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He also tackles stairs: researchers develop flying shopping carts
From: CHIP editorial team
An alternative form of shopping cart: This supermarket companion is even supposed to fly.
Rolling wheels, tinny squeaks, and if you’re not careful you’ll quickly bump your shins or other customers: shopping carts are practical on larger shopping trips, but also annoying. And stairs are the end anyway.
Stairs are no problem for the flying shopping cart
The device is called “Palletrone”, a portmanteau of the English terms for pallet and drone. The design itself is very simple: an elongated, rectangular loading area that is held in the air by a so-called multicopter. This is a drone with multiple rotors.
The structure resembles a cage so that users do not accidentally reach into the rotor blades. There is a handle on one of the short sides, like a normal shopping cart.
As with its simpler predecessors, the user simply pushes “Palletrone” in front of them. Sensors detect where the user wants to go and adjust the thrust of the rotors to the user’s movements. Because the device floats, stairs are logically no longer an obstacle.
The flying shopping cart cannot transport much
In one video the developers impressively demonstrate how well “Palletrone” has already mastered this challenge. At the same time, it becomes clear: things aren’t going to move really quickly with the flying shopping cart, at least if you don’t want to risk the load falling down.
In addition, the conventional mesh shopping cart on wheels has a decisive advantage: loading tens of kilograms of load is no problem for it. “Palletrone”, on the other hand, can only carry a maximum of three kilograms, clearly not enough weight for a purchase that could no longer be transported in a basket.
The researchers are therefore working on a version that is more reliable. It will therefore probably take some time before the invention becomes suitable for everyday use.
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