The Flying Ring is a new flying vehicle being developed at the Institute for Dynamic Systems and Control, ETH Zurich. The goal of the project is to fully characterize all aerodynamic properties of th...
Since April, a troupe of eight flying machines has been performing in a Cirque du Soleil Broadway show called Paramour. This group of quadcopters has now completed its first 100 shows in front of a li...
The IDSC Tailsitter has been designed at the Institute for Dynamic Systems and Control, ETH Zurich, as a testbed for novel control algorithms for tailsitter vehicles. The goal of the project is to dev...
The Flying Platform is a new flying machine developed at the Institute for Dynamic Systems and Control at ETH Zurich. Its purpose is to study the use of electric ducted fans as control and propulsion ...
[tweetquote]Using quadrocopters and some rope, researchers have woven together a bridge strong enough to walk across.[/tweetquote] Made at the ETH Zurich Flying Machine Arena in Switzerland, the bridg...
The robotics industry’s highest honor, the Engelberger Robotics Award, will be presented to Dean Kamen and Raffaello D’Andrea at a special ceremony on Monday, March 23, 2015 in Chicago, Illinois...
Raffaello D’Andrea’s robots can do amazing things: play soccer and ping-pong, perform complex choreographed acrobatics in the air, build towers brick by brick, and move pallets around warehouses. ...
Although I am amazed with UAVs and their versatility, I must admit that having a flying camera zoom by – and zoom in on me – can be intimidating. Not because the drone has a camera, but because ...
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, ...
In this 4th interview of our four-part ECHORD series, conducted last June, Sascha Griffiths from TUM talks to Raffaello D'Andrea, Professor of Dynamic Systems and Control at ETH Zurich and technical c...
2022 update: A new, one-wheeled version of the Cubli has been developed. The one-wheel Cubli is a three-dimensional pendulum system that can balance on its pivot using a single reaction wheel, as it i...
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...
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...
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” 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...
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...
How do you like to go up in a swing,
Up in the air so blue?
Oh, I do think it the pleasantest thing
Ever a child can do!
Child's Garden of Verses by Robert L. Stephenson...
To coincide with Robohub's Jobs Focus, we asked our panelists to weigh in on the role that robots play in the wider economy, and whether this is a good thing or a bad thing for employment numbers. Her...
There is no doubt that robots, and automation in general, replace humans in the work-force: all productivity-enhancing tools, by definition, result in a decrease in the number of man-hours required to...
How will robots shape the future of war? I don’t know. I think that the more important question, however, is: what role should robots have in warfare?
In my answer I have tried (as much as is h...
Two of the most challenging problems tackled with quadrocopters so far are balancing an inverted pendulum and juggling balls. My colleagues at ETH Zurich's Flying Machine Arena have now combined the t...
The best way to commercialize robotics research is to make better connections between academics and entrepreneurs. Academics venturing out into the business world tend to have a "hammer looking for ...
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, an...
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):...