Festo's Flying Sphere Robot Can Grab and Carry Objects

Posted on April 28, 2016

Festo has created a flying spherical robot that can grab and carry objects to their desired destination. The autonomous indoor flying robot can move in any direction. Festo calls it the FreeMotion Handling indoor flying object. The sphere is coordinated externally by an indoor GPS.

In a blog post, Festo says, "The indoor flying object can manoeuvre autonomously in any direction, independently picking up and dropping off items where they are required."

The robot is a rotatable helium ball. It has a light carbon ring in the center that contains an integrated gripping element. The robot lands on top of the object so it can be captured by the gripping element. It uses twin on-board cameras to coordinate the gripper. The robot transports bottled water in the Festo video below. Take a look:



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