scarcely imagined even in science fiction, took its first step toward becoming a reality in 2011.
University of Pennsylvania PhD candidate Daniel Mellinger, in a project by the school's GRASP Lab (General Robotics, Automation, Sensing and Perception), created a set of flying, networked robot builders that can quickly and accurately assemble structures made out of magnetic rods.
The only input required from a human equipped with such a system would be her choice of blueprint: the drones handle everything else.
The robotic helicopters, equipped with a specialized grabbing mechanism for Mellinger's latest demonstration, were shown last year to be dexterous enough to do mid-air flips, pass through windows, perch on vertical surfaces and swarm in predefined patterns.
While it was just a small-scale project, it was likely to go down as one of the first to truly show the potential of hive-mind robotic assistants.
"I think this work is a first step in autonomous aerial robotic assembly," Mellinger told Raw Story. "I think it is reasonable to say that in the near future we can have large-scale aerial robots autonomously building structures that are useful to humans."
This video is from the University of Pennsylvania's GRASP Lab, published Jan. 13, 2010.
By Stephen C. Webster
Wednesday, January 19th, 2011
Imagine a future where massive, flying robots assemble complex structures like skyscrapers or houses, with all the machines working as one, coordinated through a wireless network and custom algorithm.
Granted, a similar process already takes place today on a much smaller scale, albeit guided by human pilots.
But with the potential for human error eliminated, construction times could be drastically reduced. Ultimately, a hyper-streamlined system could result in thousands of construction jobs being eliminated and a surge in urban sprawl.
Such an invention, properly scaled upward, would be simply revolutionary -- and that radical vision, scarcely imagined even in science fiction, took its first step toward becoming a reality in 2011.
University of Pennsylvania PhD candidate Daniel Mellinger, in a project by the school's GRASP Lab (General Robotics, Automation, Sensing and Perception), created a set of flying, networked robot builders that can quickly and accurately assemble structures made out of magnetic rods.
The only input required from a human equipped with such a system would be her choice of blueprint: the drones handle everything else.
The robotic helicopters, equipped with a specialized grabbing mechanism for Mellinger's latest demonstration, were shown last year to be dexterous enough to do mid-air flips, pass through windows, perch on vertical surfaces and swarm in predefined patterns.
While it was just a small-scale project, it was likely to go down as one of the first to truly show the potential of hive-mind robotic assistants.
"I think this work is a first step in autonomous aerial robotic assembly," Mellinger told Raw Story. "I think it is reasonable to say that in the near future we can have large-scale aerial robots autonomously building structures that are useful to humans."
This video is from the University of Pennsylvania's GRASP Lab, published Jan. 13, 2010.
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