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Nice tethered-drone tentacle hack… lots of possibilities for this form factor if you can accommodate the tether. Endurance becomes irrelevant and payload goes up since no battery needed and that’s often the heaviest bit. I want this got my mansion orchard
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Fruit farmers' most difficult task is organizing the havest. Tevel's drones select, pick and box only ripe fruits with the help of an AI working day and night [full video: buff.ly/3APys9i]
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I’m not sure it would be? Articulated arms are very heavy and need high-torque drives or messy hydraulics. The driven load is high. Drones are actually pretty efficient I think. I saw a paper showing they can be more efficient than trucks for deliveries under many conditions.
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Wow this is not my intuition but I have more confidence in your understanding of the mechanics than mine. The “pickers” I’m comparing to (eg biological laboratories, fabs) are very fast and accurate (but I presume those are v expensive, no mass market option?)
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Your intuitions are miscalibrated possibly to human-scale aircraft. Remember, birds are super-efficient. Migratory birds go thousands of miles of very limited calories. Hummingbirds hover nearly continuously and live off sugar syrup. Drone props are high speed but low torque.
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My skydio it seemed to use lots of power to not do much but I guess tethering removes by far the heaviest part of the drone. Birds are remarkable. They’re super optimized but still use tons of energy to fly. Hummingbirds burn crazy calories when hovering.
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