[HN Gopher] The Palletrone is a robotic hovercart for moving stu...
___________________________________________________________________
The Palletrone is a robotic hovercart for moving stuff anywhere
Author : sohkamyung
Score : 122 points
Date : 2024-09-21 13:14 UTC (2 days ago)
(HTM) web link (spectrum.ieee.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (spectrum.ieee.org)
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| The article mentions this, but I still find it somewhat hilarious
| that given the very low load capacity of this thing, it would be
| about 100 times easier to just put the stuff in bags that you
| wanted to carry. And at the point where you start being able to
| carry real loads it would be noisy AF.
|
| The whole idea feels very "Juicero" to me.
| profsummergig wrote:
| Step 1: Get the patents.
|
| Step 2: Wait for the tech to mature.
|
| Step 3: $$$
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| Except in this case your "Wait for the tech to mature" step
| is basically the same "Step 2: ???" from the underpants
| gnomes.
|
| That is, how is this tech supposed to "mature" in any way to
| be actually commercially viable or an improvement upon much
| simpler methods for "moving stuff around"? Anything that ups
| the load means you're going to essentially have a giant
| copter you have to push around.
|
| Don't get me wrong, I'm sure there are cool algorithms used
| for the stabilization and "push-sensing" features, but I
| can't see how in any possible universe that this tech will be
| viable for the purported use case.
| xbmcuser wrote:
| Yeah you probably need sci Fi anti gravity type device to
| make something like this possible.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| Or you could use wheels to transfer the load directly to
| the ground, bypassing the need for lifting motors.
| __MatrixMan__ wrote:
| Too soon. Wheels aren't retro just yet.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| Yes, but wheels don't work for arbitrary terrain,
| including long enough stretches going vertical or
| backwards[0], or _liquid or gaseous terrain_ like _rivers
| and large holes in the ground_.
|
| --
|
| [0] - think terrain looking like this:
| /----------- \--- \
| ---------\
| sandworm101 wrote:
| > wheels don't work for arbitrary terrain
|
| You just need a bigger wheel.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| That's why I said "arbitrary" - to mean "bigger than the
| wheel you have".
| sandworm101 wrote:
| This is a cart being pushed by a person. So we can assume
| no terrain beyond what a person could reasonably step
| over.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| This is a cart _that can climb on its own_ - which means
| the person pushing it can climb independently. There 's a
| class of conditions where this combo can work, and
| wheeled cart won't. Whether this class of conditions is
| something you'd encounter in practice (as opposed to
| adapting things to make an existing alternative usable)
| is another thing; I outlined some potential niche use-
| cases here[0].
|
| --
|
| [0] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41627135
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| Terrain-following aerial drone tech already exists and
| has for a long time.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| That's the problem, though. Some Zefram Cochrane figures
| out how to work subspace, but all the profit from
| antigrav sleds will go to whoever won the patents for a
| pallet mounted on a quadcopter 40 years earlier.
|
| (Star Trek avoided this fate by having World War 3
| happening in between today and warp drive.)
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > That is, how is this tech supposed to "mature" in any way
| to be actually commercially viable or an improvement upon
| much simpler methods for "moving stuff around"?
|
| Doesn't need to be commercially viable, _military viable_
| is more than enough. Stick a gun or two on it and you got a
| version of the recent Ukrainian breakthrough "Fury" UGV
| [1] that doesn't depend on maneuverable terrain. Or combine
| it with some wheels to create a two-way vehicle that can
| drive efficiently on somewhat decent terrain but "air hop"
| over obstacles.
|
| Something like 30 minutes of flight time should already be
| no issue, that's enough to clear a trench.
|
| Warfare was always nasty to begin with, but since the
| advents of robotic vehicles being used against humans...
| phew.
|
| [1]
| https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidaxe/2024/09/19/ukraines-
| gu...
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| Are you trying to prove my point? The Fury UGV you link
| to is a gun on wheels, which I see as infinitely more
| usable and viable than this Palletrone contraption. And
| in cases where you would want flight capability, why
| wouldn't you just use a standard aerial drone (obviously
| used already to great effect in the Ukraine war)?
