Goodbye joystick, to drive a drone just move the torso – VIDEO – Technologies

The joystick prepares to go to the attic and pilot a drone also becomes easy to move the torso: just lean slightly forward, backward or sideways and the flying robot moves accordingly. The technology that allows it is described in the Journal of the US Academy of Sciences, Pnas, and was developed in the translational neuroengineering laboratory of the Ecole polytechnique de Lausanne, led by the Italian Silvestro Micera, who also works at BioRobotics from the School of Health Studies of Anna Pisa

One of the volunteers involved in the experiment that has identified the simplest movements of the bust capable of controlling the flight of a drone (source: EPFL)

The driving by drone is based on immersive reality and proves more effective than the radial joystick . "It's an approach that dramatically improves the ability to remotely control a robot," Micera noted. It is indeed "simple and intuitive" and can easily be "used in different contexts", he added.

"Our goal was to design a simple control method that would allow us to focus on more important objectives, such as search and rescue operations," said research coordinator Jennifer Miehlbradt. Fiorenzo Artoni of the Sant? Anna School of Graduate School collaborated with her. "Using the body – adds the researcher – actually gives the feeling of flying, while it's not always easy to use a joystick to control objects remotely."

That is why the researchers asked 39 volunteers to imitate the theft of a virtual drone with a torso and arms across a simulated landscape. Infrared markers have made it possible to identify torso movements in a more intuitive and simpler way and, on this basis, the new driving technique has been developed. This will control a drone only the bust, leaving the head, limbs, hands and feet free to perform other operations.

The next step will be to develop a portable technology to fly robotic planes and the applications in sight could be numerous: from today's drones to the most complex remotely piloted planes of the future