As Amazon and Google race to control the commercial drone market, will these enthusiasts beat them at their own game?
Imperial College in London is a mind-boggling labyrinth of ramps and walkways that might have been designed to test the IQ of visitors. The Aerial Robotics Laboratory is so well hidden that Mirko Kovac, its Swiss-born director, should offer academic credits to anyone who can find him. Kovac, a slight, precise man of 34, flits between tables as he demonstrates the lab’s latest prototype, a flying 3D printer modelled on the edible-nest swiftlet, a small Asian bird. “Our aim is to create designs inspired by nature,” he says. “They may look very different, but the underlying principles are the same.” His team has also built a robot that jumps and glides like a flying squirrel; while working at Harvard, Kovac developed a three-stage rocket, half the length of a Bic ballpoint, that mimics the boost-and-glide flight of butterflies. Kovac is softly spoken, which makes it all the more disarming when he puts forth his vision of the future. “We want to create machines that can live autonomously, building nests, repairing each other and reproducing within their own ecosystems.”
There will be no difficulty finding Imperial’s new Aerial Robotics Lab when it opens later this year. It is intended to be the focal point of the London campus, part aviary and part aquarium, with glass walls that will allow passersby to watch machines hover and dive, swim underwater or build nests in the roof space. It is a very public show of commitment by the university to the future of aerial robotics or, as they’re better known, drones.
The US military has flown drones since the 1950s. It now has 10,000 machines operating under strict military secrecy.
Related: Got a personal drone for Christmas? Use with caution
Continue reading...
from Robotics News & Articles http://ift.tt/1C3xkpy
0 comments:
Post a Comment