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > The Fury UGV you link to is a gun on wheels, which I
| see as infinitely more usable and viable than this
| Palletrone contraption.
|
| Palletrone is by all means a demonstrator that the idea
| is possible, an utter MVP.
|
| > And in cases where you would want flight capability,
| why wouldn't you just use a standard aerial drone
| (obviously used already to great effect in the Ukraine
| war)?
|
| The key thing IMHO is the _fusion_ of aerial and ground
| movement. A gun on wheels is nice but it 's immediately
| stopped in its tracks by anything from swampy terrain
| ("rasputiza") over a random trench to hedgehogs [1], not
| to mention mines. Give it aerial capability, even if it's
| just enough to hop over a hedgehog or a smaller river,
| and the ability to defend itself while airborne, and the
| game becomes much more serious.
|
| All you need to be is the first one to actually pull it
| off and hope it's enough of a surprise effect that the
| enemy gets hindered long enough that you can make some
| military gain out of it.
|
| Side thought: I wonder how much downforce a drone can
| actually exert on the ground. Could a heavy enough drone
| with serious bottom armor be powerful enough to detonate
| anti-personnel mines without being endangered in the
| process?
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Czech_hedgehog
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| > Give it aerial capability, even if it's just enough to
| hop over a hedgehog or a smaller river, and the ability
| to defend itself while airborne, and the game becomes
| much more serious.
|
| Again, the whole idea presented in this article is that
| it responds to people pushing on it. What you have just
| described is what a standard, existing aerial drone is
| capable of. There is already terrain-following tech that
| allows a drone to stay at a given height above the
| ground.
| profsummergig wrote:
| "No Wireless. Less Space than a Nomad. Lame."
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| Do you think this counts as an argument? Because I'm
| quite sure which device I think is analogous to the Nomad
| in this situation...
|
| If you have any actual thoughts on how a device like this
| could ever be relevant in the real world, I'm all ears.
| amelius wrote:
| No, obviously it goes like:
|
| Step 1: Impress investors
|
| Step 2: Get $$$
|
| Step 3: ???
| taneq wrote:
| Also as anyone who's tried to fly a drone inside in a small
| room will know, the minor hurricane this creates will cause it
| to be super unstable as well as making the environment super
| uncomfortable for everyone in it.
| idunnoman1222 wrote:
| completely unloaded. It's noisy as fuck.
| scottlawson wrote:
| To put this in perspective, it supports up to 3kg in the
| demonstration. That's a fraction of what I can support with one
| finger.
| xeyownt wrote:
| Ok, but it's cargo AND vacuum cleaner. Can your finger do that?
| thewanderer1983 wrote:
| And can your finger AI? Doubt it.
| psychoslave wrote:
| Related https://www.popsci.com/technology/double-neural-
| bypass-surge...
| shermantanktop wrote:
| More like a downward pointing leaf blower, driving the dirt
| from high traffic areas into every corner of the house.
| gs17 wrote:
| My apartment pays for people to come by and blow dirt
| around every so often, so maybe this could let delivery
| people pick up extra cash on the side!
| jalk wrote:
| If they made it more stable, you could use it to move your
| nitroglycerin around, in 3kg batches
| falcor84 wrote:
| Now you got me curious - how many kg can you support with a
| single finger, and what's your exercise regime?
| swagasaurus-rex wrote:
| Professional climbers are known for being able to hang off of
| two fingers.
|
| It usually takes years of training to be able to do this.
| taneq wrote:
| It's one thing to be able to hang off a finger hooked over
| a tiny ledge, it's much easier to hook a handle and lift a
| load vertically. Most adult humans could lift 10kg witha
| couple of fingers.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| Except for a fair comparison with this particular drone,
| you need a figure for how much you can carry _on top of
| your finger_ , pointing upwards, while keeping it
| balanced.
| meindnoch wrote:
| If there's a handle you can hook into, anyone can carry ~20kg
| with a single finger (index or middle finger). For me, the
| limiting factor would be the handle biting into my finger too
| hard, but I can likely go up to 40kgs.
| HeyLaughingBoy wrote:
| 20kg is about the weight of a bag of water softener salt.
| No way am I carrying that from one finger for more than
| about 10 feet exactly because of the limiting factor you
| mention.
| lm28469 wrote:
| I deadlift about 60kg with two fingers (middle), I can easily
| hang on two fingers (one of each hand), so about 37kg per
| finger. Some people can do one finger pullups
|
| As for the regime: just lift heavy shit every day and climb
| one/twice a week
| erulabs wrote:
| I've had a long day and for just a split second I was excited for
| this to be something other than exactly what I expected and
| exactly what it is. For about 700ms I felt real technological
| excitement again. Dang. Funny tho!
