The Grasp Laboratory at the University of Pennsylvania developed a quadcopter with a robotic arm, that is able to “grasp”, like an eagle does.
The grasping action was successfully tested to a speed up to 3 m/s (7,2 Km/h).
MUWA: Multi-Field Universal Wheel for Air-Land Vehicle with Quad Variable-Pitch Propellers. A complicated name for a new prototype quadcopter that can perform a number of functions usually not associated with multirotors, such as rolling and floating.
Here’s the rolling drone:
This is not for fun. It is a research project developed in a robotics lab in Tokyo University and has a number of very serious potential applications that are briefly shown in the video that we post below. Those include capturing 3D images of environments, for example closed spaces, maybe difficult to reach otherwise.
The device can of course perform also perform as a regular quadcopter. It flies nicely.
Here’s the video:
Source and further readings:
Markus Fischer and his team developed smartbird, a robot that flies like a seagull.
As for the dragonfly, the world of flying animals inspires engineers for the building of human made flying machines. Enjoy the video:
Quadcopters and multirotors are becoming devices affordable for anyone, to take aerial video and photographs or just to experience the adrenaline burst that comes from controlling the aerial evolutions of these flying machines.
A new generation of flying machines is at the doorstep. Meet the Dragonfly.
All images were taken from the dragonfly project web site
Here are some specs from the Robot Dragonfly project web site
Please note: Hybrid flight time: 25-30 minutes. This thing can hover like a quadcopter and glide like a plane.
Silent. This is a big difference with quacopters and multirotors and opens for different fields of application.
Onboard high resolution cameras and GPS.
A game changer by all means. According to the website, we could start to see some on those on the market within a few months, possibly starting from november-december 2013, based on the fact that release of the kits to distributors is scheduled for october 2013.
Here are some dragonfly videos: