The Jouhou System Kougaku Laboratory, incubated at the University is known for their work in AI and Robotics. They have developed humanoids which are intended to help people in daily activities. Recently, they were in the news for something really cool – A DRAGON drone. JSK Lab won the “Design, Modeling and Control of Aerial Robot” award at ICRA 2018. DRAGON stands for “Dual-rotor embedded multilink Robot with the Ability of multi-deGree-of-freedom aerial transformation”. We had recently posted this YouTube video on our channel which went viral.
An Engineering Marvel – Understanding the Construction of the Dragon
The Dragon drone is an engineering marvel – powered by ducted fans, the Dragon’s USP is its transformative capability. Its linked modular construction enables this drone to transform into a variety of shapes – line, snake, L and even complex shapes such as zigzag and spiral.
The modules have built in fan thrusters that are connected to each other by hinged joints. This initial prototype has 4 linked modules and a flight time of 3 minutes. Plants are afoot to eventually build a longer drone with 12 linked modules. Eventually, the Dragon might use both its ends to grip and lift things.
Dragon Drone – What Are Some Its Critical Applications?
Because this drone is transformative and can fly on a predetermined path, it has many uses in critical applications. Often humans find it difficult to access hard to reach areas (such as the insides of a machine with moving parts). Replacing humans with drones has a plethora of benefits – reduced costs, mitigation of risk and accurate data collection.
Now these narrow and hard to reach areas can be otherwise accessed by tiny drones or drones flying in protective cages. However, these are not elegant solutions. You cannot do much with a tiny drone – your applications are really limited. And having a drone in a protective cage places restrictions on how your drone interacts with the environment.
Considering the above arguments, the DRAGON drone is an innovative and ideal solution. Because this drone is transformative, it can access small areas without being inhibited by capacity constraints that come with small size.
What Does the Future Hold for the Dragon?
Moju Zhao is the Assistant Professor in Department of Mechano-Informatics at The University of Tokyo. Zhao commented, “We will [next] move forward to design a ‘multi-legged’ model with our basic link module. Then the robot can not only fly, but also walk on the ground. This can benefit us in terms of the energy efficiency. Such autonomous decision about locomotion according to the environment is very interesting research. Our ultimate dream is to achieve the flying humanoid, like an unmanned Iron Man.”
It shall be exciting to see what further enhancements are carried out by the JSK lab in order to realize their ambitious vision. We shall keep you updated!
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