| euroderf wrote:
| Scale up the loads, and if it does stairs, unattended, then rent
| it out for moving days.
| nikolay wrote:
| All the dirt particles from the floor get airborne in an instant
| - great for allergies and infections!
| schobi wrote:
| I can imagine situations where I hold something, thinking "this
| needs to go there". Cleanup, but also moving days, gardening,
| construction. I like the concept of the "luggage from sapient
| pearwood" - maybe tell it where to go, drop off something and
| come back? Put a box on it, and it will carry it down the stairs?
|
| This is not it. Needs to be quiet and energy efficient, but still
| handle stairs and garden... If I need to follow it, I could just
| use an exoskeleton - no, please make this autonomous.
|
| If you've solved voice interface, navigation, low power.. Then
| you almost have a humanoid robot who could also put the laundry
| in the washing machine, not just next to it.
| microtherion wrote:
| Maybe the next step is to walk a path with it once and then
| have it repeat it. I often have groceries delivered that
| require me to walk a dozen times to my basement to stow it
| away. If I have to do it once for "teaching" and then repeat it
| 11 more times, that would be a win.
|
| Also, as a reminder to the "do you even lift, bro" crowd, there
| is an increasing number of aging people with declining physical
| strength that could potentially benefit from a product like
| this. Yes, with current drone technology this is too noisy /
| turbulent / energy inefficient to be entirely practical, but
| how many of these limits are due to fundamental physics
| constraints and how many still have quite a bit of room for
| expansion?
| Zababa wrote:
| Agree that people could benefit from it. However:
|
| > Also, as a reminder to the "do you even lift, bro" crowd,
| there is an increasing number of aging people with declining
| physical strength that could potentially benefit from a
| product like this.
|
| These people would benefit from lifting too. Physical decline
| seems inevitable, but its speed seems malleable.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| > _These people would benefit from lifting too. Physical
| decline seems inevitable, but its speed seems malleable._
|
| Not for those who're already at the point of needing things
| like that. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of
| cure... except if you're already sick.
| stackghost wrote:
| >how many of these limits are due to fundamental physics
| constraints
|
| All of them.
|
| Even with a 10x increase in battery energy density, you still
| need to move the same volume of air to generate enough upward
| thrust for a given weight.
| robotresearcher wrote:
| Yeah, and that's a very large volume of air for most
| interesting payloads. You have to move the same mass of air
| as the vehicle mass plus the payload mass. That's a lot of
| air. Running UAVs indoors in a normal sized room quickly
| starts large air currents that have to be faught by blowing
| more air...
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| > _I can imagine situations where I hold something, thinking
| "this needs to go there"._
|
| I'll do you better. _Every goddamn day_ I have situations where
| I have something in my hands that I would like to let go of
| _and have it stay exactly there_. I often dream of a magical
| solution that would let me create small, temporary flat
| surfaces out of thin air. I envy the astronauts on the ISS; my
| life feel like one constant shortage of empty flat surfaces.
|
| Of course, this thing is not that either - maybe it would keep
| my thing suspended where I want it, but the propellers would
| blow _everything else_ out of where it is.
| robotresearcher wrote:
| Stuff doesn't stay put on the ISS either. Even if you could
| let go of something with zero velocity relative to yourself,
| there are air currents to keep the air safely mixed.
| Astronauts have Velcro to keep stuff in place. Special
| fireproof Velcro, IIRC.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| You're right. But I'd still go far with the ability for
| things to stay _roughly_ where I let go of them, for about
| a minute or two.
|
| Velcro is nice too, but it also depends on the microgravity
| environment - even if I lined every object and every
| vertical surface I could find with velcro strips, many of
| the objects would be too heavy to remain in place in 1G.
| Terr_ wrote:
| > small, temporary flat surfaces out of thin air
|
| Hmmm, short of force-field technology, I think there's a
| slightly different solution which we might be getting close
| to: A robot assistant that can recognize when it is offered
| objects, and then returns them. This role may be familiar to
| anyone who has ever helped a parent do car/home repairs.
|
| Human: "Take this."
|
| Bot: "This looks new, please name the object."
