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The Palletrone is a robotic hovercart for moving stuff anywhere
- hn_throwaway_99 2y agoThe article mentions this, but I still find it somewhat hilarious that given the very low load capacity of this thing, it would be about 100 times easier to just put the stuff in bags that you wanted to carry. And at the point where you start being able to carry real loads it would be noisy AF. The whole idea feels very "Juicero" to me.
- profsummergig 2y agoStep 1: Get the patents. Step 2: Wait for the tech to mature. Step 3: $$$
- hn_throwaway_99 2y agoExcept in this case your "Wait for the tech to mature" step is basically the same "Step 2: ???" from the underpants gnomes. That is, how is this tech supposed to "mature" in any way to be actually commercially viable or an improvement upon much simpler methods for "moving stuff around"? Anything that ups the load means you're going to essentially have a giant copter you have to push around. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure there are cool algorithms used for the stabilization and "push-sensing" features, but I can't see how in any possible universe that this tech will be viable for the purported use case.
- xbmcuser 2y agoYeah you probably need sci Fi anti gravity type device to make something like this possible.
- sandworm101 2y agoOr you could use wheels to transfer the load directly to the ground, bypassing the need for lifting motors.
- __MatrixMan__ 2y agoToo soon. Wheels aren't retro just yet.
- TeMPOraL 2y agoYes, but wheels don't work for arbitrary terrain, including long enough stretches going vertical or backwards[0], or liquid or gaseous terrain like rivers and large holes in the ground. -- [0] - think terrain looking like this: /----------- \--- \ ---------\
- sandworm101 2y ago> wheels don't work for arbitrary terrain You just need a bigger wheel.
- TeMPOraL 2y agoThat's why I said "arbitrary" - to mean "bigger than the wheel you have".
- sandworm101 2y agoThis is a cart being pushed by a person. So we can assume no terrain beyond what a person could reasonably step over.
- TeMPOraL 2y agoThis is a cart that can climb on its own - which means the person pushing it can climb independently. There's a class of conditions where this combo can work, and wheeled cart won't. Whether this class of conditions is something you'd encounter in practice (as opposed to adapting things to make an existing alternative usable) is another thing; I outlined some potential niche use-cases here[0]. -- [0] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41627135 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41627135
- TeMPOraL 2y agoThat's the problem, though. Some Zefram Cochrane figures out how to work subspace, but all the profit from antigrav sleds will go to whoever won the patents for a pallet mounted on a quadcopter 40 years earlier. (Star Trek avoided this fate by having World War 3 happening in between today and warp drive.)
- mschuster91 2y ago> That is, how is this tech supposed to "mature" in any way to be actually commercially viable or an improvement upon much simpler methods for "moving stuff around"? Doesn't need to be commercially viable, military viable is more than enough. Stick a gun or two on it and you got a version of the recent Ukrainian breakthrough "Fury" UGV [1] that doesn't depend on maneuverable terrain. Or combine it with some wheels to create a two-way vehicle that can drive efficiently on somewhat decent terrain but "air hop" over obstacles. Something like 30 minutes of flight time should already be no issue, that's enough to clear a trench. Warfare was always nasty to begin with, but since the advents of robotic vehicles being used against humans... phew. [1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidaxe/2024/09/19/ukraines-gun-armed-ground-robot-just-cleared-a-russian-trench-in-kursk/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidaxe/2024/09/19/ukraines-gu...
- hn_throwaway_99 2y agoAre you trying to prove my point? The Fury UGV you link to is a gun on wheels, which I see as infinitely more usable and viable than this Palletrone contraption. And in cases where you would want flight capability, why wouldn't you just use a standard aerial drone (obviously used already to great effect in the Ukraine war)?
