Quadrocopters Throwing and Catching an Inverted Pendulum

derGoldstein writes "We've seen some very impressive aerobatics performed by quadrocopters before, but this is getting ridiculous. Robohub points to the latest advancement from the Flying Machine Arena, which developed algorithms that allow quadrocopters to juggle an inverted pendulum. One of the researchers working on it said, 'We started off with some back-of-the-envelope calculations, wondering whether it would even be physically possible to throw and catch a pendulum. This told us that achieving this maneuver would really push the dynamic capabilities of the system. As it turned out, it is probably the most challenging task we've had our quadrocopters do. With significantly less than one second to measure the pendulum flight and get the catching vehicle in place, it's the combination of mathematical models with real-time trajectory generation, optimal control, and learning from previous iterations that allowed us to implement this.'"

Comments

It

[JustOK]

It don't mean a thing if they don't compute that swing.

Terminators

[ArcadeMan]

It is now clearly obvious: in the future, the weapon of choice to fight robots will be an aluminium baseball bat.

Re:Terminators

[Anonymous Coward]

Until they take it from you and balance it on their heads while giving you a robotic pimp slap.

Re:Finally!

[ArcadeMan]

Nope, that's the Daleks' way.

Re:science

[JeanCroix]

Do you have pendulums in your house? PAK CHOOIE UNF.