Researchers create ‘artist drone’ that can paint with its miniature arms

Researchers have created an 'artist drone' that can paint with its miniature arms. Its arm holds ink-soaked sponge, which it uses to paint dots on the canvas to produce small paintings.

A team from McGill University's school of computer science led by their teacher Paul Kry programmed tiny dots to create dot drawings. The process is described in a paper titled 'Stippling with aerial robots'. The paper has been published by the European Association for Computer Graphics, or Eurographics and the article on the project won the best paper prize at an international symposium in Lisbon on computational aesthetics in graphics and imaging recently. Stippling refers to the creation of a pattern simulating varying degrees of solidity or shading by using small dots.

Each payload of ink needs precise application, for which, the programme uses complex algorithms to plan flight paths and adjust for positioning errors of the drone. The drones, which can fit in the palm of a hand, are so light that even the slightest of air currents can toss the drones off course.

A motion-capture system mounted above the canvas monitors a couple of retroflective markers on the drone, as it flies and keeps watch of where the robot was in space. It then sends a command directing it as to where the next dot was to be applied.

The flying robots had so far rendered portraits of Alan Turing, Grace Kelly and Che Guevara, among others, with each drawing composed of a few hundred to a few thousand black dots of varying sizes.

According to Kry, at a later stage, larger drones could be deployed to paint murals on hard-to-reach outdoor surfaces, including curved or irregular facades.