A team of researchers from Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s (MIT’s) Spark Lab has built a soft drone that flies, picks up and moves objects.

The quadcopter drone is able to do this, its developers explained, thanks to an on-board soft, grasping mechanism.

Source: MITSource: MIT

Inspired by birds that can easily grab and carry prey to various locations, the new drone can accurately identify and capture objects of different shapes and sizes due to its advanced perception system and soft gripper that features flexible tendons that can close quickly and softly around an object.

The researchers explained that this construction enables the drone to adapt to the shape of the object it’s trying to grasp, thereby reducing the risk of damage and absorbing any unexpected forces, thus making the grasp more stable.

Additionally, the drone‘s onboard perception system is comprised of assorted technologies that allow it to understand its environment, including a semantic keypoint detector based on neural networks for gripping things. There is also a 3D object pose estimator that determines the location of the item as well as its orientation in three dimensions as well as a fixed-lag smoother.

During trials of the system, the drone was able to grasp objects quickly, accurately and in a number of situations, making it appropriate for applications such as rapid package delivery or search and rescue operations.

Further, the drone’s new capabilities enable it to catch objects that are moving at speeds of up to 0.3 meters per second.

An article detailing the drone, “High-speed aerial grasping using a soft drone with onboard perception,” appears in the journal npj Robotics.

For more on the grasping drone, watch the accompanying video that appears courtesy of MIT.

To contact the author of this article, email mdonlon@globalspec.com