A successful mechanical design and robot engineering graduate student from Seoul National University of Science and Technology shows the potential of an aerial transportation device called ‘Palletrone’ on stairs at Seoul Tech in Seoul, South Korea, October 10, 2024. — Reuters
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South Korean Scientists Unveil Adaptable Flying Cart for Goods Transport Across Rough Terrains
South Korean scientists are introducing an intricate transport Flying Cart with several adaptable rotors that help it balance during flight.
This prototype from a Seoul National University of Science and Technology team is a ‘flying cart’ meant to transport goods across rough terrains, like stairs.
The model is composed of a carriage that is controlled by a user in the form of a drone where the operator uses slight force to maneuver the hover platform.
Members of the team also demonstrated how it can transport objects up and down the stairs as well as achieve balance in a precise center of mass estimation.
Additionally, to transport objects across slopes and stairs, which are still beyond the ability of wheeled carts, the object responds to human control with what the developers have dubbed a physical human-robot interaction technique that interprets human intentions for stable flight, according to Lee Seung-Jae, professor of mechanical system design engineering.
However, the primary concerns of Lee’s team are not in creating a Flying cart to be operated over steps, but in applications requiring further horizontal stability of a drone so it will not pitch or roll.
“The Palletrone can be more than a flying cart,” he said, pointing to the name the team gave the prototype when combining the words pallet, which is a platform for storing goods on top of the drone.
His team at Lee has experimented with a lifting payload of up to 3 kilos and he agrees few real-world uses of cargo transports are so lightweight and can be hand-carried.
However, the fly-by-wire system which enables the drone to change flight direction without the need for a turn and to hold a level attitude has uses in delivering payloads such as sensitive or delicate payloads, Lee added.
However, for the technology to be used for what Lee’s team is envisioning, such as human-carrying ‘flying taxis’ and drones that change batteries mid-air so they won’t have to go back to base for recharge.
Multi-Rotor Flying Cart: Enhanced Control but Limited by Battery Capacity
Multi-rotor platforms are generally slow and have less than fixed-wing platforms but give better control; they can hover in flight.
They have been used to transport goods, food, and medical supplies but in commercial usage applications have been sparingly because the battery cannot be made big enough to carry a more massive load further away.
Seoul Tech’s work was published in IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters this year, by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers based in New York.
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