- mschuster91 2y ago> The Fury UGV you link to is a gun on wheels, which I see as infinitely more usable and viable than this Palletrone contraption. Palletrone is by all means a demonstrator that the idea is possible, an utter MVP. > And in cases where you would want flight capability, why wouldn't you just use a standard aerial drone (obviously used already to great effect in the Ukraine war)? The key thing IMHO is the fusion of aerial and ground movement. A gun on wheels is nice but it's immediately stopped in its tracks by anything from swampy terrain ("rasputiza") over a random trench to hedgehogs [1], not to mention mines. Give it aerial capability, even if it's just enough to hop over a hedgehog or a smaller river, and the ability to defend itself while airborne, and the game becomes much more serious. All you need to be is the first one to actually pull it off and hope it's enough of a surprise effect that the enemy gets hindered long enough that you can make some military gain out of it. Side thought: I wonder how much downforce a drone can actually exert on the ground. Could a heavy enough drone with serious bottom armor be powerful enough to detonate anti-personnel mines without being endangered in the process? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Czech_hedgehog https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Czech_hedgehog
- profsummergig 2y ago“No Wireless. Less Space than a Nomad. Lame.”
- hn_throwaway_99 2y agoDo you think this counts as an argument? Because I'm quite sure which device I think is analogous to the Nomad in this situation... If you have any actual thoughts on how a device like this could ever be relevant in the real world, I'm all ears.
- amelius 2y agoNo, obviously it goes like: Step 1: Impress investors Step 2: Get $$$ Step 3: ???
- taneq 2y agoAlso as anyone who’s tried to fly a drone inside in a small room will know, the minor hurricane this creates will cause it to be super unstable as well as making the environment super uncomfortable for everyone in it.
- idunnoman1222 2y agocompletely unloaded. It’s noisy as fuck.
- scottlawson 2y agoTo put this in perspective, it supports up to 3kg in the demonstration. That's a fraction of what I can support with one finger.
- xeyownt 2y agoOk, but it's cargo AND vacuum cleaner. Can your finger do that?
- thewanderer1983 2y agoAnd can your finger AI? Doubt it.
- psychoslave 2y agoRelated https://www.popsci.com/technology/double-neural-bypass-surgery-ai/ https://www.popsci.com/technology/double-neural-bypass-surge...
- shermantanktop 2y agoMore like a downward pointing leaf blower, driving the dirt from high traffic areas into every corner of the house.
- gs17 2y agoMy apartment pays for people to come by and blow dirt around every so often, so maybe this could let delivery people pick up extra cash on the side!
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- jalk 2y agoIf they made it more stable, you could use it to move your nitroglycerin around, in 3kg batches
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- erulabs 2y agoI’ve had a long day and for just a split second I was excited for this to be something other than exactly what I expected and exactly what it is. For about 700ms I felt real technological excitement again. Dang. Funny tho!
- euroderf 2y agoScale up the loads, and if it does stairs, unattended, then rent it out for moving days.
- nikolay 2y agoAll the dirt particles from the floor get airborne in an instant - great for allergies and infections!
- schobi 2y agoI can imagine situations where I hold something, thinking "this needs to go there". Cleanup, but also moving days, gardening, construction. I like the concept of the "luggage from sapient pearwood" - maybe tell it where to go, drop off something and come back? Put a box on it, and it will carry it down the stairs? This is not it. Needs to be quiet and energy efficient, but still handle stairs and garden... If I need to follow it, I could just use an exoskeleton - no, please make this autonomous. If you've solved voice interface, navigation, low power.. Then you almost have a humanoid robot who could also put the laundry in the washing machine, not just next to it.
- microtherion 2y agoMaybe the next step is to walk a path with it once and then have it repeat it. I often have groceries delivered that require me to walk a dozen times to my basement to stow it away. If I have to do it once for "teaching" and then repeat it 11 more times, that would be a win. Also, as a reminder to the "do you even lift, bro" crowd, there is an increasing number of aging people with declining physical strength that could potentially benefit from a product like this. Yes, with current drone technology this is too noisy / turbulent / energy inefficient to be entirely practical, but how many of these limits are due to fundamental physics constraints and how many still have quite a bit of room for expansion?
- Zababa 2y agoAgree that people could benefit from it. However: > Also, as a reminder to the "do you even lift, bro" crowd, there is an increasing number of aging people with declining physical strength that could potentially benefit from a product like this. These people would benefit from lifting too. Physical decline seems inevitable, but its speed seems malleable.
- TeMPOraL 2y ago> These people would benefit from lifting too. Physical decline seems inevitable, but its speed seems malleable. Not for those who're already at the point of needing things like that. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure... except if you're already sick.
