Disney Research and the research group at ETH Zurich have created a car that can drive, fly, jump, and ride up walls. By using propellers and wheels, the robot can fly over obstacles and then smack against walls for a little vertical action.
Called the VertiGo, the robot’s wheels are actually unpowered. All of the motion comes from the propellers which send it rolling across the ground and then push it up against the wall as necessary.
From the white paper:
A
key research problem in the design of VertiGo robot was to maximize the
ratio between thrust output and vehicle weight. Weight is minimized by
using a central carbon fibre baseplate, while 3Dprinted parts in
conjunction with carbon-rods are used for more complex three dimensional
structures like the wheel suspension or the wheels themselves. The
baseplate provides mounting points for two thruster modules and the
wheel suspensions. It also serves as carrier for all the electronic
parts and wires. The thrusters are mounted using a two-ringed Cardan
Suspension. Integrated servomotors allow the inner and outer ring to be
moved independently from one another. This supports the generation of
all the forces required to drive on the floor, on walls and
theoretically even on the ceiling.
It’s not immediately clear why you’d want something like this but I
suspect it would be a great solution for odd stuff like managing repairs
on a distant ceiling or move the robot to a location far out of reach
by mere humans. You could also dress the robot up like Daffy Duck and
finally make that old mallard fly.
No comments