When it comes to drones, there is a lot of discussion about same-day delivery services.  There, of course, are a number of other key identified uses for drones as well, but that don’t get as much press: search and rescue, atmospheric research, cinematography, traffic reporting, and a host of other implications as wide and broad as the human imagination.

Construction is one of the possibilities of drones that is often discussed and then quickly dismissed, with detractors often citing the need for more advanced technologies such as nanotechnology-enabled bots.  While nanotechnology would certainly offer a refined level of construction on par with what would be required to make the practice widespread, drones have recently been demonstrated as effective candidates for primitive, emergency, or rudimentary construction.

Federico Augugliaro, a Ph.D. student in robotics at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, recently posted a video on YouTube demonstrating control procedures for small commercially-available quad-copter drones that enable the building of a rope bridge.  According to Augugliaro’s video description text, the quad-copters “are capable of autonomously realizing load-bearing structures at full-sacale and proceeding a step further towards real-world scenarios.”
It seems as if we are one step closer to making a valid case for drone adoption, despite how much of a nightmare it may be in the future to regulate them.

Watch Augugliaro’s video and then feel free to participate in the comments section below.