This week’s video comes from Festo, a company continuing its recent tradition of robotic concepts with FreeMotionHandling, an autonomous flying ‘gripping sphere’ coordinated by indoor GPS.
According to Festo, the indoor flying machine manoeuvres autonomously in any direction, independently picking up and delivering objects where they are needed.
The Esslingen, Germany-based company add that the machine’s handling system consists of a carbon ring with eight adaptive propellers; centred in the ring is a rotatable helium ball with an integrated gripping element.
The video shows FreeMotionHandling handling a bottle of water but Festo envisage a time when similar spherical concepts could transport people to work at height or in hard-to-access areas.
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