Hovering robot uses cameras to navigate through buildings

3 November 2011

The dinner-plate-sized hovering robot built at the Queensland University of Technology (QUT) has multiple cameras that enable it to navigate its way through buildings, carrying out tasks such as deliveries or inspections.

‘You’ll be able to put your suitcase on the ground, open it up and send the flying robot off to do its job,’ said Prof Peter Corke, from the Faculty of Built Environment and Engineering.

‘These robots could fly around and deliver objects to people inside buildings and inspect things that are too high or difficult for a human to reach easily.

‘Instead of having to lower someone down on a rope to a window on the seventh floor or raise them up on a cherrypicker, you could send up the flying robot instead.’

Within the next year, it may be possible to attach arms to the device so it can also fix things, he added.

‘We need to keep it safe when it’s up near solid things [such as] power poles or the edge of a building. It also needs to be able to keep its position when the wind is blowing.’

Corke and his team, including fellow researcher Dr Ben Upcroft, are also researching ways to create lightweight agricultural robots, also equipped with cameras.

The aim is to give them advanced navigation capability and enable them to cooperate in teams to cover large areas and resupply themselves — all while causing less soil damage and applying herbicide more intelligently than existing technologies.

‘Farmers are currently using machines [that] indiscriminately spray herbicide across the crop, which is expensive and not very environmentally friendly,’ said Upcroft.

‘The robot’s camera can look at the area surrounding the robot and the image-recognition software will pick out features of the weed [that] make it different to the rest of the crop.’

The three-year project, which was recently awarded nearly $400,000 (£259,000) in funding from the Australian Research Council, is being conducted with the University of Sydney and Queensland farmer Andrew Bate, who runs Advanced Agricultural Systems.