The bio-inspired 'transformer' that crawls, rolls and flies

[@wonhundred8051]

One of those, "Why didn't I think of that?" things

[@MusicByNumbersUK]

Exactly what I was about to say! :) seems so obvious when you see it! Lol

[@Eduardo_Espinoza]

I thought of stuff like this when i was a kid, not good on very cars.

[@vaisakhkm783]

@@Eduardo_Espinoza yes.. me too... not like this, but changing tiers of car to become propeller...

[@questmarq7901]

Anyone that spends time thinking the future could predict this, myself included of course

[@takudzwamashamba7453]

Definitely! Like whattt

[@Atmos_Glitch]

It wasn't until the end where I realised just how big it was lol, I just thought it was a tad bigger than your average rc vehicle, kinda impressive now seeing how big it is!

For situations of search and rescue in extreme multi-modal scenarios, like the Thai cave rescue a robot like this would be perfect. Especially if it can be adapted to be waterproof. Imagine a bigger version of this bot: a swarm of them could have mapped the cave pretty reliably and even take provisions to the trapped kids

[@bunnatang-ue8lp]

electric powered is efficient for small body and light weight. heavy duty and heavy loading is not efficient as gas powered like helicopters and trucks.

[@elgracko]

Plus you got to give this 360 cameras and lidar, right?

[@titaniumtemplar3560]

one maybe, for scouting, but i cant envision a swarm being anything other than a mess, plus you would likely run into issue with the connection to the drone due to it being underground, and as has already been stated a drone like this would likely not be able to carry much, but a small amount of sustenance is better than nothing i suppose, what would probably be best for cave rescue would be some kind of tethered tread based drone system, their may be a way to do underground wireless, but its probably a niche technology and not going to be very reliable. with cave rescue humans are probably currently the best bet unfortunately. Hopefully we will get some purpose built cave robots someday, but its such a harsh environment for robots, and they likely would never see much use anyway. I hate to be a naysayer like this, especially since they are all to common when it comes to new ideas, but its just my honest opinion.

[@chrisalbertson5838]

Haulng supplies and searching are at cross purposes. For a search you might want thousands of tiny bug-like devices so that you can look at many places at once. Then you use a "message flooding" en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flooding_(computer_networking)network for getting data out. (I think this is provably optimal.) But for hauling supplies to a known location bigger is bettr as long as the device can fit into where it needs to go. Volume to size ration improve with size. as volume is "size cubed" so doubling the dimension gets you 8X the payload of energy storage.

[@StoneyVintson]

@@bunnatang-ue8lp Heavy locomotive trains use electric 3 phase AC induction motos which have high torque at low velocities. They use a smaller diesel motor to generate electricity. The challenge is to store enough energy. Hydrocarbons store much energy per weight and space that they consume. So, it is the challenge of carrying enough energy onboard a vehicle and not the ability of an electric motor to propel a heavy load. Much of the energy consumed by an ICE yields heat ( transfer of energy ).

[@gmasterdude]

That's fantastic, imagine having an off-road vehicle like that.

[@zx3215]

Oh yeah. Just drive once over some mud and this thing will not fly again.

[@lawlcake8788]

@@zx3215 How? with how fast those wheels spin up i think it would just need a "mud slinging" sequence to get rid of the mud from the wheels and the just fly off like normal

[@xbox70333]

@@lawlcake8788mud solidifies get out more, larger tires cannot spin as fast

[@Turdfergusen382]

45° incline climb was a unique solution for sure

[@foxtrotunit1269]

If waterproofed the props could spin slower and allow swimming too! The potential of this bot is insane, especially once better batteries and AI-optimized electronics emerge.

[@footfault1941]

A unique kind of locomotion coined WAIR (wing assisted incline running) might inspire researchers, but its concept/mechanism is not precisely translated into robot's performance here. (This is less relevant to the main issue of the footage though.) Nature mimicry has progressed this great! Wonderful!

[@-Anubhab]

This was one of my dream projects when I was a kid and it is real😅

[@yaarmaarkarda]

This is amazing. Two things I would like to see in the next gen. 1. Waterproof so that it can float or submerge. 2. All the rotors or wheels acting independently, so it can perform more maneuvers.

[@NealFosterHD]

Fairly sure the rotors move independently as otherwise it wouldn't be able to fly

Very impressive. I first thought they used the same motors for props as for wheels, and I could not figure out how they made that ever work, sicne brushless motors normally don't have such a huge span of RPMs. But it does look like 2 independent set of motors.

