Flying Machine Arena

Watch this omnicopter fetch a ball

Dario Brescianini 17 May 2017

We have developed a computationally efficient trajectory generator for six degrees-of-freedom multirotor vehicles, i.e. vehicles that can independently control their position and attitude. The traject...

‘Tailsitter’ flying robot hovers and recovers easily thanks to new algorithm

Robin Ritz 04 Jun 2015

In August 2014 Google [x] announced that they had been secretly developing a drone delivery program to rival Amazon's Prime Air. Called Project Wing, the system was based on a mechanically simple "t...

Multiple tethered quadrotors performing high-g, high-speed formation maneuvers

Robohub Editors 05 May 2015

This video shows tethered quadrocopters flying steadily together at high speeds exceeding 50 km/h in a confined space. With the tether exerting more than 13 gs of centripetal force, multiple quadro...

Quadrocopter failsafe algorithm: Recovery after propeller loss

Mark Mueller 04 Mar 2014

UPDATE 04/03/2014: In this video update, we show that a quadrocopter can be safely piloted by hand after a motor fails, without the aid of a motion capture system. This follows our previous video, ...

Three new quadrotor videos demonstrate agile control and the power of machine learning

Hallie Siegel 18 Nov 2013

Quadrocopters assembling tensile structures in the ETH Flying Machine Arena. Photo credit: Professorship for Architecture and Digital Fabrication and the Institute for Dynamic Systems and Control, ETH...

Timelapse: Building an arena for flying robots | TED Blog

Hallie Siegel 12 Jun 2013

Our photographer Duncan Davidson loves to shoot time-lapses; before every TED, you can find him behind the scenes hiding cameras to snap away for hours and days. In his latest piece, he tracks the c...

Live at TED Global 2013: Tweets, photos and video for quadrotor fans

Robohub Editors 11 Jun 2013

Raffaello D'Andrea demos his quadrotor "athletes" at TED Global 2013. Update with the full video below Check out live tweets, amazing photos, TED blog posts and awesome video coverage of the session...

Behind the scenes at TED Global: Raffaello D’Andrea and team demo amazing quadrotor “athletes”

Markus Waibel and Hallie Siegel 11 Jun 2013

With reporting and photos by Dario Brescianini and Mark Mueller and timelapse video by James Duncan Davidson. Raffaello D'Andrea juggles quadrotors at TED Global 2013. A quadrocopter swoops th...

Athletic machines: Raffaello D’Andrea at TEDGlobal 2013 | TED Blog

Hallie Siegel 11 Jun 2013

“Athletic” is a term we use to describe human beings. But could it also be used to describe a machine? In a demo recorded yesterday in his robot lab at TEDGlobal 2013, systems engineer Raffaell...

Those Flying Things: The speakers in Session 2 at TEDGlobal 2013 | TED Blog

Hallie Siegel 11 Jun 2013

When it comes to drones, a lot of ideas float in the ether. Technologists see potential for flying machines to help us in all sorts of unexpected ways, governments take measures that seem hard and fix...

Video: Quadrocopter learns from its mistakes, perfects air racing

Markus Waibel 08 Nov 2012

Manual programming of robots only gets you so far. And, as you can see in the video, for quadrocopters that's not very far at all (see the "Without Learning" part starting at 1:30):...

Video: Watch flying robots cooperate, throw and catch balls

Markus Waibel 27 Sep 2012

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hyGJBV1xnJI My colleagues at the ETH Zurich's Flying Machine Arena have just released a new video. Here is what Robin Ritz, Lead Researcher on the project, has ...