Did you know spiders, wasps and ants can lift upto 20 – 120 times
their body weight? Following the same principle engineers at Stanford and
Switzerland’s EPFL have created drones that can lift 40x their weight.
Earlier it was difficult for drones to carry heavier objects while
airborne. They were used for recording pictures and videos. They could not be
used for lifting objects. These drones attach themselves to a support in the
ground to get the necessary torque. Just as a wasp or spider drags its prey,
similarly these drones drag objects by attaching a hook into them. A strong
thread is used in these drones that aid the dragging. Watch the video below to
see how these drones work:
These drones known as “FlyCroTugs”
(a combination of flying, micro and tug
presumably) operate like ordinary drones when they hover in the air but they
have three additional components: an anchor to attach objects, sticky feet for
firm grip and a winch to adjust the tension in the cable that pulls the
objects.
“By combining the
aerodynamic forces of our vehicle and the interactive forces generated by the
attachment mechanisms, we were able to come up with something that is very
mobile, very strong and very small,”
said Stanford grad student Matthew Estrada, lead author of the paper
published in Science Robotics.
This invention is indeed a revolution. These 100 gram
drones can move objects weighing up to 4 kilograms. With a few of these drones
combined that can do everyday tasks like picking up trash, transferring mail, carrying
laundry and food items. They can also be used in other complex tasks like
picking explosive devices which would otherwise require a human to do it.
