Folding Technology in Drones?

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Researchers at the University of Zurich and EPFL (a scientific research institute in Lausanne) have recently announced the creation of a robot that has the ability to shrink in order to to fit through gaps, a feature that could make it perfect for search and rescue missions. The researchers initially created a drone that could assess man-made gaps and squeeze through in seconds using only one camera. This extra feature — a scissor-like system to shrink the drone in flight — makes it even more versatile and allows these drones to react to larger or smaller gaps in nature.

“The idea came up after we worked on quadrotor flight through narrow gaps,” PhD candidate Davide Falanga told techcrunch.com. “The goal of our lab is developing new drones which in the future will be used in the aftermath and analysis of a disaster, as for example an earthquake, in order to enter building through small cracks or apertures in a collapsed building to look for survivors. Our previous approach required an aggressive maneuver, therefore we looked into alternative solutions to accomplish a task as passing through a very narrow gap without having to fly at high speed. The solution we came up with is the foldable drone.”
The system measures the gap and changes its shape without outside processing, regardless of the drone’s speed. All the processing is done on board (that is, on-drone) and could be turned into an autonomous system if necessary. The team built the drone with off the shelf and 3D-printed parts.
“The main difference between conventional drones and our foldable model is the way the arms are connected to the body: each arm is connected in a manner which can change the relative position between the main body and the arm. This allows the robot to literally fold the arms around the body, which means that potentially any morphology can be obtained. An adaptive controller is aware of the drone’s morphology and adapts to it in order to guarantee stable flight at all times, independently of the configuration,” said Falanga.