NASA Rollocopter

Team CoSTAR, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (USA) Rollocopter (1)

Team CoSTAR, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (USA) Rollocopter (2)

Team CoSTAR, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (USA) Rollocopter (3)

Not for saleNASA JPL research prototype, described in a 2019 IROS paper.

Not for sale (research)Not programmableFly + rollPassive wheelsCave explorerNASA JPL

Not for saleShipping: Not for sale. A research prototype that was never sold.

Remote control: Not possible. Research prototype.

NASA JPL, Rollocopter ↗Fan et al., Autonomous Hybrid Ground/Aerial Mobility in Unknown Environments (IROS 2019, arXiv) ↗Team CoSTAR, NeBula paper (arXiv 2021) ↗Bartlett, Rollocopter thesis (University of Sydney / JPL, arXiv) ↗NASA JPL, Drivocopter at the DARPA SubT Urban Circuit (2020) ↗

Overview

Rollocopter is a quadrotor from NASA JPL's Team CoSTAR with two unpowered wheels on a shaft, so the same propellers that fly it also push it along the ground. In 2019 tests rolling used about one fifth of the power of flying, so it flies only when needed. It was tested in mines for the DARPA Subterranean Challenge, and JPL lists the project as completed. Its first version used a HyTAQ-style rolling cage. A later relative, Drivocopter (Kalantari et al., 2020), used four motor-driven spherical wheels to reduce dust from propeller downwash.

Specifications

Category	Drones · Fly + drive or walk
Released	2019
Country	USA
Availability	Not for sale (research)
Programmability	No programmability
Built-in autonomy	Navigates · Goes to places on its own, such as mapped rooms, waypoints or its charging dock
LLM support	None · No built-in LLM and no SDK to connect one.
Best for	Professionals & labs
Vision sensors	Lidar, Depth camera, Camera
Actuators	Brushless / direct-drive motors
Audio	No audio
Compute type	x86 PC (Intel / AMD), Arduino / ESP32 / microcontroller
Remote control	Not programmable
Size	4.231 kg total, of which the wheels, bearings and mounts weigh about 500 g. Dimensions not published.
Drive	Quadrotor with four brushless motors and a Pixhawk flight controller. Two unpowered carbon-fiber honeycomb wheels sit on a shaft through the frame, so propeller thrust pushes it along the ground and also flies it over obstacles.
Compute	Intel NUC (Core i7, 32 GB RAM, Ubuntu 16.04, ROS) plus a Pixhawk running PX4. A Qualcomm Snapdragon was also tested for visual SLAM.
Vision	Intel RealSense RGB-D camera
Lidar	Velodyne VLP-16 360° lidar, plus two TeraRanger Evo 64px height sensors (one up, one down)
Sensors	IMU in the Pixhawk, wheel encoders, upward and downward height sensors
Runtime	Not published. Average power was 194.5 W when rolling versus 971.9 W when flying, so rolling used about one fifth of the energy.
Speed	0.3 m/s in the published energy tests. Top speed not published.
SDK	None public