Drone turns into snake during flight to fit anywhere

Researchers at the University of Tokyo won the "Unmanned Aerial Vehicle" award at the 2018 International Conference on Robotics and Automation last month for its aerial robot that can transform into different forms in the air. a prototype, but its shape-shifting features can be seen in this IEEE Spectrum unlisted YouTube video:

The prototype is called DRAGON, which is short for "Dual-rotor embedded multilink Robot with the Ability of Multi-of-Freedom Aerial Transformation, " according to Jouhou Kougaku Systems Laboratory (JSK Lab) at Tokyo University. The dragon drone is designed to be a standalone UAV that can adapt to fly through obstacles.

The idea of ​​DRAGON, which consists of four thrusters, is that it can change shape to fit through different gaps and structures, according to the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers. Shapes range from Serpent straight, vertically, diagonally, and "square."

In other words, you can hide, but you can't run. Fortunately, the prototype seen in the video can only fly for about three minutes.

The video showed the prototype starting in a square shape and extending to a snake-like figure. Transformation is just the beginning of the true potentials of UAV. The drone dragon will be designed to one day be able to grasp objects such as a human arm, for example.

Until then the dominance in creating macabre robots was with Boston Dynamics, which even said it will be marketing the "dog robots" as early as 2019, but apparently we have another group of researchers entering the race.

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Drone turns into snake during flight to fit anywhere via TecMundo