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.
Massive new Coventry campus targets 60GWh battery output
Where will all the raw materials come from for the manufacturing process? How will they be transported to the factory and what is going to be done with the various scrap and residues?