Flying Robots

[greenink]

http://spectrum.ieee.org/video/robotics ... ing-robots

[sancho2]

Are the penguin and the jellyfish balloons filled with air or helium? Or are they even ballons at all?

[greenink]

I presume helium and I presume not very practical. But a lot of jobs are going to be replaced by robotics and deep learning neural networks over the next 10 years. Manual dexterity and visual skills are no longer the exclusive preserve of human operatives.

[sancho2]

The butterfly is a fantastic flying robot. All three are fantastic.
The reason I asked about the helium is that if it was just air, then the the penguin and jellyfish are a sensational step forward, not just in robotics, but in aviation.
Even if it is helium filled, its still a very impressive display of robotics.

[greenink]

If you think about it they can't be air filled. That would not add any buoyancy. You would just have the additional weight of the enclosing plastic and the thing would just sink quite rapidly to the ground. When you fill an ordinary balloon with air you kind of get the illusion of additional buoyancy because the large surface area creates a lot of friction with the surrounding air. That's my idea anyway.

[Tourist Trap]

http://spectrum.ieee.org/video/robotics ... ing-robots

How do they design those aircrafts? Is there any recent advance on the theory of flying objects? I know that some years ago, even the fly of a bird was not really understood.

[D.J.Peters]

not a robot but a indoor AIRBUS A320 Wingspan: 4,8m Weight: 350g (only)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Kk5EGpYuck

ultra-light FreeMotionHandling indoor flying object
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dv6zQr1_C9Q