Conversation

Early quadrotors had fragile stability margins and fine-tuned controls etc, in part because batteries were heavier, and microcontrollers had worse frequency/control bandwidth. Now both constraints are loosened so you can build very mechanically tolerant things.
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See my ex postdoc advisor’s 2016 TED talk (one of the best) to see what’s possible, especially the bit about asymmetric drones that just adapt to their physical form factor. I was in Raff’s lab 2004-06 when his group was working out Gen 1 quad control.
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Necessary for damage mitigation and the ability to handle area munitions designed to overload the control systems of nonadaptive drones.
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I’m imagining weighted splatter munitions for huge area of effect - with the droplets 💧 being effective long after gravity overtakes the kinetic force of the dispersal explosion.
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The Iranian shahed drones were almost used that way by the Russians… you can imagine 2-stage dispersal: shahed type fixed wings releasing a cloud of little rotorcraft close to the target
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