- throwawayben 2y agoI'll stick with my hoverbarrow, don't need all this AI stuff. https://youtu.be/OmJ-8JMw_l4 https://youtu.be/OmJ-8JMw_l4
- psychoslave 2y agoNice but a bit noisy it seems. Also I’m not sure as is it can keep the surface horizontal in a staircase.
- Cthulhu_ 2y agoThe one in the article is going to be hella loud too though, big drone right in front of you.
- throwaway743 2y agoLove the shot of the dude walking through the neighborhood without a care. Just imagining 5 of these being used at the same time, on the same block, starting early morning through the afternoon. People would go mad lol
- dylan604 2y agoOr the shoddy work in brick laying. Every stone cutter at their monthly meeting just dropped their head in shame at the haphazardly way it was put together.
- btbuildem 2y agoThe one thing they don't tell you about the hoverbarrow is what happens once you're on a downslope
- aidenn0 2y agoIn the video there is a gentle downslope and it does look rather uncomfortable even on that.
- AymanJabr 2y agoNo audio of the actual thing. How loud is this?
- Cthulhu_ 2y agoBig quadcopter drone up close loud, that is, very.
- theginger 2y agoI genuinely don't know if this is meant to be real or a joke.
- Cthulhu_ 2y agoI don't believe for a second they are actually trying to sell this as a commercial product. It only does 3 kilograms on a platform that has to be open / cannot be fully covered. Upscaling it means a bigger and louder drone. That said, the clip where two of them hook together to swap a battery is neat. Impractical, but neat.
- tastyfreeze 2y agoIt looks like an undergraduate research project. The kind of thing that is a curiosity for a professor or student.
- tempodox 2y agoI've been dreaming of a floating tray for all of my life, albeit in the form of a noiseless fluffy cloud and robust enough for you to sit on. If I'm going to float stuff around, I'll definitely want to float myself, too.
- actionfromafar 2y ago"Conventional wheel-based cargo transportations struggle on uneven terrain, such as stairs." https://youtu.be/9hvRhZIhFR4?t=14 https://youtu.be/9hvRhZIhFR4?t=14 Great dead-pan comedy! :-D
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- Crackula 2y ago[flagged]
- krisoft 2y ago> The only non-cgi part of the video was when they showed a regular cart unable to handle plain stairs. I disagree. The video showing the drone being pushed around by the experimenters is not CGI. It is real footage. It is weirdly evenly lit, and the cart moves weird of course, so maybe that is why you think it is CGI? > A place that needs people to carry stuff between levels has elivators and ramps. Sure. This is more of a “look how clever our controller is” kind of research than a product anyone expects to produce. In other words the outcome here is the learnings from the controller development, not a hovering noisy, windy, dangerous, low-endurance wheelbarrow product. It is like all those videos where they kick a robot dog and the robot dog keeps walking. They don’t do it because they expect that the future will have a great need for kickable robot dogs, but because it demonstrates how roboust their controller is. What would be interesting here though is showing the same drone with an off-the-shelf software being pushed the same way. So a software which just tries to stay level and hover at a fixed distance from the ground, but doesn’t have their their clever controller running on it.
- Crackula 2y agoYea I saw the drones pushing eachother. Perhaps I was exaggerating when I said it was all cgi. I just found it amusing that they bothered filming a cart falling down stairs as if its a common everyday problem people encounter and needs some explaining to understand. To me this is similar to the flying-cars companies. They all have some weird prototype that can fly for 5 minutes but you never see an actual use or product for them.
- aaron695 2y ago[dead]
- gmueckl 2y agoWhat you are doing here is leveling a straight up accusation of fraud against the researchers. An accusation of that magnitude requires extraordinary evidence. A simple claim that the video looks weird is insufficient.
- mcphage 2y agoI’ve been waiting years for Tenser’s Floating Disc, but this ain’t it.
- dhudjnsnh 2y agoThis would be great for bars that completely fill their glasses up to the tippy top...
- remoquete 2y agoNot sure if they knew about this or Kojima predicted the future, but a conceptually similar floating carrier was in Death Stranding: https://deathstranding.fandom.com/wiki/Floating_carrier https://deathstranding.fandom.com/wiki/Floating_carrier Maybe games inspire life?
