2023 Author: Bryan Walter | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-05-21 22:24
Russian engineers have developed a system that allows you to control a swarm of drones using hand movements. It consists of several drones, a motion capture system, and gloves with vibration motors on the fingers, which transmit data about the location of the drones in the swarm using vibration. The IEEE Spectrum edition drew attention to the development, which was presented at the IROS 2018 and Data & Science conferences.
Since the concentration and multitasking capabilities of humans are limited, engineers are developing systems that allow many drones to be controlled as a single swarm. The main technological problem facing the developers of such systems is the difficulty of positioning drones and tracking the position of each of them without errors and delays. In general, engineers have learned how to solve this problem, and, for example, Intel recently achieved the simultaneous flight of a swarm of 2018 drones. But almost always swarms of drones fly according to a pre-written program or a dynamic computer system, and manual control of several drones is usually impossible or not very convenient.
A group of engineers from the Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology led by Dmitry Teteryukov has created a system that allows you to control a swarm of several quadcopters using hand movements, and it also provides feedback. The engineers selected Crazyflie 2.0 small exploration drones as drones and installed visual reflective markers on them. They are necessary to accurately track the movements of the drones themselves and the user's hand using several high-speed cameras installed around the perimeter of the room.
During the flight of the swarm, the system controls the position of the drones using a drag control algorithm, in which the drones move as if they are connected to each other and to the arm using virtual springs. The main part of the system is the swarm control glove. It consists of a wrist cuff with power supply and Arduino control board, and five finger cuffs with vibration motors. The swarm follows the movements of a gloved hand, which allows one to feel the state of the swarm through vibration that mimics the movements of the drones. When the swarm expands, vibration impulses "move" from the middle finger to the extreme ones, and when the drones approach, in the opposite direction. In addition, the system itself tracks the location of obstacles and prevents drones from crashing into them.
The developers implemented several scenarios for the use of drones, including the movement of a swarm through a fenced track and through an array of obstacles that mimic skyscrapers. Engineers believe that in the future, such a concept could be used to control swarms of large unmanned aerial vehicles in the city.
Previously, other groups have already created control systems for a drone swarm, but without feedback. For example, in 2015, Canadian developers created a swarm in which drones act as pixels that can be moved directly or with hand gestures.
