New System for Drones to Fly Longer 3DR SOLO

New System for Drones to Fly Longer 3DR SOLO

Drones have become a versatile technology lately, such as SOLO smart drones from 3DR, and various other drones. The majority for aerial photography / videography, some are developed for expeditions, even health. Yes, drones are very versatile!.New System for Drones to Fly Longer 3DR SOLO

However, all the sophistication of these technologies still have some shortcomings that need to be improved - and indeed the designers continue to develop them. One of the drawbacks that is felt by the drone users / pilots is the flight time or the battery life.

On average, drones are only able to fly for 10-30 minutes, the SOLO smart drone drone itself can last for 20 minutes (but you can extend the flight duration by buying additional batteries, check here!). This duration is still lacking for a drone to do its work, for example when recording moments for a story. It will be inefficient when the drone can only fly for less than 30 minutes, and need to stop to replace the battery. It could be that even good events were missed while not recording.

Then, what is the right solution for the energy problem in this flying drone or robot? Believe it or not, the answer comes from nature. Yes! A PhD student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology named Moritz Alexander Graule, PhD. get inspired when you see many animals flying or perched somewhere in the middle of their flight. This was done by them to save energy or not fatigue while flying.

Can drones and robots just sit in a certain place to save their energy during flight, just like flying animals? Why not? Graule also made research and led the project.New System for Drones to Fly Longer 3DR SOLO

Graule with co-authors from the USA and Hong Kong carried out their project at Harvard University (precisely at Harvard Microrobotics Lab) designed a super small robot called "RoboBee". This robot with a height of 2 cm and a weight of 10 grams is designed to be able to land and fly back from the bottom of the place that protrudes, from wood, glass, even from leaves.

How to Robot?

"Many different animals alight to save energy," said Kevin Ma, a postdoc at the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) and the Wyss Institute, and co-author of the project, "but the method they use to land , such as sticky adhesive or claw sticking, cannot work on robots the size of this paper clip. They need complicated systems with moving components or great power to fly back. "

The researchers used static electricity to make RoboBee to a surface. They design flat and small landing patches with static electricity that can be switched on or off.

You certainly already know how to work static electricity right? Simply put, if you have done a small experiment by rubbing a balloon into wool, it will stick to the wall of your house. This can happen because balloons have a negative charge after being rubbed on wool. When held close to the wall, the negative charge on the balloon pushes some of the electrons in the wall away, making the surface negatively charged. The pull between these two different charges makes the balloon stick to the wall.

This system is also applied to RoboBee. If you want to make the RoboBee land on the surrounding surface, landing patch on this robot is turned on so that it is negatively charged and can stick to any surface, such as a balloon in the experiment above.

Mirko Kovac, Director of the Aerial Robotics Laboratory at Imperial College London, said that the research showed how engineers could learn from nature, adding that the robot was a significant development in the field. "It shows that settling in a place can be achieved in the smallest system size," he said, "The smaller, the energy needed to fly becomes more challenging, so it is more difficult to fly for a long duration, so this way of perch can be very helpful . "

Energy Saving, Also Adding a New Visual Angle

This simple system applied to RoboBee has a big impact! As soon as possible, researchers want to try to apply it to drones.

"One of the biggest advantages of this system is that it doesn't cause an unstable boost during release, which is crucial for a small and thin robot like ours," Graule said.

The patch is very energy efficient, consuming 1,000 times less power to land than to fly, offering a longer operational duration for the robot. Reducing the robot's power requirements is very important for researchers because they work to integrate batteries in robots on loose RoboBee.

If it can be applied to drones, it not only adds flight duration in the air, but can also add new visuals to drone pilots - especially those who use drones for aerial photography / film purposes.New System for Drones to Fly Longer 3DR SOLO

According to researchers, the ability to land on any surface like a bird adds to the opportunity for drone users to get a "bird's-eye view" angle for photography / film purposes. Of course, it would be amazing if you could have an image from that angle, right?

This perimeter system provides an additional new bird's-eye view shooting angle

 even though at this time, the new RoboBee could sit under the porch and above the vent because the static electric patch was mounted on the engine. But in the future, the research team hopes to change its mechanical design so that robots can land on various surfaces.

Cool? Imagine if your drone could land on tree branches, save energy while taking pictures from a new perspective. That is, the more creativity you can do with your drone, with a longer flight duration!