[@arcknightmc7486]

That’s from the lab I’m working at! It’s a cross collab between CalTech and Ramezani’s lab at Northeastern!!!

[@TheNitroG1]

1:20 That boat car is driving with a wake just a few feet from swimmers. It just screams "this is why we needed the labels on stuff."

[@yajawstin]

Yes better than having a small child wrapped around your rear axle

[@dapz]

When I was little I had a similar idea as this, but instead of flying the wheels could transition into propellers for swimming

[@mimansasingh3481]

hii .. I also thought of the same thing .. so did you come up with any idea ?.if you are comfortable in sharing your idea it will be helpful.

[@IdealIdeas100]

"those who use redundancy, they have wheels and propellers but this one is different" Um no, the drone clearly has propellers and wheels, they are just designed in such a way that you can make the parts overlap in the same area.

[@VIJAYzk]

all this would be practical the day batteries can store a significant amount of energy

[@benwillvv]

Amazing work, bravo to the team involved.

[@OMNI_INFINITY]

NICE! Although "space missions"...maybe not that one so much. Drones fly in AIR.

[@intellectualcat4000]

For me, this is primarily a drone. Thin wheels will not be able to withstand heavy loads. They can only be used to save energy when driving on a flat surface. This drone is very useful on Mars.

[@martinsimeonov1563]

If you ever came across a game called "besiege" you'll know this drone is much behind their players 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣 this is entry level stuff over there luoul. Anyways its amazing someone actually took it into reality and its hella well done

[@megamaser]

Developing a product that can interact with the real world and efficiently climb over any obstacle is a huge challenge. The US military spent billions of dollars developing a robot that was just intended to walk and carry supplies where normal wheeled vehicles can't reach, but ultimately the project was a failure and they're using horses instead.

[@martinsimeonov1563]

@@megamaser mine was a remark about the shape of it. Irl is a matter of materials.. u gotta make it work with the materials available in nature. It just surprised me to see something that similar to the stuff i saw over there 🤣

[@PoeticSonic]

bruh, you can't just throw us a video like this out of nowhere, this is not a gimick, this is actually revelutionary! you don't even see such creativity in sci fi...

[@Kimchi_Studios]

Ghost Recon Future Soldier had this back in 2012. Just finished the game.

[@arborsamurai]

I love this and thought for many years now that at some point we will see pocket cellphone-drones, so that people would be able to take really good selfies 😁

[@MarioAGzzL]

Remember Ghost Recon Future Soilder? This is dope indeed!

[@supersmart671]

Looks like Nature is more designed that this robot!!

[@Dartheomus]

Pretty neat first pass, but those gears on the wheels are a huge liability. They will easily get imbedded with dirt/sand which will quickly halt all motorized movement. Also, I'm not really convinced that much energy was saved by doing two wheels and two rotors. The general movement required much more time vs. simply flying over the hurdle. I like the concept, but I doubt the practicality.

[@Catiadr]

The next challenge is to make it cheap enough for the general population and include remote ID to satisfy the FAA.

[@multiverse-mechagodzilla-3584]

*everybody gangsta till’ that thing transforms into a Decepticon*

[@Dev1nci]

It rolls, wiggles, flies and cheats 😂😂😂

[@VladimirKostek]

This is so cool, if they could waterproof it the drone fans could work as little props too in the right orientation!

[@DrChaoticEvil]

And once again, search and rescue is the justification of choice. It's really quite simple: If you end up in the field of robotics, it's because you think robots are awesome. You don't any excuse to build a cool new robot, that's a goal in and of itself. If people like these gets to build a cool robot that does cool stuff, then mission accomplished. If they get a salary for doing so, then that is great, but that's really besides the point to them. However, taxpayers, journalists, luddites, politicians, concerned wives and so on invariably require some sort of justification for building robots, and these figures need to be appeased. If they are not, then at best the breakthroughs are met with indifference, at worst, money stops flowing or restrictions are imposed. Consequently, some some sort of justification is needed to sell the research to the muggles. S&R is a great justification, because everyone can agree that saving people is morally good. Also, no matter how outlandish the locomotion or sensory array, you can trivially find some use case in S&R where it will be perfect. Of course, in reality, there is little money for actual S&R robot development, and the need for these weird robots are typically limited in reality. Even the ones that are genuinely good has to be universal enough to see widespread development in order to get cheap enough and user friendly enough to reach application. Quadcopters has gotten to that point, snake robots and so on - not so much. But that doesn't matter, because the aforementioned people latch onto the idea and are satisfied. Then, if the idea is actually good, for real, the military comes in quietly and nudges the project forward.

