Watch These Drones Autonomously Assemble a Rope Bridge | Video

This video shows a technological feat, where quadrocopters are able to autonomously assemble a rope bridge that can support a person crossing. This shows that drones are able to realize load-bearing structures, and have real-life usable functions that can help development. Check out the demonstration above that happened at the ETH Zurich Flying Machine Area.

In this work, a rope bridge that can support the crossing of a person is built by quadrocopters, showing for the first time that small flying machines are capable of autonomously realizing load-bearing structures at full-scale and proceeding a step further towards real-world scenarios. Except for the required anchor points at both ends of the structure, the bridge consists exclusively of tensile elements and its connections and links are entirely realized by flying machines. Spanning 7.4 m between two scaffolding structures, the bridge consists of nine rope segments for a total rope length of about 120 m and is composed of different elements, such as knots, links, and braids.
The rope used for these experiments is made out of Dyneema, a material with a low weight-to-strength ratio and thus suitable for aerial construction. Of little weight (7 g per meter), a 4 mm diameter rope can sustain 1300 kg.