Most drones we’ve seen these days are pretty big and bulky and definitely nowhere near being able to fit into your pocket. However there are drones which are small but due to their propellers, putting them in your pocket has the chance that you might damage it, but if you’ve been looking for a pocketable drone, two Swiss researchers might have the solution for you.
According to a report from Wired, researchers Stefano Mintchev and Dario Floreano at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology have managed to create a drone which is small enough to fit in your pocket, and how they did this was by creating a drone whose arms would arm around itself, thus converting itself into a more compact and pocketable solution.
However when users need to launch the drone, its arms will be able to snap out in an instant and be good to go in no time. At the moment the folding mechanism needs to be done by hand, but the researchers claim that they are working on an automated folding system which would no doubt be a lot more convenient.
According to Mintchev, the idea of the drone came from origami. “Compared to traditional multi-joint foldable structures, origami allows us to embed complex folding patterns in a lightweight design. A desired folding behavior can be easily encoded in the crease pattern of the origami.” Unfortunately there was no mention of availability or pricing.
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