Flying robots – inspect and maintain robots
Mobile inspection robots crawl over pipelines on magnetic wheels and identify critical points using special sensors. What sounds like science fiction has long since become reality, but the moment that these robots need to be serviced and inspected, it has not been possible to avoid human interaction. Now, for the first time, researchers at the German Aerospace Center (Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt; DLR) have successfully integrated an industrial robotic gripper arm with seven degrees of freedom into an autonomous helicopter system as part of the European Union 'Aerial Robotics Cooperative Assembly System' (ARCAS) project. This makes it possible to inspect and service robots on the pipelines without risk. Similar systems could also be used for the maintenance of satellites or even for building habitats on other planets.
Flying robots – inspect and maintain robots
Flying robots – inspect and maintain robots
Mobile inspection robots crawl over pipelines on magnetic wheels and identify critical points using special sensors. What sounds like science fiction has long since become reality, but the moment that these robots need to be serviced and inspected, it has not been possible to avoid human interaction. Now, for the first time, researchers at the German Aerospace Center (Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt; DLR) have successfully integrated an industrial robotic gripper arm with seven degrees of freedom into an autonomous helicopter system as part of the European Union 'Aerial Robotics Cooperative Assembly System' (ARCAS) project. This makes it possible to inspect and service robots on the pipelines without risk. Similar systems could also be used for the maintenance of satellites or even for building habitats on other planets.
Credit: © DLR. All rights reserved
Duration:1:05