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Watch a swarm of flying robotic drones construct a tiny building

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Re: Watch a swarm of flying robotic drones construct a tiny building

#5
Pretty neat! I'm sure they'll get to it eventually, but there's no advantage to having three drones in this demo, since the work isn't pipelined. It seems that a drone has to wait until one finishes picking stuff up before it can pick up something itself.

Re: Watch a swarm of flying robotic drones construct a tiny building

#6
post #3

Interesting, but robotic cranes on the ground would seem to be more efficient and reliable in ordinary circumstances. It's not a question of how to grip it, It's a simple question of weight ratios.

What you say makes sense - robotic cranes should be able to operate with heavier pieces, and will require less energy per piece placement.

However, MAVs (micro air vehicles) could reach into places where cranes wouldn't be able - i.e. inside the building. Also you can have many more MAVs working at the same time than cranes, so MAVs might be able to considerably speed up the building process.

Re: Watch a swarm of flying robotic drones construct a tiny building

#7
post #3

Interesting, but robotic cranes on the ground would seem to be more efficient and reliable in ordinary circumstances. It's not a question of how to grip it, It's a simple question of weight ratios.

Key word being "ordinary".

Once you are free of that limitation, applications of this technique on varying scales opens up a new "world" of possibilities.

Pipelining/Parallelization could be achieved by throwing more bots at the problem.

Re: Watch a swarm of flying robotic drones construct a tiny building

#8
post #7
post #3

Interesting, but robotic cranes on the ground would seem to be more efficient and reliable in ordinary circumstances. It's not a question of how to grip it, It's a simple question of weight ratios.

Key word being "ordinary". Once you are free of that limitation, applications of this technique on varying scales opens up a new "world" of possibilities. Pipelining/Parallelization could be achieved by throwing more bots at the problem.

[deleted]

Re: Watch a swarm of flying robotic drones construct a tiny building

#9
post #6
post #3

Interesting, but robotic cranes on the ground would seem to be more efficient and reliable in ordinary circumstances. It's not a question of how to grip it, It's a simple question of weight ratios.

What you say makes sense - robotic cranes should be able to operate with heavier pieces, and will require less energy per piece placement. However, MAVs (micro air vehicles) could reach into places where cranes wouldn't be able - i.e. inside the building. Also you can have many more MAVs working at the same time than cranes, so MAVs might be able to considerably speed up the building process.

There's no reason you can't combine these approaches. Using larger ground-based equipment to move girders and small, flying machines to do things like interior finishing makes a lot of sense.

Re: Watch a swarm of flying robotic drones construct a tiny building

#10
post #6
post #3

Interesting, but robotic cranes on the ground would seem to be more efficient and reliable in ordinary circumstances. It's not a question of how to grip it, It's a simple question of weight ratios.

What you say makes sense - robotic cranes should be able to operate with heavier pieces, and will require less energy per piece placement. However, MAVs (micro air vehicles) could reach into places where cranes wouldn't be able - i.e. inside the building. Also you can have many more MAVs working at the same time than cranes, so MAVs might be able to considerably speed up the building process.

How about the combination for both. Perhaps there could be a 80/20 mix. It could very well make a lot more economic sense. It would seem like the cost vs moving weight ration would be much higher for MAVs compared to a crane.
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