|
| Human: "It's a sprongle wrench."
|
| Bot: "Taking sprongle wrench."
|
| Human: "Give me the sprongle wrench."
|
| Bot: "Here's the sprongle wrench."
|
| ____
|
| Back to your flat-surface scenario, perhaps similar system
| could create virtual shelves or cubbyholes? When you present
| the robot an item, it remembers the handoff location in
| space, and moving your hand there again causes it to offer
| the corresponding object. You'd probably need some sort of
| augmented-reality display in order to quickly see what's
| available though.
| throwawayben wrote:
| I'll stick with my hoverbarrow, don't need all this AI stuff.
| https://youtu.be/OmJ-8JMw_l4
| psychoslave wrote:
| Nice but a bit noisy it seems. Also I'm not sure as is it can
| keep the surface horizontal in a staircase.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| The one in the article is going to be hella loud too though,
| big drone right in front of you.
| throwaway743 wrote:
| Love the shot of the dude walking through the neighborhood
| without a care. Just imagining 5 of these being used at the
| same time, on the same block, starting early morning through
| the afternoon. People would go mad lol
| dylan604 wrote:
| Or the shoddy work in brick laying. Every stone cutter at
| their monthly meeting just dropped their head in shame at the
| haphazardly way it was put together.
| btbuildem wrote:
| The one thing they don't tell you about the hoverbarrow is what
| happens once you're on a downslope
| aidenn0 wrote:
| In the video there is a gentle downslope and it does look
| rather uncomfortable even on that.
| AymanJabr wrote:
| No audio of the actual thing. How loud is this?
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| Big quadcopter drone up close loud, that is, very.
| theginger wrote:
| I genuinely don't know if this is meant to be real or a joke.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| I don't believe for a second they are actually trying to sell
| this as a commercial product. It only does 3 kilograms on a
| platform that has to be open / cannot be fully covered.
| Upscaling it means a bigger and louder drone.
|
| That said, the clip where two of them hook together to swap a
| battery is neat. Impractical, but neat.
| tastyfreeze wrote:
| It looks like an undergraduate research project. The kind of
| thing that is a curiosity for a professor or student.
| tempodox wrote:
| I've been dreaming of a floating tray for all of my life, albeit
| in the form of a noiseless fluffy cloud and robust enough for you
| to sit on. If I'm going to float stuff around, I'll definitely
| want to float myself, too.
| actionfromafar wrote:
| "Conventional wheel-based cargo transportations struggle on
| uneven terrain, such as stairs."
|
| https://youtu.be/9hvRhZIhFR4?t=14
|
| Great dead-pan comedy! :-D
| mcphage wrote:
| I've been waiting years for Tenser's Floating Disc, but this
| ain't it.
| dhudjnsnh wrote:
| This would be great for bars that completely fill their glasses
| up to the tippy top...
| remoquete wrote:
| Not sure if they knew about this or Kojima predicted the future,
| but a conceptually similar floating carrier was in Death
| Stranding:
| https://deathstranding.fandom.com/wiki/Floating_carrier
|
| Maybe games inspire life?
| Waterluvian wrote:
| Sci fi: "what about..."
|
| Life: "there's a reason it's Sci fi."
| bleuarff wrote:
| I, for one, thought of a similar concept from Zelda Tears of
| the Kingdom.
| Mistletoe wrote:
| This isn't the only similarity I see between current life and
| the Death Stranding world. It and Idiocracy seem to be the most
| prescient looks into the modern world I live in.
|
| Most everyone I know is becoming more and more withdrawn into
| their house, except for their occasional shipment from Amazon
| or the grocery store to their front door.
| neaanopri wrote:
| Imagine how loud this will be
|
| "THIS IS THE PALLETDRONE" "WHAT?" <inaudible>
| kshriner wrote:
| Heh, this was my first thought too.
| bitwize wrote:
| Neat, it's like the ones from Death Stranding, which you can drag
| up to two of on a tether behind you carrying additional cargo.
| mhb wrote:
| That's great. How do I get it under my refrigerator?
| black6 wrote:
| Loudest shopping cart ever.
| sharpshadow wrote:
| It's probably very noisy and will be a mess when dirt and dust is
| involved.
|
| I like a similar but different idea where you have a little
| flying companion which follows you, can sit on you shoulder,
| recharge and return, follows commands.. something like a flying
| phone.
