Midair-Reconfigurable Quadcopter

2022: Drone Announcement

In mid-January 2022, the Midair-Reconfigurable Quadcopter drone, which she developed, was presented to the UC Berkeley High Performance Robotics Laboratory, capable of grabbing objects with four limbs that passively fold as needed. The device is based on the technology of hinges without a drive.

Developed drone Midair-Reconfigurable Quadcopter, capable of grabbing objects

Thanks to this design, a drone can fold two or even all four of its limbs directly in flight to fly through a narrow opening, or grab and lift an object into the air. Since the Midair-Reconfigurable Quadcopter has a rectangular housing, when folding two screws, their axes do not coincide, but are parallel, so they create a rotation moment. During transportation, this problem is solved by folding shoulders, which are already used in many production models, from here even with two folded shoulders, the drone can hang in place or fly forward. This allows the device to fly through horizontal openings in which the Midair-Reconfigurable Quadcopter would not fit with its shoulders spread out. It also allows you to grab objects by clamping them between two folded shoulders.

The modified design of the drone allows you to rest on a branch or cable: after landing, the Midair-Reconfigurable Quadcopter turns off all four motors, they lower and shift the center of mass below the contact point, thus ensuring a stable position without energy consumption. Previously, this problem was solved using separate mechanisms, namely, Swiss engineers created a drone in which all arms can fold in the plane of rotation of the screws, thereby not greatly affecting flight characteristics.

According to the developers, by January 2022, several copies of the Midair-Reconfigurable Quadcopter were created, and it is planned to release the product to the mass market during the same year.^[1]

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