- bleuarff 2y agoI, for one, thought of a similar concept from Zelda Tears of the Kingdom.
- Waterluvian 2y agoSci fi: “what about…” Life: “there’s a reason it’s Sci fi.”
- Mistletoe 2y agoThis isn’t the only similarity I see between current life and the Death Stranding world. It and Idiocracy seem to be the most prescient looks into the modern world I live in. Most everyone I know is becoming more and more withdrawn into their house, except for their occasional shipment from Amazon or the grocery store to their front door.
- neaanopri 2y agoImagine how loud this will be "THIS IS THE PALLETDRONE" "WHAT?" <inaudible>
- kshriner 2y agoHeh, this was my first thought too.
- bitwize 2y agoNeat, it's like the ones from Death Stranding, which you can drag up to two of on a tether behind you carrying additional cargo.
- mhb 2y agoThat's great. How do I get it under my refrigerator?
- black6 2y agoLoudest shopping cart ever.
- sharpshadow 2y agoIt’s probably very noisy and will be a mess when dirt and dust is involved. I like a similar but different idea where you have a little flying companion which follows you, can sit on you shoulder, recharge and return, follows commands.. something like a flying phone.
- ActionHank 2y agoAlso very little weight can be moved with a drone as the more powerful it gets, the bigger the batteries need to be which decreases the amount additional of weight you can move.
- CommieBobDole 2y agoThe best thing about articles describing "technology that would be incredible except for the one obvious and insurmountable-with-current-technology problem that makes it absolutely useless and is the reason that nobody else did this" is the inevitable point where they admit that it's absolutely useless because of the obvious and insurmountable problem but that the team is totally working on solving it any day now. In this case the problem is that it only carries 3kg and has almost no battery life, but the team is working on another drone that follows it around and changes the batteries when they run out, so eventually for the minimal cost of two of these and like a million batteries you can carry 3kg indefinitely. Or you could just carry it with your hands for free.
- __MatrixMan__ 2y agoI think of it as betting that antigravity is just around the corner. Not a bet I'd make, but I do admire the gumption.
- regularfry 2y agoI would think that the fact that the downdraft will make this completely useless in any environment that has any small objects untethered within about a 2m radius also falls into that category.
- sandworm101 2y ago>> only carries 3kg and has almost no battery life Don't worry. They will used beamed microwave power delivery. The operator will just have to wear a 2.5kg lead apron to protect themselves. When used for food delivery, the power delivery beam will also act as an effective heat lamp.
- CommieBobDole 2y agoWith a powerful enough microwave beam, you could lift and propel the thing through surface ablation and wouldn't need the propellers at all.
- 2y ago
- LASR 2y agoThe only useful part of this might be the mid-air battery-swap tech. A drone with an effectively unlimited runtime would be pretty useful in some narrow applications. But as a pallet? Come on. Cool technical ideas. But terrible applications.
- jjk166 2y agoInstead of an elaborate control scheme to differentiate forces from the load versus forces from the operator, why not just put a thumbstick or two on the handle?
- TeMPOraL 2y agoIn practice this would end up with something in between. A more "direct" control scheme is nice, but you still need some fail-safe button that makes sure the operator doesn't accidentally kill themselves or someone else when they let go of the handle.
- dialup_sounds 2y agoThe control scheme is the point of the paper.
- jjk166 2y agoYeah, but under what circumstances such a control scheme actually be useful?
- iancmceachern 2y agoThis takes a huge amount of energy and complexity to solve a barely there problem that is largely already solved.
- aaron695 2y ago[dead]
- admjs 2y agoLiterally re-inventing the wheel.
- bloopernova 2y agoI think a better pallet-drone would be a 4 or 6 legged thing that just goes where you push it. Up stairs, over obstacles, across rocky paths, fords rivers, and tiptoes through forest underbrush. Not exactly related: I've been reading about WW2 and just finished a book on the Sicily/Italy campaign. The mountains caused massive loss of life because defensive positions were so difficult to dislodge. Very much the same as the "fight for every hilltop" carnage in the Pacific theater. I was wondering if a "mech" would even work on mountainous areas, whether it had 2, 4 or 6 legs. It seems like you'd need something with the agility and sure-footing of a mountain goat.
