Videos

A Flying Ring – Outdoor Experiments

The vehicle combines the advantages of a quadrotor (mechanically simple, robust hover capability, vertical takeoff and land, etc.) and a fixed wing vehicle (efficient high speed forward flight). The annular wing provides lift, enshrouds the propeller blades for safety, and can lead to noise reduction. The vehicle is autonomous. Researchers: Rajan Gill and Raffaello D’Andrea.

Tilt-Prioritized Quadcopter Attitude Control

This video shows the experimental results discussed in the paper entitled ‘Tilt-Prioritized Quadrocopter Attitude Control’. Researchers: Dario Brescianini and Raffaello D’Andrea.

The Loop

This video shows a quadrotor performing a looping trajectory while balancing an inverted pendulum at the same time. By Julien Kohler, Michael Mühlebach, Dario Brescianini, and Raffaello D’Andrea.

Fetching Omnicopter

A computationally efficient trajectory generator for fully actuated multirotor vehicles is used to enable an omni-directional eight-rotor vehicle to fetch a thrown ball. Researchers: Dario Brescianini and Raffaello D’Andrea.

Cooperating Drones & Drone Shows – TEDxHSG

Award-winning PhD Federico Augugliaro will give you an insight on how to coordinate drones, create drone shows, and how to even start building our infrastructure using these little flying machines at a TEDx event.

The Omnicopter

An omni-directional six degrees-of-freedom flying machine. Researchers: Dario Brescianini and Raffaello D’Andrea.

A Flying Ring

The first prototype of the Flying Ring flying tethered. The annular wing (or ring) has a flat airfoil shape. Researchers: Rajan Gill and Raffaello D’Andrea.

The IDSC Tailsitter

An agile and robust flying vehicle combining hover capabilities with efficient forward flight. Researchers: Robin Ritz and Raffaello D’Andrea.

The Monospinner: a controllable flying vehicle with a single moving part

An introduction to the monospinner, the mechanically simplest controllable flying machine in existence. It has only one moving part (the rotating propeller). The vehicle features no additional actuators or aerodynamic surfaces. Researchers: Weixuan Zhang, Mark W. Mueller and Raffaello D’Andrea.

TED 2016

Raffaello D’Andrea demonstrated a whole series of novel flying machines live on stage at TED2016. All vehicles performed their maneuvers fully autonomously using their on-board sensors and a localization technology developed by the ETH spin-off Verity.

Flying Platform

This video introduces the Flying Platform, a flying machine actuated by electric ducted fans. Lead Researchers: Michael Muehlebach and Raffaello D’Andrea.

Building a rope bridge with flying machines

Quadcopters autonomously assembling a rope bridge. This is part of a body of research in aerial construction, a field that addresses the construction of structures with the aid of flying machines. Researchers: Federico Augugliaro, Ammar Mirjan, Fabio Gramazio, Matthias Kohler, and Raffaello D’Andrea.

Quadcopter Pole Acrobatics

Two quadcopters capable of not only balancing an inverted pendulum, but also of launching it off the vehicle and catching it again. Researchers: Dario Brescianini, Markus Hehn, and Raffaello D’Andrea.

Robust Hover Control of a Tailsitter Flying Machine

A new algorithm for robust hover control of a tailsitter flying machine. The tailsitter is able to recover from any orientation, including upside down. Researchers: Robin Ritz and Raffaello D’Andrea.

The Bicoptercopter: A Preview

A novel type of flying vehicle, which uses multiple rotors spinning in the same direction. Researchers: Mark W. Mueller and Raffaello D’Andrea.

SPARKED

SPARKED is a short film that combines human dramatic performance with a group of computer-controlled drones, resulting from a collaboration between ETH Zurich, Verity Studios, and Cirque du Soleil.

IFAC World Congress 2014

The FMA team gave two public lectures titled “Quadrocopter dynamics: a demonstration” during the IFAC World Congress in Cape Town, South Africa.

Quadcopter Failsafe Algorithm: Recovery after Propeller Loss

An automatic failsafe algorithm that allows a quadcopter to gracefully cope with the loss of a propeller. The propeller was mounted without a nut, and thus eventually vibrates itself loose. Researchers: Mark W. Mueller and Raffaello D’Andrea.

Building Tensile Structures with Flying Machines

Quadcopters assembling prototypical tensile structures. This is part of a body of research in aerial construction, a field that addresses the construction of structures with the aid of flying machines. Researchers: Federico Augugliaro, Ammar Mirjan, Fabio Gramazio, Matthias Kohler, and Raffaello D’Andrea.

The Distributed Flight Array: Summary

The Distributed Flight Array is a modular robotic vehicle consisting of multiple autonomous single-rotor units that are able to drive, dock with its peers, and coordinate with one another in order to drive and fly together. Researchers: Raymond Oung and Raffaello D’Andrea.

Dance of the Flying Machines

Quadcoptor ‘dance’ trajectories are pre-designed and parameterized based off the structure of analyzed music. Researchers: Federico Augugliaro, Angela P. Schoellig and Raffaello D’Andrea.

