These autonomous robot drones that link together of their own accord to fly around may be terrifying, but they also bring us one step closer to combining mecha.
If I’ve learned anything from watching giant robot TV shows, it’s that robots are cooler when they combine into bigger robots. The Constructicons are “eh,” but when they merge into Devastator, they kick ass. The Power Rangers tag-team into the Megazord, lots of little robot cats become Voltron, and Simon combines Lagann with Gurren – and absolutely everything else.
So yeah, I’ll admit it: There’s something really badass about this “Distributed Flight Array.” On their own, the robots are able to generate enough lift to barely skitter across the room. But when they dock together and combine forces – all without human direction, mind you – they’re able to take off and take flight. Though the above video only shows one standard combination of four, they’re apparently able to fly in almost any configuration you can imagine.
This is awesome. This is also slightly terrifying.
The Flight Array is the brainchild of developers at the Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich’s Institute for Dynamic Systems and Control, and you can read more about the project here.
All I’m saying is, when we form Voltron, I have dibs on being the head.
