Kojiro Yamada

Bachelor's

Electrical Engineering

University of Southern California

Research Internship

My primary objective is to explore the potential of quadrotor drones in rendering force feedback for virtual interactions. This involves addressing the current limitations in the trade-off between drone size and the maximum force they can render. While larger drones can produce more force, which is perceptible to human touch, they pose safety concerns and have lower illumination resolution. However, smaller drones, like nanocopters (expressly, crazyflies), are limited to rendering less than 30 grams of additional force. My research focuses on overcoming these limitations by employing a Force Linkage System (FLS), which uses multiple drones in tandem. By aggregating the force of small drones', we can bypass the force limitations usually associated with smaller drone sizes. This aggregation promises to deliver larger forces while maintaining a safe operational environment around humans. In addition to gaining experience with multi-agent systems and practical control theory, I hope that our work will lead to significant advancements in haptic feedback and virtual interactions, potentially transforming how we interact with virtual environments and objects.