| ActionHank wrote:
| Also very little weight can be moved with a drone as the more
| powerful it gets, the bigger the batteries need to be which
| decreases the amount additional of weight you can move.
| CommieBobDole wrote:
| The best thing about articles describing "technology that would
| be incredible except for the one obvious and insurmountable-with-
| current-technology problem that makes it absolutely useless and
| is the reason that nobody else did this" is the inevitable point
| where they admit that it's absolutely useless because of the
| obvious and insurmountable problem but that the team is totally
| working on solving it any day now.
|
| In this case the problem is that it only carries 3kg and has
| almost no battery life, but the team is working on another drone
| that follows it around and changes the batteries when they run
| out, so eventually for the minimal cost of two of these and like
| a million batteries you can carry 3kg indefinitely. Or you could
| just carry it with your hands for free.
| __MatrixMan__ wrote:
| I think of it as betting that antigravity is just around the
| corner. Not a bet I'd make, but I do admire the gumption.
| regularfry wrote:
| I would think that the fact that the downdraft will make this
| completely useless in any environment that has any small
| objects untethered within about a 2m radius also falls into
| that category.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| >> only carries 3kg and has almost no battery life
|
| Don't worry. They will used beamed microwave power delivery.
| The operator will just have to wear a 2.5kg lead apron to
| protect themselves. When used for food delivery, the power
| delivery beam will also act as an effective heat lamp.
| CommieBobDole wrote:
| With a powerful enough microwave beam, you could lift and
| propel the thing through surface ablation and wouldn't need
| the propellers at all.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| If we're going for line-of-sight, a more realistic solution
| would be to _ditch the battery and hook it up to mains_ (or
| a portable generator); see my longer reply upthread.
| knodi123 wrote:
| Good god, I nearly did a spit take. That's the most
| irresponsible and horrifying tech idea I've ever heard.
| That's great, but we can do better- what about Project
| Orion but for local food delivery?
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Orion_(nuclear_propul
| s...
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| The problem is surmountable in narrow cases in a quite easy, if
| for some reason non-obvious, way: _ditch the battery and plug
| it in to AC power_. This would also give it extra carrying
| capacity, bringing it up to, say, to 10kg. Now this still isn
| 't much, and it would be compromising stability a bit
| (especially outdoors) due to reduced inertia, but I can think
| of couple narrow applications:
|
| - Actually carry stuff up the stairs. Sure, lifts and
| wheelchair lifts already exist, but not everywhere. If the
| proliferation of _cars_ over the last century taught us
| anything, it 's that worse solutions that require less or zero
| construction changes on-site win. Classic "worse is better".
|
| - Ferry light cargo across long but thin stretches of
| impassable terrain. Think military or EMTs moving supplies back
| and forth over a river, construction crew moving small stuff up
| the steep mountainside. Sure, there exist solutions for this
| already, but they're bulkier and more expensive to set up; for
| the drone, all you need is a generator and a long power cable.
|
| (Yes, I'm stretching credulity here a bit. Yes, this particular
| product makes little sense as-is, but the idea of a stabilized
| drone platform isn't, in general, entirely bad.)
|
| Side question: what if they replaced the batteries and electric
| motors with gas tanks and an ICE? Maybe that could give it more
| useful carrying capacity, at the expense of noise and being
| unsexy to modern environmental sensibilities.
| stackghost wrote:
| >Side question: what if they replaced the batteries and
| electric motors with gas tanks and an ICE?
|
| Congratulations, you have invented the helicopter.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| I know. Specifically, I _reinvented_ gasoline-powered model
| RC helicopters, that were all the rage before battery-
| powered quadcopters became a thing, _and scaled them up_.
| I.e. I don 't recall anyone trying a "palletrone"-like
| thing with an ICE-based platform, despite the tech for it
| being mature for like 50 years or so.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > I.e. I don't recall anyone trying a "palletrone"-like
| thing with an ICE-based platform, despite the tech for it
| being mature for like 50 years or so.
|
| You need far greater reaction speeds for a viable
| quadcopter to remain stable than an ICE, much less a
| turbojet engine, is capable of.