[@TOPSHOOTAS]

Now just mount a Domina Gunilda on it and we're ready for human vs bot warfare

[@souravmj8667]

This is almost perfect, all it needs is a powerful motors and Powerful Al and Processor

[@CDHfilms]

This reminds me of an old airhogs toy I always wanted. It had the power to drive on land and water and even fly

[@Eduardo_Espinoza]

This is like the next step in evolution.

[@justanotherperson2960]

Is anyone else reminded of Ghost Recon Future Soldier pocket drone??? Kinda feels the same, actually much close to the one in GRFS, minus the fancy casing and emp stuff and all.

[@nichy7734]

Was looking for a comment like this

[@Shattered3582]

ingenuity has demonstrated that flight on mars is possible, and imagine if this technology is upgraded to be used on mars. it could travel much further, save battery power, and give greater flexibility when it comes to remote exploration.

[@orpheuscreativeco9236]

... and it has a runtime of 20 minutes 😜👍 Just don't get lost too far from a back-up battery. J/K Very cool design and concept ✌️

[@dyrectory_com]

Congratulations to the team that came up with this idea! 👏🏻

[@lastofthebest5102]

Thank you, i didn't have a team though.

[@mikegps100]

@@lastofthebest5102 are the plans opensourced? how do I build one?

[@alexjgilpin]

While the variability in locomotion is interesting the wear on something intended to use the same parts when driving, flying and crawling would be extreme... and so would the maintenance. I suspect that drones purpose-built to fly/drive/crawl will always be the better option than this device in nearly any application *except* for when more than one type of movement is absolutely necessary. And 2:35 energy isn't particularly expensive, so flying drones that would simply fly over the obstacle will still dominate the market.

[@pbase36]

The surge in A.I., "go anywhere" drones... Yes, It's all coming together nicely! - Skynet

[@yodaheabebe3756]

Why do I feel like this should be the new direction for future cars!!! Like cars that can fly, roll, tumble or a whole bunch of things!! This could be big!

[@TheBananaJoint]

Very interesting design. Would be interesting to see the range difference between flying and driving, though.

[@jarivuorinen3878]

These kinds of Swiss Army Knife approaches have more than one flaw, but the biggest problem is poor efficiency. Driving is probably pretty efficient on this, but certainly heavy and bulky rotors like that cause all kinds of unwanted turbulent flows, and the extra weight leads to hysteresis in controlling the drone. The range when flying is probably quite poor on this.

[@TheBananaJoint]

@@jarivuorinen3878 Yes, that's the point I was wondering about. An efficient flying drone might have a higher range than this hybrid.

[@megamaser]

Think of this as a car that can hop over any obstacle. In that category, it has great potential. For work that requires from extended air time, you're better off with a normal drone. That is until we get huge advances in battery technology, then who knows.

[@chrisalbertson5838]

@@megamaser No, if huge air time is the goal then we want either a fixed wing airplane or a lighter then air "blimp". The drone wins only if maneuverability in the air is the main goal. I actually own and have built a bunch of different kinds of small robot-like machines and I tend to use the same lipo batteries for each. In terms of range, I think a specialized aircraft can win, hands down. They can go 100+ MPH. A normal drone can be out of sight and lost VERY quickly if you are not careful. The drones have about 2X more thrust than weight, may as well call it an "electric rocket".

[@jarivuorinen3878]

@@chrisalbertson5838 Exactly this. And even maneuverability argument is somewhat questionable for the future, as we're seeing drones that mimic birds and they are already more efficient than quad-rotor drones. They are not as maneuverable yet, but if we can mimic bird movements well enough, there's potential for high degree of maneuverability, speed and efficiency. We can observe how agile and efficient some birds are. And fast.

[@martin-gaming]

now make: Efficient on Water and Land: Swim, Drive Difficult Terrain or Air: Fly And diving like a submarine

[@rjung_ch]

2:38 glad EPFL is part of this collaboration. Super interesting.

