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Quadrotor Robots Improve Building Skills Video
Ah, quadrotor robots, the busy flying robot builders of our future, have been improving their skills. A robodrome of quadrotor robots are shown in the video below building with bricks.
(Autonomous team of quadrotor robot builders video)
SF writer James P. Hogan created builder drones in his 1979 book The Two Faces of Tomorrow:
A sudden rushing sound, like that of high-velocity ducted air, mixed with a fainter electric whine, came from halfway up the wall to their right... It was an array of open compartments that looked like pigeon holes for mail, except that each was a foot or more square...The noise was coming from one of these objects. The object that it was coming from was a dull-gray cylinder about six inches across, lying on its side on top of a flat tubular framework that contained a mass of tightly packed gadgetry and wiring. The near end of the cylinder was distinctly insectlike, with a profusion of miniature probes and jointed arms, and a circle of recessed windows that could have been lens apertures.
It extended three of its tiny arms sideways to lock onto the registration pins located at intervals across the face and then, holding itself quite steady in the air, traversed slowly sideways until its axis was aligned with the array element from which Chris had taken the cartridge.
(Read more about the repair drones)
Although the Swiss Federal Institute Institute of Technology still has some work to go in terms of creating a building site with nothing but flying robots doing the work, I think that James P. Hogan has a pretty good idea. What if each construction worker had a couple of autonomous quadrotor robots fetching tools for him? How about a brick-layer who had a flying robot grab the next brick for him, and then position it over the wet mortar for him to place?
Perhaps readers can think of similar tasks that would be possible right now, rather than in the future?
Via Technabob.
Scroll down for more stories in the same category. (Story submitted 12/5/2011)
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