Look! About chest high! Is it a pallet? Is it a drone? No, it's a Palletrone
- Reference: 1727159708
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2024/09/24/palletrone/
- Source link:
As the name suggests, it's literally a pallet – a flat transport structure – suspended in the air by a quadcopter drone. It's not to be confused with the similarly named but Earth-bound [1]Toyota Pallet Drone .
Imagine a shopping cart without wheels that hovers at a convenient height and can be pushed about with ease. Or watch it in action in the video below.
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[3]Youtube Video
[4]
[5]
The gadget is the work of boffins from the Mobile Robotics Lab of Seoul National University of Science and Technology.
"The platform is designed with a spacious upper flat surface for easy cargo loading, complemented by a rear-mounted handle reminiscent of a shopping cart," explain Geonwoo Park, Hyungeun Park, Wooyong Park, Dongjae Lee, Murim Kim, and Seung Jae Lee, in [6]a research paper describing the project.
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"Flight trajectory control is achieved by a human operator gripping the handle and applying three-dimensional forces and torques while maintaining a stable cargo transport with zero roll and pitch attitude throughout the flight."
[8]Feel free to ignore GenAI for now – a new kind of software developer is being born
[9]US proposes ban on Chinese, Russian connected car tech over security fears
[10]Cards Against Humanity deals SpaceX a $15M lawsuit over Texas turf tangle
[11]Heart of glass: Human genome stored for 'eternity' in 5D memory crystal
Though fascinating to behold, the Palletrone has some obvious drawbacks. Note the hearing protection worn by lab testers in certain parts of the video. Quadcopter drones can make a lot of noise as they churn the air – [12]60 to 85 dB at 10 meters . Not exactly whisper quiet, and indeed enough damage your hearing.
It would also presumably kick up a bit of dust in some environments.
But more significantly, as noted in [13]IEEE Spectrum , they can't carry much weight. The demo video shows the Palletrone carrying a load of just three kilograms (~6.6 lbs). To support heavier loads, a larger drone is needed – the [14]C100 Heavy-Lift Quadcopter , for example, can support up to 4.5kg or 10 pounds at a size of 64" x 65" x 11."
While drones with higher carrying capacities are available, they tend to be larger, harder to handle, and even noisier.
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But don't dismiss the Palletdrone for its obvious problems. It also includes some real novelty in the form of tech that balances three-dimensional forces to maintain zero roll and pitch attitude, even if the weight upon it is unbalanced.
This is detailed in a prior [16]research paper from 2023 by some of the same researchers. The paper describes a center-of-mass position estimation method based on the " [17]extremum-seeking control " algorithm that can keep the hover pallet stable even under varied cargo loads and force inputs.
Encasing the drone in a pallet-like frame has potential as a hovering light cargo carrier – at least in scenarios where noise and wind aren't an issue. But the reason to do so has at least as much to do with safety as utility – it keeps Palletrone pushers from coming into contact with whirling rotor blades.
As the 2023 paper states: "The new design places all propulsion systems inside the fuselage, giving it the additional merit of being safe to people when flying in a populous environment." ®
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[1] https://ifdesign.com/en/winner-ranking/project/toyota-pallet-drone/260590
[2] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/science&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2ZvKNziu0Mj0NeJ0zC-XK1gAAAEA&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hvRhZIhFR4
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/science&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44ZvKNziu0Mj0NeJ0zC-XK1gAAAEA&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[5] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/science&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33ZvKNziu0Mj0NeJ0zC-XK1gAAAEA&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[6] https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/10563997/
[7] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/science&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44ZvKNziu0Mj0NeJ0zC-XK1gAAAEA&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2024/09/23/kelsey_hightower_interview_part_2/
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2024/09/23/us_ban_china_russia_car_tech/
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2024/09/23/cards_against_humanity_spacex/
[11] https://www.theregister.com/2024/09/21/human_genome_5d_memory_crystal/
[12] https://www.jouav.com/blog/quiet-drones.html
[13] https://spectrum.ieee.org/cargo-drone-2669117300
[14] https://www.unmannedsystemstechnology.com/company/performance-drone-works-pdw/c100-heavy-lift-quadcopter/
[15] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/science&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33ZvKNziu0Mj0NeJ0zC-XK1gAAAEA&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[16] https://www.researchgate.net/publication/372795284_Design_Modeling_and_Control_of_a_Top-loading_Fully-Actuated_Cargo_Transportation_Multirotor
[17] https://www.mathworks.com/help/slcontrol/ug/extremum-seeking-control.html
[18] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
They can't carry much weight
I wouldn't want my feet that close to even a few kg at risk of plummeting on top of them.
