Description

The Mascarillons are basically helium blimps contrained within a rigid, ultra-light structure, whose size varies from 1.8 meters (prototype) to 1,60 meters (final version), made of basswood ( " bois de tilleul " ). The largest structure weighs just over 1000g. An outer envelope is tightened on the structure, resulting in truly cubic blimps with perfectly flat faces that can assemble in a building bloc manner. The mechatronics equipment is currently composed of small ducted fans located within the structure's edges, sonar sensors spanning each direction, light detectors, a compass and an inclinometer, and a Korebot Linux CPU (which weighs barely 40g) with wireless LAN. With this implementation the Mascarillon is balanced to the hydrostatic equilibrium and uses motors to avoid possible obstacles, to perform some task oriented moves, or to adjust for micro-atmospheric movements. The wireless network enables direct exchange of information. At the present time, a prototype (M-180) and 3 preliminary versions of the Mascarillons (M-170) are already built ; the model number refers to the length of the edge, measured in centimeters. The final swarm will be composed of at least twelve M-165 flying cubes.

To be able to achieve self-reconfiguration, the addition of a docking system is under development, as well as additional sensor capacities. It has to be stressed that each component must be carefully chosen to meet the weight and volume requirements imposed by the context of the project. Energy consumption is also crititcal, since it imposes supplementary constraints on the number –and weight- of the on-board battery cells. Each further development in the mechatronics, in order to give the Mascarillons more potentialities, is therefore highly constrained.