TEDGlobal 2013

Raffaello D’Andrea gave a talk entitled “The astounding athletic power of quadcopters”, which was filmed live in front of an audience in Edinburgh on June 10th, 2013. He used the FMA and the quadcopters to expound upon the idea of “machine athleticism”, and in the process demonstrated some never-before-seen capabilities of quadcopters

Zurich Minds

Raffaello D’Andrea gave a presentation entitled ‘Feedback Control and the Coming Machine Revolution’ at the ZURICH.MINDS flagship conference in 2012. He used the FMA quadcopters to demonstrate the principles of feedback control and how novel technologies enable the design and operation of high-performance machines.

Quadcopter Slalom Learning

A quadcopter learning to fly arbitrarily configured slalom courses in minimum time. Researchers: Angela Schoellig, Fabian Mueller and Raffaello D’Andrea.

Cooperative Quadcopter Ball Throwing and Catching

To toss the ball, the quadcopters accelerate rapidly outward to stretch the net tight between them and launch the ball up. Once recovered, the quadrotors cooperatively position the net below the ball in order to catch it. Researchers: Robin Ritz, Mark W. Müller, Markus Hehn, and Raffaello D’Andrea.

Juliet’s Christmas Tree (Quadrotor New Year 2!)

As hard-working PhD students went home on a Christmas evening, Juliet, a little quadcopter, found herself awake and unable to sleep…so she decided to build her own tree! By Sergei Lupashin, Claudia Fischer, Angela Schoellig, and Markus Waibel.

Dance of the Quadcopters – Armageddon

A Dance of the Quadcopters in the ETH Flying Machine Arena to the music track ‘Armageddon’. Researchers: Federico Augugliaro, Angela Schoellig and Raffaello D’Andrea.

Fast Transitions of a Quadcopter Fleet Using Convex Optimization

Fast and safe transitions of multiple quadcopters are often required in the Flying Machine Arena. In this video, we use an algorithm based on convex optimization to plan collision-free trajectories. Researchers: Federico Augugliaro, Angela Schoellig and Raffaello D’Andrea.

Quadcopter Learns to Follow Trajectories

Enabling autonomous systems – such as the flying robot in the video – to ‘learn’ the way humans do: through practice. Researchers: Angela Schoellig, Fabian Mueller and Raffaello D’Andrea.

Quadcopter Ball Juggling

Ball juggling experiments with quadrotors in the ETH Flying Machine Arena. Researchers: Mark Müller, Sergei Lupashin and Raffaello D’Andrea.

The Flying Machine Arena as of 2010

Video overview of the ETH Flying Machine Arena (FMA) as of 2010. Researchers: Sergei Lupashin, Angela Schöllig, Markus Hehn, Raffaello D’Andrea.

Echo in Concert (A Happy Quadrotor New Year!)

One of our little quadcopters, ‘Echo’, took some time off from her busy little schedule one evening and decided to play a little something for the holidays. Researchers: Sergei Lupashin, Markus Hehn, Angela Schöllig and Raffaello D’Andrea

Quadrotor Ball Juggling

A quadcopter attempting to juggle a ball. Researchers: Mark Muller, Sergei Lupashin, Raffaello D’Andrea.

Dance with Three

Yes, we dance again! Researchers: Angela Schoellig, Federico Augugliaro, and Raffaello D’Andrea.

The Distributed Flight Array: Concept Animation

A concept animation of the Distributed Flight Array (DFA). This multi-rotor vehicle consists of autonomous single-rotor modules that are able to drive, dock with its peers, and fly in a coordinated fashion. Researchers: Raymond Oung and Raffaello D’Andrea.

Towards Musical Performances with Multiple Quadcopters – IROS 2010

We work towards a platform for rhythmic flight with multiple quadcopters: We envision an expressive multi-media dance performance that is automatically composed and controlled, given a random piece of music. Researchers: Angela Schoellig, Federico Augugliaro, Raffaello D’Andrea.

Dance Together!

Two quadcopters move in rhythm to the music in a dance performance. Researchers: Angela Schoellig, Federico Augugliaro, Sergei Lupashin and Raffaello D’Andrea.

Dancing Quadcopters

Dancing Quadcopters. Researchers: Angela Schollig and Federico Augugliaro

A Dancing Quadcopter – ICRA 2010

Synchronizing the Motion of a Quadcopter to Music. Researchers: Angela Schoellig, Federico Augugliaro, and Raffaello D’Andrea.

The Distributed Flight Array

A short video which introduces the Distributed Flight Array (DFA). Experimental demonstrations in docking, driving, and flying have proven its feasibility as a research platform for investigating techniques in distributed estimation and control. Researchers: Raymond Oung and Raffaello D’Andrea.

First Dance

Synchronized Motion of a Quadcopter. Researchers: Angela Schoellig, Federico Augugliaro, Raffaello D’Andrea.

Interactive flip demo

A person holds a ‘wand’ with markers on it. Simple wand gestures tell the system what to do.