- colechristensen 2y agoThe Boston dynamics robots seem like they could have plenty of utility in a mountainous environment. It seems like it would be quite possible
- robotresearcher 2y agoPossible, yes. But enormously worse than a mule or two men.
- thegabriele 2y agoYou might enjoy the movie "Young Ones" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Young_Ones_%28film%29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Young_Ones_%28film%29
- aabajian 2y agoWhy not make these much, much smaller, and have the battery swap be part of the design? Connect 100 bee-sized platforms together in a grid. Any one of which could be the "battery swapper" bee and keep the rest of the flock afloat?
- zackmorris 2y agoThat's actually a pretty cool idea! I'm envisioning cubes about 10 cm on a side that can lift perhaps 100 grams to 1 kg, with magnetic latching (maybe solenoids controlling stronger latches) so they can self-organize into larger platforms. They'd use ultracapacitors with roughly a 1 second recharge time. So they'd constantly travel from the base station to the swarm, picking up energy and depositing it to the others. They'd form a platform that can lift appreciable amounts of weight, maybe even 100 kg (a person), and fly forever. Right now I think drones like that would cost around $100 each. But if they could be made for $10, then conservatively we could have flying platforms for around $10,000. And unlike batteries, the capacitors would last forever. Not so much grey goo, more like grey girders. I haven't researched this at all yet, if it already exists.
- aabajian 2y agoYou've taken it further than I was even thinking. There are a lot of potential applications. A micro-drone swarm could aid in construction by moving building materials into place. They could grab a beer from the fridge for you. The only requirement would be proximity to the recharging station (meaning they couldn't, for example, walk your dog).
- cfgauss2718 2y agoEven if you could get around the payload and energy density (power autonomy) constraints, which are very stringent, this seems like a dead product. Sure, it’s a cool project for some controls engineers. But I can scarcely imagine the deafening noise this thing makes, and no doubt it would tend to kick up clouds of dust anywhere it went, which is hardly desirable from a health perspective. This kind of device would be a permanent irritant in almost any environment. Thankfully, buildings are already well equipped with things like elevators. I’ll keep my wheeled cart, thank you very much.
- Animats 2y agoIt's a nice piece of classical control theory. No neural nets, just old-style Laplace transforms. This approach might be useful for wheeled devices such as pallet jacks. Those are pushed around by humans, but some have power assist. If you could just push the thing around, but it felt much lighter than it was, that would be useful.
- robertlagrant 2y agoGenuinely I've been thinking about a drone that connects to a backpack with a battery in, and just carries my drink for me. How often do you go to a dinner party and you need three hands, right? Or you're scrambling up Scarfell Pike with a latte?
- willmadden 2y agoMeh. I would rather see terrestrial spider drones with powerful magnets swarming to create a magnetic levitation platform for the pallet. No downdraft, much higher capacity. The drones can go recharge themselves at a nearby base station and scurry back.
- ChuckMcM 2y agoBecause of course I want people to carry around leaf blowers in my office. Yeah, it's snarky but gosh that thing has to be SUPER noisy. I find it annoying when people use leaf blowers outside (yes even electric ones, which are not as bad but you can't blow that much air without the noise) Now having them walking the hallways? That seems like a total non-starter to me.
- jandrese 2y agoThis is mostly dumb, but the dragonfly mating style battery swap in mid air is fun to watch.
- gusfoo 2y ago> The Palletrone is a robotic hovercart for moving stuff anywhere No, it really is not. It's a tech demo of moving 3 kilos in an awkward and loud manner, a task that has negative practical value.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- timoth3y 2y ago"Palletrone"?! What a missed opportunity. "Palledrone" was right there. They could have had a portmanteau that's a homophone of palindrome. What the project lacks in utility it could have made up for in linguistic cleverness.
- robomartin 2y agoOh, c'mon! Ridiculous. https://www.google.com/search?q=utility+cart https://www.google.com/search?q=utility+cart or... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-1RnUzNRTc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-1RnUzNRTc or... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wiyTf3NdGAU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wiyTf3NdGAU or... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxf-fIubkMs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxf-fIubkMs or... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rKp4pe92ljg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rKp4pe92ljg They just had to choose flying...because that's the most efficient way to lift and move anything. Of course! Brilliant.