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Robotics Update
What’s that up in the sky? It’s either a very large butterfly or a very small drone aircraft. Either way, it’s not the sort of thing you see everyday. Automation and robotics company Festo has designed a super-light drone aircraft that looks and moves like a butterfly, which is rather hypnotic to watch all by itself, but it gets better. You can unleash multiple butterfly drones and they flutter around as an interconnected group. The artificial insects (called eMotionButterflies) rely on a number of technologies to get airborne and stay there. First, there are the light plastic wings. Each one is controlled independently by a tiny servo. This allows the robot to maneuver in the air without any complicated fins of spinning blades. It’s not as precise as a quadrocopter, but it’s certainly more elegant. The hardware controlling the butterfly is also extremely compact. The robots can fly autonomously with the help of an indoor GPS system based on infrared cameras. The room seen in the video above is equipped with ten IR cameras, which watch the movement of the drones using infrared markers. The position of the drones is transmitted to a computer which then determines the drone’s location. This allows the drones to be directed around the room without running into each other. The eMotion Butterflies look almost real until you get a closer look at the ridge of naked circuit boards running down the middle. It’s an impressive piece of technology, and makes for a nice demo. That’s all it is right now, though. Festo isn’t really in the business of selling robots to consumers. These are research platforms that are part of the company’s Bionic Learning Network, which also includes artificial ants and a gripper modeled on a chameleon’s tongue.
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Robotics Industries UpdateCorwin Electronics Archives
March 2018
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