Free Trim got little Tommy running in the aisles
i see some small children getting a free haircut at the same time as the "supermarket" visit.
With that lifting capacity, wouldn't it be cheaper to hire a Deliveroo rider!
Whilst I enjoy the novelty...
Whilst I enjoy the novelty, I cant really find the use cases for this. If you're anywhere with a path, not even a paved path, a regular pallet jack and a pallet will be faster, easier, quieter and a whole lot cheaper. In an area with an overly rough path for a regular pallet jack, you would probably be looking at a proper fork lift to the job (again faster, easier, quieter, and can carry a ton more).
If we're talking a path you cant get a fork lift through, then I guess we are talking about something reminiscent of going somewhere mountainous or in the bush. But, well are you really going to be able to push the drone along this path, whilst keeping yourself upright? Then wouldn't a normal flying drone be better (or a helicopter for much larger loads, and to reduce the number of trips)?
About the only case that comes to my mind, is going up a set of stairs with a load, but that doesn't seem like anything more than a novelty use case.
Dont get me wrong, I love that this science is being done, and the algorithms they're developing sound pretty awesome, but real world use cases completely pass me by...
Educational :)
Looks like an inverted plastic crate,(the kind in which prepackaged bread is delivered to supermarkets), with a drone hiding under it. ;)
Still an excellent practical exercise for student engineers to apply their knowledge of control theory. From the flowchart in the video with the boxes with functions of (s) also tests their knowledge of Laplace transforms too. :)
I noticed in the video the platform rose slightly when unloaded and dropped slightly when loaded but importantly didn't oscillate so I assume critically damped (or something equivalent.) I guess the limited extra thrust available from and response time of the drone's rotors determine how fast the platform can react to such disturbances. In futuristic movies the platform wouldn't move. :)
In terms of originality and utility the common garden variety wheelbarrow takes a lot beating. Ancient China took the wheelbarrow to a higher level again.* :)
* See [1]how to downsize a transport network: the chinese wheelbarrow for pictures.
[1] https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/2011/12/how-to-downsize-a-transport-network-the-chinese-wheelbarrow/
Re: Educational :)
The linked article on Chinese wheelbarrows is excellent. Thank you.
can support up to 4.5kg or 10 pounds
Well it's pretty useless then. Air skates (a mini hovercraft pallet bed) let you move a washing machine around a warehouse with almost no effort. This looks like they have created clever stability control for something that will not make any economic sense to use.
Star wars
Certainly someone has been trying to do the Star Wars style of transportation. Although we haven’t got carbonite freezing sorted yet.
I can see this having a lot of uses in the future once the load capacity is up to something more practical. I mean it needs a nice woven fabric cover and then you have a flying carpet.
Flight time
I don't imagine that this is great.
This sounds like another inflatable dartboard invention
This sounds like one of these working but useless sorts of inventions. A much earlier example was the hovercraft wheelbarrow.
https://youtu.be/OmJ-8JMw_l4
This idea came about from the common tendency of builders to erect houses first, then roads afterwards thus ensuring that everything was done in a sea of mud. The hover-barrow solved the problem of shifting things about over liquid mud, but when someone had the completely obvious idea of measuring up an estate before any machinery came onto site, then installing roads, then using these roads as access for building equipment then the sea of mud disappeared and with it the need for the hover-barrow.
Hovercraft remain in this tiny niche of "looks useful, but what do we use it for?" and quad-copters are in the same "Solution looking for a problem" niche.
What the experts are saying
“If you strap a rocket engine to the back you might get a pursuit vehicle that won’t plummet down the edge of a cliff… Call me.”
Wyle E Coyote