After two years of work, researchers from the University of Salamanca and the Arborea company have developed the“arachnocopter”, a spider-shaped device that allows flight without a pilotand that it is equipped with cameras and sensors to obtain different data. The platform consists of the aircraft, a communications block and a control base made up of a very resistant tablet-type computer and a controller like the one used for video games. The operation is very simple and can be used tosupervise military operations or to perform digital mapping work, for instance.
There are many similar systems on the market, called UAV (acronym forunmanned aerial vehicle), but the “arachnocopter” has much more advanced features, as it allows avertical takeoffand carry a load of up to 3 kilograms, it is removable and is transported in small suitcases. It also allows flights with extraordinary stability compared to other devices of this type, which vibrate too much to take accurate images. The batteries currently last about 40 minutes.
The “arachnocopter”, made oftitanium and carbonIt is very resistant, it has a camera that films its own flight and multiple sensors: pressure to control its height, a sonar to facilitate automatic landings and takeoffs, gyroscopes, magnetometers and accelerometers to gain stability. In addition, with GPS you are given automatic flight patterns to execute and the information is displayed on the user interface.
What’s more,the communication protocols used to manage the arachnocopter are digital, with a theoretical range of 100 kilometers in optimal conditions. “With digital radio waves, we have all the information in real time on the tablet, where we see the video and the position of the device on a map,” says Carlos Bernabéu, founder of Arbórea, a company located in the University Science Park of Salamanca.
The researchers are working on an artificial intelligence system with the aim ofmimic the communication model of social species such as birds or swarms of bees to establish intelligent flight patternswith groups of these devices. For example, “if we look for radioactivity, we deploy several devices and they communicate with each other through this digital protocol, each one knows where the others are and acts to cover areas without overlapping. If one detects radioactivity, the others come to perform the measurements timely “, explains Bernabéu. This multiagent system mimics the gregarious animal models, since “the logical schemes are the same.”
