Surrounded by his quadrocopter drones on stage, Raffaello D’Andrea explains feedback control and talks about the coming Machine Revolution

During the 20 minute presentation, Raffaello D’Andrea revealed some of the key concepts behind his group’s impressive demonstrations of quadrocopters juggling, throwing and catching balls, dancing, and building structures – and illustrated them with live examples with quadrocopters flying on stage.

To watch him hurtle quadrocopters towards his audience, see them juggle balls and balance poles, and to find out what happens when control fails, check out the video:

Other speakers at the Zurich.Minds event included:

• Gerhard Schröder in an interview with host and organizer Rolf Dobelli (in German)
• Tomáš Sedláček on The Economics of Good and Evil
• Kevin Heng on Atmospheric Research of Exoplanets
• Ashkan Nikeghbali on The Fascination of Mathematics
• Lorenz Meier on the Open Hardware Revolution
• Christina Warinner on Evolutionary Diet
• Robert Cialdini on Influence
• Urs Hölzle on Where the Internet Lives, The Hidden Life of Data Centers
• Simone Schürle on Nano Robots for Medicine
• Lars Kolind on Unboss! The new leadership
• John Gray on The Dangers of Faith in Progress, and
• Benjamin Beilmann playing Prokofjew: Sonata for violin solo in D major, Op. 115 on his violin

Full disclosure: I, my colleagues from the Flying Machine Arena, and Raffaello D’Andrea all work in his group at the Institute for Dynamic Systems and Control at ETH Zurich.

Here are some photos of the event:

Photos: Zurich.Minds 2012

Markus Waibel is a Co-Founder and COO of Verity Studios AG, Co-Founder of Robohub and the ROBOTS Podcast.

Markus Waibel is a Co-Founder and COO of Verity Studios AG, Co-Founder of Robohub and the ROBOTS Podcast.