Quadrocopters are coming …

Control of multiple quadrotor robots to cooperatively transport a payload

Every now and then we get to see a video of these quadrocopters from the University of Pennsylvania’s GRASP Lab performing new precise manoeuvres in a cooperative logic. The technology becoming mature as the time is passing and the practical use of such devices (or systems) in future is not very far – military or civilian.

Micro Autonomous Systems Technologies (MAST) is a collaboration with University of Maryland, University of Michigan, BAE Systems and Army Research Laboratories. Our vision is to develop Autonomous Multifunctional Mobile Microsystems (Am3), a networked group of small vehicles and sensors operating in dynamic, resource-constrained, adversarial environments. While individual units may be specialized, Am3 will be multifunctional because of its heterogeneity, the ability of individual units to automatically reconfigure and adapt to the environment and to human commands, and its distributed intelligence.