Automated Quadcopters Learn a Super-Sophisticated Trick

Those programmed quadcopters are getting even smarter. Not only can they fly in perfect formation, build things and cause all of us to worry about robots dominating the world. Now they can balance and juggle and toss a long thin object back and forth. What will they do next?

This took a lot of serious math to execute. It's created by researchers at ETH Zrich's Flying Machine Arena, who took into account all the variables that go into flying a couple of little machines, balancing them, and perfectly coordinating their movements with each other.

As you can see in the video, this remarkable trick is done in four steps, where first one of the quadrotors balances the pendulum, throws it,…
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