It looks like a group of intelligent people from Caltech University and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory have come up with a solution to deploy drones quickly.
This can be incredibly useful when you want multiple drones airborne no matter what the reason is.
The drone that we are talking about is known as SQUID (Streamlined Quick Unfolding Investigation Drone). Of course, the drone has to be something special that you can shoot from a modified baseball pitching machine.
Definitely, something crazy to look at (or you may have seen something similar in the movies).
The drone actually transforms itself by opening up its rotor arms to get airborne right after it has been fired up from the machine. It is very important that the rotor arms snap out after the launch to keep the drone airborne.
The rotor arms start working just after 200 milliseconds of launch while the baseball pitching machine gives it an initial post of 35 miles per hour.
If you are interested, you can take a look at the structure of the drone:
The research paper lists out all the technical details and everything you need to know about its aerodynamic design.
What do you think about it? Do you think that it will be a reliable solution – just as cool as it sounds? Only time will tell.