Palletrone Cart: Flying shopping cart for easy transportation
A flying shopping cart has many advantages: It floats over obstacles and is easier to maneuver. But it's not quite that simple.
Loads can be easily transported up and down stairs with the Palletrone Cart.
(Image: 박건우 (Screenshot))
A research team from the Seoul National University of Science and Technology (SeoulTech) in South Korea has developed a multirotor platform known as the Palletron Cart, which can be used as a flying shopping cart. Items to be transported can be positioned on the top and moved freely in space.
The advantage of a flying transport platform is obvious: wheels can get stuck on obstacles, for example, making it difficult to move around. A flying transport platform, on the other hand, can be moved in three-dimensional space with little force using a specially developed human-robot interaction system. Overcoming stairs, for example, is no longer a problem.
The Korean researchers use a multi-rotor Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (mUAV) for the Palletrone Cart, as they describe in their scientific study "The Palletrone Cart: Human-Robot Interaction-Based Aerial Cargo Transportation" (PDF), which was published in IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters. It is essentially a rectangular cage designed so that actuators can generate a continuous, steady stream of air to levitate the platform. Four servomotors with propellers are centrally suspended in the cage for this purpose. The top of the platform has a grid-like support surface on which transported goods can be placed. Like a shopping cart, a handle is attached to one of the narrow sides, which the user uses to control the Palletrone Cart by pushing, turning and tilting movements.
Separating control forces
Making the shopping cart fly is one thing, making it fly stably with different loads and being able to control it at the same time is another. For example, the distribution of the load on the loading area can lead to an imbalance, which impairs the flight. At the same time, the operator's control forces act on the shopping cart, which overlap. The scientists have succeeded in differentiating between the two forces, enabling the system to compensate for the effects of uneven loading on the one hand and to record the user's steering forces via an inertial measurement unit (IMU) with its sensors on the other. The individual rotors can be moved in different directions using movable propeller arms.
The Palletron Cart is designed in such a way that it largely floats freely in space as soon as it is released. Even if the top is completely covered by cargo, this has hardly any effect on the flight behavior. The airflow should then only decrease by 5 percent. The open-sided design provides the necessary balance, according to the research team.
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However, the payload is still manageable at 2.93 kg. Loads such as full shopping bags cannot yet be moved with it. However, the scientists intend to further increase the load capacity in a next step. The control system will then also be further improved, as the system is currently unable to react to external disturbances such as those caused by wind. However, to ensure safe operation, these disturbances must be recorded separately from the operator's control impulses and evaluated for flight control.
The scientists do not see the Palletrone Cart as a pure transport platform. They envision film crews using it as a flying tripod platform. However, this also requires the noise level to be reduced.
(olb)