New Spherical flying robot

Alright it may not be considered a "robot" but this little thing, has the size of a baseball and can take-off and land vertically and move forward with speeds up to 60km/h.

Since it has a spherical shape, it can bounce off walls without much harm and also it doesn't need to be too delicate in landing since it can roll.




Developed by Japan’s Ministry of Defence, made from off-the-shelf parts, reportedly bought from the Akihabar electronics shopping center in Tokyo for about $1400, this robot manages to combine the best of both a helicopter and a winged plane and can hover as well as travel very fast with forward motion.

The design uses a single ducted fan and four vanes deliver the thrust to make the whole thing stable without the use of a tail rotor or counter rotating blades like other helicopters. It uses three gyro-sensors to stabilise and cope with being hit or shoved while in mid-air. It is unknown how much weight  it can lift although it can support a small camera 

The ball is 42cm in diameter and it weighs 350gm. It's battery allows it to remain in flight for 8 minutes. The developers expect to use the new robot in rescue missions for viewing locations that are otherwise inaccessible by humans or other robots.