[@MesoScale]

I wonder how the designers will solve all the dirt issues in real world scenarios: rotors covered in mud. Dust in the ankle mechanics. A cover to prevent the body from getting dirt in (heavy, therefore negative impact on flying capabilities)

[@AlarkiusJay]

One step closer to reviving Megatron....huh. I'm all for it

[@elgracko]

This is sooo amazing, inspirational! If they could make it waterproof and increase the torque on the propellers for sailing and and diving! Or they could rotate the propellers 45 degrees and have the propellers go as well as the wheels, so it can climb up walls, though, i imagine the same motors that run the wheels run the propellers? This is some next-gen DARPA shet!

[@Stopinvadingmyhardware]

That's one heck of an antenna. That ML algo must be pretty intricate. I presume it's multiple ones talking to each other.

[@KwatuistM]

When everyone is thinking of humanoid robots, here's a practical robot.

[@Profit4Hondo]

M4 sounds like a Star Wars astromech droid. DARPA will just make it large enough to add some 556 like it’s namesake. Next thing you know they’ll have a T-1000.

[@derek2593]

Considering that the extra weight from the rim and tire treads create more momentum, you should figure out how to autorotate that when the battery gets too low to run the motors. Totally not necessary, and might not be practical, but it might be fun to try. You could add another segment to the arms, so the rotors could actually go under the vehicle, to reverse the pitch of the blades. Not as efficient as variable pitch blades, but might get the job done.

[@Roughneck7712]

This would be great in those Star Wars situations where they have to land their ship 5 miles away and then walk to the target area

[@1.4142]

Genius.

[@iwouldliketoorderanumber1b79]

This bot is going places.

[@bananieldiamonds1921]

it has so much personality potential. like the MGS4 Mk 2 and mk 3

[@conorstewart2214]

This is just redundancy. It has servos for moving the legs and motors for the wheels and propellers. It’s not like you are using the movement of the legs to also flap wings, the propellers are just used as propellers, the wheels are just used as wheels and the legs are just used as legs. Just three separate independent systems that are being used together. It’s not like the turtle example where the exact same body part and mechanism is being used for both crawling and swimming.

[@peterjohansson1828]

While this thing is really cool and certainly an engineering achievement, I can't help but wonder in what situation is this thing would actually be practical. I don't know what is and isn't useful on this robot but i get the feeling that a real practical robot would be much simpler and more rugged / reliable.

Maybe search and rescue in caves

[@peterjohansson1828]

@ Maybe... but in that case I wonder how long it can operate because the battery capacity looks pretty limited. When i talk about how practical it is i'm mainly referring to how cost effective it is when compared to other options.

[@theterminaldave]

Search and rescue in damaged buildings where a flying drone wouldn't be able to maneuver. Rolling is also dramatically quieter, so even sneakier for surveillance purposes Drone camera footage is a mainstay in modern videography now, and getting footage from flying and then from a slow rolling position on the ground would make for interesting scene transitions. Not to mention that drones are being used to throw grenades at russian soldiers in Ukraine, this device would be perfect to get into a bunker. The possibilities are endless. This design would have been utilized at some point eventually, it was an inevitable configuration.

[@peterjohansson1828]

@@theterminaldave The thing is that the same robot rarely needs to be able to fly and roll around. usually it only needs to be good at either. For example in damaged buildings you don't need to fly around much because you're looking for poeple under the rubble. in cases where you need to fly like aerial photography then you don't need to roll around much. The most practical military drone is one that is effective at its designed job at the smallest price to produce, because the more you can produce the more you can harm your enemy. Specialization is often better than being good at everything because of the extra resources you have to spend to be good at everything. This robot probably has some niche use case, I'm simply stating that I can't think of a usage where this extra complexity is warranted.

[@theterminaldave]

@@peterjohansson1828 Every building collapse is different. Maybe the only way into the upper floors in a half collapsed building is through an elevator, so you could then fly up a shaft, then sit down and maneuver through a small hole and keep flying again. I guess it really doesn't matter if i convince you or not, this is a brilliant idea, and if you can't imagine use cases for it, that's just your lack of imagination.

[@MewtwoStar]

Great work. ❤🎉

[@Tripp111]

Love the 80s synth intro.

[@Silent1Majority]

"Dear family; next Father's Day I want this" ❣❣

[@msbudmsbud7593]

Amazing ! I want one as my future both otomobil and helicopter !

[@boneybone8123]

God damn it why didn't I think of this! It's right there, the wheel, propeller, servo... Damnit!

[@tyrell1984]

This has to be the next bat mobile

[@user-aRb00d3r]

okay Marty, now we're finally back to the future!

[@benjidaniel5595]

And it can do all this with a battery life of multiple seconds!

