Editor’s Note: This article was originally published in March 2012, covering early advancements in autonomous drone swarms. While drone technology has evolved immensely since then, this demonstration of quadrotors working together remains a fascinating historical milestone.
Have you ever imagined James Bond’s gadgets becoming real? A group of flying robots managed to play the James Bond theme music without any human control. Instead, they were controlled by a computer communicating with the robots. These robots are known as quadrotors, which are a type of small helicopter.
Autonomous Flight and Coordination
These mini drones with four rotors are fitted with gyroscopes and various sensors to feed information about their exact position and surroundings to an onboard processor. The onboard processor acts as a brain and sends commands to the rotors, allowing the drone to react autonomously. By moving each rotor at different speeds, the bots can tilt and turn. Using infrared sensors, the robots can fly freely in any direction without colliding with each other.
These robots are hoped to have various applications in the future, such as surveillance, and could even work together to build structures. They can be sent into buildings as first responders to look for intruders, or check biochemical leaks in collapsed buildings after disasters, or enter reactor buildings to check radiation levels. Each is small, but together, they can lift heavy loads and assist in construction.
Playing the James Bond Theme
A video was filmed as the aerial robots played an electronic keyboard, a drum, a cymbal, and a giant guitar made from an old sofa. These quadrotors were programmed to hit every note and play the instruments flawlessly. The video was shown at the TED2012 conference in Long Beach, California.
The General Robotics, Automation, Sensing and Perception (GRASP) Lab at the University of Pennsylvania carried out the project. The stage was set in a room fitted with infrared lights and cameras. The nano quads have reflectors on their struts, which allows the camera system to plot their exact position and relay that information wirelessly to each unit.
The Technology Behind the Swarm
Lab members can assign each unit a series of waypoints in three dimensional space that must be reached at an exact time. In this case, those times and places translate into notes on a keyboard or a strum of a guitar. Figuring out how to get from waypoint to waypoint most efficiently and without disturbing their neighbours is entirely up to the robots.
University of Pennsylvania professor Vijay Kumar showcased these palm sized agile aerial robots at the TED conference. He explained that robots like these have many applications. Holding a miniature helicopter with four rotors, he noted that the system does not rely on GPS. The coordinate system is defined by the robot itself, based on where it is and what it is looking at.
Once the drones know how to fly in formation, they can actually pick up objects cooperatively. Researchers can multiply the robots’ strength by getting them to team up with neighbours.
The GRASP Lab previously demonstrated that their mini drones can turn, flip, fly in formation, zip through a hula hoop thrown in the air, and come zooming back to their human users like high tech boomerangs. These aerial robots were the work of doctoral students Alex Kushleyev and Daniel Mellinger.
