Watch these drones construct a bridge out of rope in mid-air

A company has constructed a robot that can autonomously 3D print an entire foot bridge. However, ETH Zurich has now developed drones that are capable of building bridges out of rope, in mid-air.

The video shows quadrocopters assembling the rope bridge which can be constructed anywhere that there are anchor points at either end.

According to ETH Zurich’s YouTube channel, this is “the first time that small flying machines are capable of autonomously realizing load-bearing structures at full-scale and proceeding a step further towards real world scenarios.”

The bridge is made of nine pieces of nearly 400ft of Dyneema rope that are connected by the drones and spans about 25ft between two anchored scaffolds.

The drones in the video construct a bridge by tying knots, links, and braids out of the Dyneema rope which can handle almost 2,900lbs. of weight.

How it works

ETH Zurich set each drone up with a motorized spool so they could control the tension acting on the rope during deployment.

To build, a plastic tube guides the rope to the release point located between two propellers.

The assembly of the bridge in this video is carried out at the Flying Machine Arena, a research and demonstration platform for aerial robotics that is equipped with a motion capture system that can provide vehicle position and measurements.

Then algorithms are run on a computer and commands are sent to the flying machines via a customized wireless infrastructure.

The anchored scaffolding structure had to be manually measured before construction could begin.

The primary and bracing structure was then built with no human intervention.

Before realizing the stabilizers, the locations of the narrow openings of the bridge had to be measured and entered into to the system, which adapted the trajectories accordingly.

About the project

ETH Zurich has been working on the aerial technology for years.

The Aerial Construction Project  is a collaboration between the Institute for Dynamic Systems and Control and the Chair of Architecture and Digital Fabrication that aims to investigate and develop methods and techniques for robotic aerial construction.

Story, images, and video via ETH Zurich.