Eyebot Sticks To Ceilings

Writing by Evan Ackerman on Friday, 21 of August , 2009 at 12:53 am

One of the major disadvantages of flying robots is that they’re generally useless when they’re not in the air, and the amount of time they can spend in the air is severely limited by their capacity for fuel… Plus, more fuel means more weight means bigger engines means more fuel, and so forth. EPFL has developed a robot called Eyebot that, while based on the familiar quad-rotor helicopter design, includes an innovative extra feature: the ability to stick to ceilings with a magnet. The gives the Eyebot the capability to loiter indefinitely in advantageous positions while providing surveillance with a pan and tilt camera system. It can autonomously attach and detach itself from ceilings, and uses simple optical flow analysis to detect drift and infrared sensors to avoid obstacles. Apparently, the designers envision the Eyebot stationing itself on a ceiling with a bunch of its friends and FIRING FRIKKIN’ LASERS AT PEOPLE:

Okay, not really, but the Eyebot will include a laser pointer with which it can locate and illuminate predefined targets, either helping you find your suitcase or, potentially, doing other things.

You’ve maybe guessed by now that Eyebot is designed to work as a part of the same Swarmanoid distributed robotic system as Handbot. Swarmanoid is still way too cool to include as an afterthought on this post, so we’ll have more on Swarmanoid on Monday… +2 points if you can guess what the third bot in the swarm does.

And before you say anything, I know this was the third “Eye” robot in as many days, and I don’t have any more, I promise.

[ Eyebot ]

Comments (2)

Category: Research

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2 Comments

Comment by Zool

Made Friday, 21 of August , 2009 at 3:27 am

Umm… hang on a minute … “stick to ceilings with a magnet” – Unfortunately most ceilings are not ferromagnetic, so its mostly useless, plus as it adds weight, its going to expend more power carrying the extra weight around. So what next, a flying robot that carries a bag of cement and a jug of water to stick to ceilings, plus a mini jack hammer to free itself again. :)

Comment by Evan Ackerman

Made Friday, 21 of August , 2009 at 8:54 pm

Weeeeellll, there’s lots of different options when it comes to getting robots to stick to things like walls and ceilings. Here’s one, with links to a bunch more in the article:

http://www.botjunkie.com/2008/05/21/sris-wall-bot-sticks-with-static/

Of those options, claws or sticky stuff seems to be the best bet, since they’re passive and don’t require power like static or vacuums do.