Whether you’re at the mall or moving things around the office, there’s probably one time you’ve had to deal with a cart with clunky wheels. A flying cart called the Palletrone might come to your rescue.
The idea is essentially to place a multirotor drone inside a cage and create a top-loading platform that allows things to be moved around at chest height rather than on the floor on a wheeled cart.
“The platform features a spacious flat surface on top and a rear handle reminiscent of a shopping cart for easy loading of cargo,” the Seoul National University of Science and Technology (SeoulTech) research team wrote in the introduction to a paper on the project. “Flight trajectory control is achieved by a human operator holding the handle and applying three-dimensional forces and torques, maintaining zero roll and pitch attitudes during flight for stable cargo transport.”
Palletrone Cart: Air cargo transportation based on human-robot interaction
The operator “applies forces and torques to steer the aircraft and influence its flight trajectory.” In other words, the user uses the handrails to control forward momentum and direction while the hardware and software keep the platform above the ground.
Users are protected from the X-Frame drone’s fast-spinning rotors by a porous box surround that ensures sufficient airflow for the drone to fly with minimal performance degradation.
Of course, one drawback of this approach is the noise the drone makes. Another is the relatively low payload capacity of the current setup: 2.93 kg (6.5 lbs), not enough to carry a family’s weekly groceries in the air or for warehouse workers to move packages efficiently. There is also the flight time limit imposed by the on-board battery to consider.
But many of these issues could be solved with a bit more tweaking, and Palletrone has the added benefit of being able to climb stairs with ease. For the current version, the researchers leveraged basic flight control algorithms from previous work by members of their team. The system also employs actuators that constantly adjust roll and pitch, not only to keep the platform level during maneuvers, but also to take into account the forces exerted on the setup by the human user.
However, this design assumes that all “disturbances applied to the system” come from the operator, so obstacles encountered along the way could cause problems, and the paper calls for further research in this area.
As for future applications of the technology beyond logistics and grocery store sites, team member Seung Jae Lee told IEEE Spectrum: “By mounting the camera on a platform, it can act as a flying tripod or even a dolly, allowing for flexible camera movements and angles. This is especially useful in environments where specialized filming equipment is difficult to obtain.”
He also suggested that next steps could include developing a docking system that would allow for in-flight charging to extend operations.
For more details about the project, see the paper published in IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters.
Source: Seoul Institute of Technology, via IEEE Spectrum
