
Real life “Constructicon” quadcopter robots being developed - evo_9
http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/107217-real-life-constructicon-quadcopter-robots-being-developed
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nickolai
I think I recall something like this posted some time ago. It is an
interesting idea, with a few caveats :

* At least in the video at the bottom of the article, it is not actually a swarm - there is never more than one robot doing each task (pickup, place), and one can see them waiting to get a 'workzone' cleared before moving in. In a swarm I'd imagine each flier working independently, with interaction limited to collision avoidance and occasional cooperation when needed(lift heavier block, etc).

* I hardly see such bots battling even moderate windspeeds in a real-life construction project, while carying any kind of real-life construction material block - assuming they can even lift one.

* Intuitively, I'd say this way of building is very energy-inefficient (in terms of power used by the drones) - but I'd love to see some actual figures.

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burgerbrain
If you are referring to the University of Pennsylvania quadrotor construction
video, they _were_ doing pipelining, basically for collision avoidance. They
also have some cooperative lifting videos.

Edit: this article has that video at the end.

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ianb
If making a building involved stacking blocks then it would be pretty easy for
humans to make buildings too. I don't see how these robots would be capable of
installing an electrical socket, or applying caulk, or any number of important
tasks. Not to say a robot couldn't accomplish these things, and maybe a
quadcopter could deliver supplies in some limited circumstances, though a
robotic crane could deliver things as well. One robotic crane could actually
assemble the entire described structure, only with concrete blocks instead of
polystyrene. It's the eclectic nature of buildings that makes them hard to
build, not just piling materials into place.

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VikingCoder
I can imagine something like this being very useful in situations that are
complicated by the environment. For instance, in a setting like Chernobyl or
Fukushima. Or in a war-zone.

I picture a Google Chauffeur (self-driving) truck, bringing supplies to the
site (if possible), and quadcopters doing the final assembly. Push a button
here, and a structure is assembled there, with no human intervention.

And don't limit yourself to picturing these dog-sized toys. Picture giant,
military-style helicopters, but quadcopters. I don't think there's anything in
the physics that doesn't scale. A Chinook CH-47D can carry 26,000 pounds of
payload externally.

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krschultz
I think you are absolutely right that this is only going to be used when other
means fail. Why would anyone lift standard materials for a sky scraper with an
aircraft when they can use a crane?

But once you start doing construction the advantages of quadcopters (mainly
control) starts to get outweighed by their inefficiency. Regular helicopters
are far more efficient - large rotors are exactly what you want for heavy
lifting. The strongest helicopter I know of is the CH-53E Super Stallion, and
that is a single rotor aircraft (even though it has multiple engines).

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VikingCoder
I think 10,000 quadcopters might be able to do something really amazing. I'm
back down to "dog-sized," and I'm back to small payloads. It's a design
challenge to come up with useful atomic units that such a robot could lift,
but the number of them that can operate independently is a serious factor.

I'll recast this in terms I'm more familiar with: we used to scale software by
getting faster CPUs with more powerful instructions. Now we're all being told
to scale by numbers of CPUs. Can building construction be similarly recast?

Your CH-53E Super Stallion is effectively scaling up. Can we instead use
quadcopters to scale out?

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nerdo
Like in Batteries Not Included?

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dimitar
_The team has developed an algorithm that in their words is “limited only by
the battery life of the quadcopters and the number of parts available.”_

Wow, what an understatement. This is in fact the main problem.

Motors consume a lot of energy - in fact electric motors consume more than 2/3
of produced electricity - this is manufacturing, transportation, even most of
the electricity consumed by computers goes to power cooling ventilators.

Electric Quadrocopters usually have flight times measured in minutes - and
they carry a heavy accumulator, maybe a third or half their weight. And the
picture of that quadrocopter lifting that block of concrete is actually funny
if you have ever thought seriously about flying robots - where can I find
those motors and propellers?

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uncoder0
Do you have a citation for "in fact electric motors consume more than 2/3 of
produced electricity". I would be interested in reading more about total
energy consumption.

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tomjen3
I very much doubt that these bots will ever replace humans -- and certainly
not near term.

What they will properly do is become what computers are to us -- a tool which
helps humans.

While most technical obstacles will be overcome the limitation of these robots
are their use of energy -- lifting something up in the air is so much less
efficient that almost any other method of transportation.

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itmag
Anyone on HN a quadcopter aficionado? I would like to get into this hobby, and
am eager to learn more.

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dimitar
I'm not really an aficionado, but I've done some basic feasibility research as
part of school work in university (I'm studying Automation and Control
Engineering, and we are tasked at presenting a possible quadrotor/quatrocopter
solution for scrutiny).

So you will need to know a lot of stuff, but it depends on what you want to
do. What you need to know: \- Electric drives. (Or internal combustion
engines, but I think they are way more complex, while undeniably more
powerful, also more control problems) \- Control Theory, mostly state-space.
\- basic electronics \- Microcontroller programming. \- you will probably need
to know at least some digital signal processing. \- AI \- Radio communications
(you have to communicate with the robot, even if its autonomous)

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itmag
Shit, that sounds hard. There's no gentler way in then? I was hoping for
ready-made kits running Linux :)

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dimitar
This? <http://aeroquad.com/>

I'm not sure how much effort it will replace thought. I doubt everything can
be abstracted away in a software.

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ck2
Don't they already use quad-copter (human pilots) for logging in remote areas?