|
| There has been some project featured on here, I think it
| was a single-prop chopper, kept hovering and centered
| _just by minutely controlling exactly when torque was
| created by the motor_. Absolutely f..ing nuts.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| > _I think it was a single-prop chopper, kept hovering
| and centered just by minutely controlling exactly when
| torque was created by the motor. Absolutely f..ing nuts._
|
| I recall a video of someone sticking a RC chopper rotor
| to a fixed-wing model aircraft and turning it into a
| thrust vectoring propeller with software, giving the
| plane ability to pull some unique acrobatics.
|
| > _You need far greater reaction speeds for a viable
| quadcopter to remain stable than an ICE, much less a
| turbojet engine, is capable of._
|
| You can split the problem in two: use ICE to generate
| thrust, vector it with passive elements on fast-reacting
| electric servos. Or, you can retain all the electric
| hardware, but replace the battery with an ICE generator
| and a gas tank - the main problem here is reducing
| weight, and gasoline has much better energy density than
| batteries.
| marcosdumay wrote:
| Hum... Helicopters have several disadvantages for finely
| controlled flights near the ground.
|
| You will probably want to feed a generator and some small
| battery pack.
| madaxe_again wrote:
| No, he has invented the Hover Barrow - as seen in 1960.
|
| https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=OmJ-8JMw_l4
| robotresearcher wrote:
| Dragging a power cable up and down stairs? Cables are heavy
| and they snag on stuff. If you ever do a mobile robot project
| with a tether you quickly discover these are their primary
| properties.
| lurquer wrote:
| I'm surprised they didn't include the default purpose for all
| similarly useless inventions: Search and Rescue.
| Aeolun wrote:
| I think, besides the battery issues, that a large problem with
| something that is powerful enough to carry a respectable
| weight, is that it is also powerful enough to lop your arm off
| if you're not careful.
| atoav wrote:
| I really wish such journalists (or their editors) would have to
| spend a day using that stuff. Any professional who moves stuff
| around will have their prefered helping technology, be it
| wagons or a hand cart or whatever, but that stuff?
|
| Unless your usecase is to deliver a sixpack of beer across a
| minefield any other solution will work better and that includes
| putting your stuff on a tablecloth and dragging it across the
| floor
| akavi wrote:
| The other thing is, is if there was demand for load-carrying,
| rough terrain compatible robots, why aren't legged robots like
| Boston Dynamics' making a dent in the market?
|
| They're strictly superior than the hoverbot on battery life and
| carrying capacity, are there other downsides I'm missing? Or is
| there just plain not a market for this thing?
| Log_out_ wrote:
| its singularity speculation .if the battery gets better, the
| power source gets smaller or a smaller lift generator gets
| developed you might be able to exercise upwards lift from the
| next tesla via patents .
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| The funny thing is that (power density) isn't even the only
| single obvious and insurmountable problem. What about:
|
| 1. The fact that carrying larger loads would make this
| extremely noisy, making it nearly impossible to use anywhere
| indoors.
|
| 2. Similarly, as another commenter said, if you scaled up the
| load capacity, then you'd basically be creating a hurricane in
| any enclosed space.
|
| 3. Thus, if all you are left with is outdoor applications, this
| device compares negatively in nearly every way with a standard
| delivery aerial drone.
| solfox wrote:
| > that the team is totally working on solving it any day now.
|
| With just a itty bitty bit more funding!
| Kon-Peki wrote:
| > In this case the problem is that it only carries 3kg and has
| almost no battery life, but the team is working on another
| drone that follows it around and changes the batteries when
| they run out
|
| We do that in America too:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_MQ-25_Stingray
| LASR wrote:
| The only useful part of this might be the mid-air battery-swap
| tech.
|
| A drone with an effectively unlimited runtime would be pretty
| useful in some narrow applications.
|
| But as a pallet? Come on. Cool technical ideas. But terrible
| applications.
| jjk166 wrote:
| Instead of an elaborate control scheme to differentiate forces
| from the load versus forces from the operator, why not just put a
| thumbstick or two on the handle?
