When they ’re not rebuilding theenvironmentorexploring Mars , the dawdler of the future may serve us avoid some of life sentence ’s small troublesomeness . A group of masters students at the University of Stuttgart envisioned a fleet of drones that does just that for theirthesis task : AsNew Atlasreports , the drones are part of a roaming canopy , responding to sunlight above and movement below to ensure you ’re always in the shade .
Without the drones , the prototype , dubbed Cyber Physical Macro Material , resembles a normal stationary structure . magniloquent black magnetic pole support panels that fit together magnetically , protect whoever ’s beneath them from the sunlight ’s rays . But this design is only effective when the Sunday is in a sure part of the sky : As the day come on , the canopy ’s shadow shifts , and the great unwashed are forced to move with it if they require to abide out of the light .
But these panels do n’t stay in the same spot for long . They occur equip with special sensing element that keep track of the orientation course of the Lord’s Day and a communications system that represent with self-reliant drones nearby . If a panel is no longer keeping the soil beneath it shady , a drone will glide over , lift it up , and flick it into a different part of the canopy like a puzzle piece . Drones can also rearrange the panels in reception to the sizing and location of the bunch beneath them , which imply the same structure that shades a few pedestrians can also keep a larger party cool .

There are legal and logistic hurdle the project would ask to overcome before becoming a system in a existent - world , but the researchers behind it say that for now it ’s meant to get citizenry thinking about the potential applications for droning . Apress releasefrom the university reads , " With its ability to incessantly reconstruct during economic consumption , the system challenge pre - conceived ideas of robotic digital assembly and sophisticated pre - fabrication for computer architecture . "
you may see how the drone - powered canopy works in the TV below .
Cyber Physical Macro Material as a UAV [ re]Configurable Architectural SystemfromICDonVimeo .
[ h / tNew Atlas ]