A spark of genius! If you have been taking notice of the many quadcopter videos that are online, you are probably getting used to seeing high-in-the-sky, bird’s-eye views of the earth, taken by multirotors. But what about a film that features them as characters interacting with an actor? If not, read on.
Reminiscent of the Disney film Fantasia, Sparked is a short film that includes a real-life human actor performing with several computer-guided quadcopters! No CGI animation or special effects are involved. What you see is the actor and the hovering and flying co-stars interacting in real time — no camera tricks are used to enhance the film.
Above: The first interaction between the repairman and the flying lampshades.
The film was shot in the Flying Machine Arena at ETH Zurich, which is a work space specially designed for studying and experimenting with autonomous flight systems. The Arena includes flying machines (quadcopters), high-precision motion capture systems, a wireless communication network, and custom software that produces the sophisticated computer algorithms used to precisely control multiple quadcopters. The Flying Machine Arena has served and continues to be a testbed for research for all sorts of aerial vehicles and is the key ingredient that made filming Sparked a reality.
The Flying Machine team comments, “The seamless coordination of multiple aerial vehicles, the design of suitable trajectories and choreographies, and the high reliability and robustness of the Flying Machine Arena infrastructure were all key ingredients for the success of the film. This film comes in the wake of several previous FMA exhibitions at live events such as TEDGlobal 2013, Zurich Minds, Google IO, Hannover Messe, and the FRAC Centre.”
Above: The film set. The film shoot took place in the Flying Machine Arena at ETH Zurich, a portable space dedicated to autonomous flight.
Center stage
The true stars of the show are the cleverly disguised rotordrones and, when asked about their precise control, the FMA Team replied: “The motion capture system can locate multiple objects in the space at rates exceeding 200 frames per second. While this may seem extremely fast, the objects in the space can move at speeds in excess of 10 meters per second, resulting in displacements of over 5cm between successive snapshots. This information is fused with other data and models of the system dynamics to predict the state of the objects into the future.
Above: One of the flying machines used during the shooting of Sparked. Opposite page bottom:
The system uses this knowledge to determine what commands the vehicles should execute next to achieve their desired behavior, such as performing high-speed flips, balancing objects, building structures, or engaging in a game of paddle-ball. Then, via wireless links, the system sends the commands to the vehicles, which execute them with the aid of on-board computers and sensors such as rate gyros and accelerometers.”
Above: Replacing batteries on he flying machines.
When asked why rotordrones were chosen to star in the film, the Team replied: “Although various objects can fly in the FMA, the machine of choice is the quadrocopter due to its agility, its mechanical simplicity and robustness, and its ability to hover. Furthermore, the quadrocopter is a great platform for research in adaptation and learning: it has well understood, low order first-principle models near hover, but is difficult to characterize when performing high-speed maneuvers due to complex aerodynamic effects. We cope with the difficult to model effects with algorithms that use first-principle models to roughly determine what a vehicle should do to perform a given task, and then learn and adapt based on flight data.”
Behind the scenes
Transforming the Flying Machine Arena into a film set included adding three work benches, 50 electrical lamps, and many other props. During the three-day shoot, the space also played host the several researchers, producers, technicians, the film crew and 11 performers (one human and 10 closely operated multirotor “actors”). You can see more of what it takes to pull off such a high-quality video check out: rotordronemag.com/Sparked.
Above: A camera man gets up close and personal with the human machine actors.
It is has often been said that to the uninformed, many forms of new technology, when demonstrated in a dramatic form can often be confused with magic. Certainly, Sparked, which combines human performing art and sophisticated computer controlled flying machines, is a magical experience.
By Team Rotordrone photos courtesy of The Sparked Team