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| In practice this would end up with something in between. A more
| "direct" control scheme is nice, but you still need some fail-
| safe button that makes sure the operator doesn't accidentally
| kill themselves or someone else when they let go of the handle.
| dialup_sounds wrote:
| The control scheme is the point of the paper.
| jjk166 wrote:
| Yeah, but under what circumstances such a control scheme
| actually be useful?
| iancmceachern wrote:
| This takes a huge amount of energy and complexity to solve a
| barely there problem that is largely already solved.
| admjs wrote:
| Literally re-inventing the wheel.
| bloopernova wrote:
| I think a better pallet-drone would be a 4 or 6 legged thing that
| just goes where you push it. Up stairs, over obstacles, across
| rocky paths, fords rivers, and tiptoes through forest underbrush.
|
| Not exactly related: I've been reading about WW2 and just
| finished a book on the Sicily/Italy campaign. The mountains
| caused massive loss of life because defensive positions were so
| difficult to dislodge. Very much the same as the "fight for every
| hilltop" carnage in the Pacific theater. I was wondering if a
| "mech" would even work on mountainous areas, whether it had 2, 4
| or 6 legs. It seems like you'd need something with the agility
| and sure-footing of a mountain goat.
| colechristensen wrote:
| The Boston dynamics robots seem like they could have plenty of
| utility in a mountainous environment. It seems like it would be
| quite possible
| robotresearcher wrote:
| Possible, yes. But enormously worse than a mule or two men.
| thegabriele wrote:
| You might enjoy the movie "Young Ones"
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Young_Ones_%28film%29
| aabajian wrote:
| Why not make these much, much smaller, and have the battery swap
| be part of the design? Connect 100 bee-sized platforms together
| in a grid. Any one of which could be the "battery swapper" bee
| and keep the rest of the flock afloat?
| zackmorris wrote:
| That's actually a pretty cool idea! I'm envisioning cubes about
| 10 cm on a side that can lift perhaps 100 grams to 1 kg, with
| magnetic latching (maybe solenoids controlling stronger
| latches) so they can self-organize into larger platforms.
| They'd use ultracapacitors with roughly a 1 second recharge
| time.
|
| So they'd constantly travel from the base station to the swarm,
| picking up energy and depositing it to the others. They'd form
| a platform that can lift appreciable amounts of weight, maybe
| even 100 kg (a person), and fly forever.
|
| Right now I think drones like that would cost around $100 each.
| But if they could be made for $10, then conservatively we could
| have flying platforms for around $10,000. And unlike batteries,
| the capacitors would last forever.
|
| Not so much grey goo, more like grey girders. I haven't
| researched this at all yet, if it already exists.
| cfgauss2718 wrote:
| Even if you could get around the payload and energy density
| (power autonomy) constraints, which are very stringent, this
| seems like a dead product. Sure, it's a cool project for some
| controls engineers. But I can scarcely imagine the deafening
| noise this thing makes, and no doubt it would tend to kick up
| clouds of dust anywhere it went, which is hardly desirable from a
| health perspective. This kind of device would be a permanent
| irritant in almost any environment. Thankfully, buildings are
| already well equipped with things like elevators. I'll keep my
| wheeled cart, thank you very much.
| Animats wrote:
| It's a nice piece of classical control theory. No neural nets,
| just old-style Laplace transforms. This approach might be useful
| for wheeled devices such as pallet jacks. Those are pushed around
| by humans, but some have power assist. If you could just push the
| thing around, but it felt much lighter than it was, that would be
| useful.
| robertlagrant wrote:
| Genuinely I've been thinking about a drone that connects to a
| backpack with a battery in, and just carries my drink for me. How
| often do you go to a dinner party and you need three hands,
| right? Or you're scrambling up Scarfell Pike with a latte?
| willmadden wrote:
| Meh. I would rather see terrestrial spider drones with powerful
| magnets swarming to create a magnetic levitation platform for the
| pallet. No downdraft, much higher capacity. The drones can go
| recharge themselves at a nearby base station and scurry back.
| ChuckMcM wrote:
| Because of course I want people to carry around leaf blowers in
| my office.
|
| Yeah, it's snarky but gosh that thing has to be SUPER noisy. I
| find it annoying when people use leaf blowers outside (yes even
| electric ones, which are not as bad but you can't blow that much
| air without the noise) Now having them walking the hallways? That
| seems like a total non-starter to me.
| jandrese wrote:
| This is mostly dumb, but the dragonfly mating style battery swap
| in mid air is fun to watch.
| gusfoo wrote:
| > The Palletrone is a robotic hovercart for moving stuff anywhere
|
| No, it really is not. It's a tech demo of moving 3 kilos in an
| awkward and loud manner, a task that has negative practical
| value.
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