The new DroneHub at NEST in Dübendorf in the canton of Zurich, the modular research and innovation building run by Empa and the water research institute of the ETH Domain (Eawag), has been ceremoniously inaugurated. According to a press release, it provides a “unique facility” where researchers can test and further develop innovative drones and robotic technologies.
The DroneHub has taken shape in collaboration with Imperial College London. It is led by Mirko Kovac, head of the Empa research lab Sustainability Robotics as well as Imperial’s Aerial Robotics Lab and Centre for Infrastructure Robotics Ecosystems. In future, the DroneHub will support Kovac’s new joint professorship in sustainability robotics between Empa and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne.
There are three zones at NEST: drones can perform 3D printing repair works while in flight at an external wall and under real weather conditions. The biosphere environment, which resembles an aviary and is also in the open air, enables robots to independently interact with nature, collect valuable environmental data through their sensors, and simultaneously test new biodegradable materials.
Lastly, the DroneHub’s façade with a modular construction shows how robots can be integrated into buildings and act as their immune systems, above all to control dangers. In a video from Empa regarding the DroneHub, Kovac explains: “Now this living with the drones, living with the robots, will also prove how they can be integrated in our lives, how society can be changed by studying how the symbiotic integration can really happen.” ce/mm
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