[@abrarmohamed3351]

can't wait to see this being used in the military

[@entokyado568]

the crawl thing for sure need a optimization but it is alredy very intresting to see a versitile robot like this one

[@rtofreak4306]

can't wait for the real car version

[@LaidBackAI]

Move over, Optimus Prime! We've got a bio-inspired 'transformer' taking multitasking to a whole new level! 🤖🚀😄

[@justonyx6721]

This is some goofy Besiege shit and I love it

[@JoeOvercoat]

Dig the transformer aspect. it’s clearly not rugged enough to be used reliably as a recovery aid but pretty cool.

[@satriadibasuki]

beautiful, a nice design for flying cars too it can fly as well as navigate on road or even narrower alley where the population is quite dense

[@DeimosSaturn]

First, that's a CONVERTABLE, not a transformer. second, It would make much more sense for a big drone to just carry a bunch of baby drones in a payload compartment and deploy them for more specific tasks. Like a pelican or a marsupial. The big mother drone is able to travel fast, efficiently, over long distance, but it can't maneuver in tight spaces, and it can't conserve power for longer missions the way a wheeled rover can. So it carries an assortment of smaller drones of different types. Transforming is just being fancy for no practical gain. Transformation is only functionally necessary for disguise. True fundamental transformation from one thing into a completely different thing (kinda like the T-1000) would have almost no downside or compromise the way that this CONVERTABLE does. It has to sacrifice so much in terms of complexity and weight to achieve flight, and then it can't be as nimble while walking, nor can it have the same stability as a wheeled robot. It has to compromise a lot, and lose out on being a good wheeled robot, a good walking robot, a good flying robot, just so it can be a not good combination of all three. It's an interesting concept but I just don't see any real application for something like this other than maybe sport or as a very expensive toy.

[@vygag]

didn't realize how big it was until very end when some guy picked it up

[@juaneorlandi]

So basically the back to the future Delorean. It was about time!

[@dustywilson5461]

love how the video length is 3:14 .... or perhaps this perceived easter egg is just a result of my pareidolia...

[@megatronreaction]

you mean because 314 is PI?

[@megatronreaction]

3,14

[@sidarthg2477]

Make it watertight and it can even swim with the rotors

[@vice.nor.virtue]

20 years from, now where we have these militarised drones armmed to the teeth, but the size of an Osprey or Sedan enemies facing it on the battlefield will absolutely need a new pair of pants (if they live long enough to actually witness it)// .

[@scivirus3563]

the grand father of the morphing nano particle plaque was born

[@philippe-lebel]

Je ne sais pas si c'est aussi utile que ça mais c'est très malin.

[@bakedlotus3150]

my first thought was Martian exploration.

[@fredpenner5667]

ya, ya, ya.....it's all great until you get the message "battery low, return to base".

[@luispiros]

We called them “triple-changers” in my day.

[@rikudouray]

Great start! I believe the sector search will benefit a lot from this as well as space expo.

[@darylbrown8834]

Mars (plover?😊) The size of a car with all kinds of sensors and samplers!

[@kwinter2541]

Don·t be surprised if my next incarnation is one of those .

[@MBeLike]

next step: the thing can also swim, too

[@danimerlyn9844]

Now if they could make it big enough to ride. It would be the sickest skateboard on Earth.

[@thetoymanator7723]

Wow! Add some solar recharging and it's Ideal for Mars-type rovers.

[@rampagephoenix1735]

Better yet (my idea): What if they adapted this as a one-man vehicle, sorta in the same sense as a motorcycle? Simply, hop on and take it for a spin in wheel mode, then it transforms into a drone with you still in it, and you can just fly to where you need to go.

[@albertsitoe7340]

The ball was a stretch 😂 but the rest was really cool 😎

[@user-mb9ni4no6x]

Problem is same as always, power source, battery will overturned the counter weight balance or smaller battery will make it useless to perform multiple task in detail manner.

[@saurabhyadav5408]

I'm excited about how it's applicable in other planet's mission.

[@SmartGadgetShow]

It's ALIVE !!! just like some predator insect from the jarassic

[@seanocansey5673]

Chances are the M4 has an ARM Cortex M4 somewhere in the design lol

[@USBEN.]

Its missing spider legs for efficient rough terrain travel.

[@Oakbeast]

incredible design

[@freeman3467]

Nice synthwave man!

[@Kaimifune]

Now make it dive and swim to search for Submersibles

[@arcticredpanda4598]

I instantly recognize the Cal Tech campus.