If your busy lifestyle leaves little time for housework, robot vacuum cleaners can help. Though models can employ some pretty advanced tech to autonomously tackle dirt in the living space, they’re pretty much limited to one story. If you want your robovac to clean upstairs, you’ll have to carry it up and set it off. Peter Sripol wasn’t happy with that situation so made his Roomba fly.
Sripol and his friend William Osman began the flying robovac project with a cheap model bought online and added three small ducted fans bolted directly to the casing of the robovac. The fans are controlled wirelessly using an RC transmitter, hinged rudders are used to spot the flying robovac from spinning around and, for the first flight tests, a battery was held above the unit.
The inexpensive robovac host was later swapped out for a genuine Roomba, which can now tackle stairs and split-level living spaces with the help of a human remote operator. But take-off and landing could be a problem for actual cleaning as the fans just disperse all the dirt before the brushes get a chance to do their stuff.
Stairs are no obstacle for flying robovac [New Atlas]