A multi-modal hovering and terrestrial robot with adaptive morphology

Most current drones are designed with a static morphology aimed at exploiting a single locomotion mode. This results in limited versatility and adaptability to multi-domain environments, such as those encountered in rescue missions, agriculture and inspection, where multiple locomotion capabilities could be more effective. For example, hovering and terrestrial locomotion are complementary and can increase versatility by allowing the robot achieve speed and ease of obstacle negotiation during flight, or low power consumption and reduced noise signature while moving on the ground. With this aim, the paper presents the design and characterization of a multi-modal quadcopter with adaptive morphology by means of foldable arms. After landing, the quadcopter folds the frontal arms and uses whegs and tracks to move on the ground. The foldable arms allow to decrease the size of the robot in order to achieve more mobility in confined ground environments; to perform a self-righting maneuver if the drone falls upside down; and to negotiate large gaps by strategically unfolding them during terrestrial locomotion

A Pocket Sized Foldable Quadcopter for Situational Awareness and Reconnaissance

Flying robots are rapidly becoming an essential tool in search and rescue missions because they can rapidly gather information from inaccessible or unsafe locations, thus increasing safety and rapidity of interventions. With this aim, we present a pocket sized foldable quadcopter equipped with a camera. The drone is a portable and rugged “flying-eye” that aims to extend or move the field of view of the rescuer for situational awareness and safe reconnaissance. The quadcopter can be packaged for transportation by folding its arms and it self-deploys in a glimpse before usage. Its compliant foldable arms make it rugged, reducing the risk of failure after collisions. The drone is remotely operated and it can stream sound, thermal and visual images in real time to rescuers. The prototype of the foldable quadcopter is experimentally characterized and assessed in preliminary field tests

Last-Centimeter Personal Drone Delivery: Field Deployment and User Interaction

Drones are rapidly becoming an affordable and often faster solution for parcel delivery than terrestrial vehicles. Existing transportation drones and software infrastructures are mostly designed by logistics companies for trained users and dedicated infrastructure, and are to be used for either long range (<150 km) or last-mile delivery (<20 km). This letter presents Dronistics, an integrated software and hardware system for last-centimeter (<5 km) person-to-person delivery using cargo drones. The system is conceived to be intuitive and intrinsically safe to enable short-distance deliveries between inexperienced users. Dronistics is composed of a safe foldable drone (PackDrone) and a web application software to intuitively control and track the drone in real time. In order to assess Dronistics’ user acceptance, we conducted 150 deliveries over one month on the EPFL campus in Switzerland. Here we describe the results of these tests by analyzing flight statistics, environmental conditions, and user reactions. Moreover, we also describe technical problems that occurred during flight tests and solutions that could prevent them

FOLDAWAY DroneSense, a controller for haptic information encoding for drone pilots

Over the last decade, the number of drones has significantly increased. In parallel, researchers have started to investigate new human-drone interaction paradigms for a more natural and immersive piloting experience. The use of haptic feedback to establish a bidirectional interaction with a remote drone is a promising yet not fully exploited paradigm. In this article we introduce FOLDAWAY DroneSense, a portable controller with multi-directional force feedback for drone piloting. We also discuss four haptic interaction paradigms with the aim of boosting immersion and safety during teleoperation, and to simplify the training of first-time users

An origami-inspired cargo drone

Multicopters stand to revolutionize parcel delivery because of their capability to operate in areas with unsuitable road infrastructure and precisely maneuver in cluttered environments. However, current multicopters for delivery can be dangerous for people, and are difficult to store and transport. Safety issues arise because users are exposed to unshielded spinning propellers. Transportation to the place of deployment and storage is often impaired by the large size that is required for heavy lifting. This paper addresses these limitations by proposing the integration of a quadcopter into a foldable protective cage. The cage provides an all-round protective structure that physically separates the propellers from the environment, ensuring the safety of people. The drone and the cage can be easily folded with a single movement, significantly reducing its size for ease of storage and transportation. This design has been validated with a quadcopter that can lift parcels up to 500 g and reduce its storage volume by 92% when folded

A Soft Robot for Random Exploration of Terrestrial Environments

A swarm of randomly moving miniature robots is an effective solution for the exploration of unknown terrains. However, the deployment of a swarm of miniature robots poses two challenges: finding an adequate locomotion strategy for fast exploration and obstacles negotiation; and implementing simple design and control solutions suited for mass manufacturing. Here, we tackle these challenges by developing a new soft robot with a minimalistic design and a simple control strategy that can randomly propel itself above obstacles and roll on the ground upon landing. The robot is equipped with two propellers that are periodically activated to jump, a soft cage that protects the robot from impacts and allows to passively roll on the ground, and a passive self-righting mechanism for repetitive jumps. The minimalistic control and design reduce the complexity of the mechanics and electronics and are instrumental to the production of a large number of robots. In the paper, the key design aspects of the robot are discussed, the locomotion of a single prototype is experimentally characterized, and improvements of the system for future swarm operations are discussed

A Drone with Insect-Inspired Folding Wings

Flying robots are increasingly adopted in search and rescue missions because of their capability to quickly collect and stream information from remote and dangerous areas. To further enhance their use, we are investigating the development of a new class of drones, foldable sensorized hubs that can quickly take off from rescuers’ hands as soon as they are taken out of a pocket or a backpack. With this aim, this paper presents the development of a foldable wing inspired by insects. The wing can be packaged for transportation or deployed for flight in half a second with a simple action from the user. The wing is manufactured as a thick origami structure with a foldable multi-layer material. The prototype of the foldable wing is experimentally characterized and validated in flight on a mini-drone

Insect-Inspired Mechanical Resilience for Multicopters

The ease of use and versatility of drones has contributed to their deployment in several fields, from entertainment to search and rescue. However, drones remain vulnerable to collisions due to pilot mistakes or various system failures. This paper presents a bioinspired strategy for the design of quadcopters resilient to collisions. Abstracting the biomechanical strategy of collision resilient insects’ wings, the quadcopter has a dual-stiffness frame that rigidly withstands aerodynamic loads within the flight envelope, but can soften and fold during a collision to avoid damage. The dual-stiffness frame works in synergy with specific energy absorbing materials that protect the sensitive components of the drone hosted in the central case. The proposed approach is compared to other state-of- the art collision-tolerance strategies and is validated in a 50g quadcopter that can withstand high speed collisions