In Japanese mythology, dragons aren't the fire-breathing, treasure-hoarding monsters you'll find in Tolkien, Martin, et al. Instead, they're wise, serpentine creatures who control rain, fly through the clouds, and protect sacred areas.
Engineers at the University of Tokyo JSK Robotics Laboratory had been working on a drone that represents the latter called the "Dual-Rotor embedded multilink robot with the Ability of multi-deGree-of-freedom aerial transformatiON" – a mouthful, so just DRAGON for short.
It was the first of its kind shown to the world in 2018. It had a modular body, with each "link" having two ducted fans on gimbals for flight and 2 degrees of freedom (DoF) for articulation per link. It could curl, wind, slither, and unfurl again – all while in stable flight, squeezing through tight gaps in the air like a flying serpent.
By August 2022, DRAGON was faster and more stable. It was also capable of not only carrying payloads but also manipulating objects. Pinching, pushing, pulling, and even rotating (to open and close valves) purely with vectored thrust.
Typical flying drones like quadcopters may be able to carry loads from above decently well, but DRAGON can approach objects from nearly any angle: above, below, or next to in order to interact with them. Think: disaster relief with a collapsed building with very small passageways where DRAGON could snake its way through narrow openings to find the emergency off valve for a gas line.
It weighs a hefty 16.7 lb (7.6 kg) but can haul nearly half its weight at 7.5 lb (3.4 kg) – for about three minutes on a full charge.
Still, the innovative DRAGON remained very much a research prototype without really ever getting its wings.
Assistant Professor Moju Zhao says the next step to conserve battery and extend the mission would be to give it the ability to walk. A three-minute flight time is hardly enough time to do anything useful.
This was DRAGON from 2018 through 2022. When trying to track down any recent updates (newer than August 30, 2022) to the DRAGON drone, New Atlas found that DRAGON did indeed evolve – sort of. It can now "walk" about 8 inches (.2 meters) per step. But it's not exactly a DRAGON any longer.
It's the University's latest hybrid drone project called "Sensing, Processing, and Intelligent Dynamics for Aerial-ground Robot," or SPIDAR for short. I guess it sort of looks the part.
Zhao's SPIDAR is an entirely new design that no longer has the slithery DRAGON form. Instead, it's a multi-link, four-legged flying machine that can walk OR fly using thrust vectoring. It's still capable of carrying significant payloads above or below it, but no longer does it have that slinky-like maneuverability to articulate its way through aerial gaps.
The purpose of SPIDAR is to achieve multimodal locomotion, particularly for difficult terrain with limited accessibility; the usual disaster relief type scenario.
The latest update the University has on SPIDAR was less than two weeks ago, demonstrating the robot's yoga ball prowess, so we know it's not a seemingly abandoned project like DRAGON.
Maybe as battery tech evolves, the DRAGON drone will return as the envy of all drones, snaking its way through the skies, turning on and off industrial water valves everywhere. Even if DRAGON ended up being completely useless, it still looks cool.
Source: University of Tokyo JSK
