joggobot flying robotic running companion

‘joggobot’ flying robotic running companion, developed by the exertion games lab

‘joggobot‘ is a flying drone robot, designed as a running companion to help joggers maintain a steady pace. the project is the work of exertion games lab at australia’s RMIT university, in a research group led by director floyd mueller and visiting multimedia technology researcher eberhard gräther.

equipped with a camera and tag tracer, the modified parrot AR quad-rotored drone tracks the jogger based on an orange-and-blue T-shirt marker. should it lose sight of the markings, it lands immediately. in ‘companion’ mode, the robot acts as a running partner, moving alongside the user’s pace; in ‘coach mode’, it works as a pace-setter or moving target, flying ahead at a height of about one meter at a speed set by the runner via a custom smartphone app.

exertion games lab has not noted specific production plans for ‘joggobot’, although they note that joggers’ attribution of human-like characteristics to their running mate during beta testing has encouraged the team to experiment with the use of more anthropomorphic physical attributes for the drone.

demo of ‘joggobot’ video © eric dittloff

interview with exertion games lab director dr. florian mueller on ABC ‘catalyst’

closer view of the ‘joggobot’ prototype

‘systems’ view of the control unit for ‘joggobot’

via newscientist