The whole idea feels very "Juicero" to me.
Step 2: Wait for the tech to mature.
Step 3: $$$
That is, how is this tech supposed to "mature" in any way to be actually commercially viable or an improvement upon much simpler methods for "moving stuff around"? Anything that ups the load means you're going to essentially have a giant copter you have to push around.
Don't get me wrong, I'm sure there are cool algorithms used for the stabilization and "push-sensing" features, but I can't see how in any possible universe that this tech will be viable for the purported use case.
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[0] - think terrain looking like this:
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---------\You just need a bigger wheel.
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(Star Trek avoided this fate by having World War 3 happening in between today and warp drive.)
Doesn't need to be commercially viable, military viable is more than enough. Stick a gun or two on it and you got a version of the recent Ukrainian breakthrough "Fury" UGV [1] that doesn't depend on maneuverable terrain. Or combine it with some wheels to create a two-way vehicle that can drive efficiently on somewhat decent terrain but "air hop" over obstacles.
Something like 30 minutes of flight time should already be no issue, that's enough to clear a trench.
Warfare was always nasty to begin with, but since the advents of robotic vehicles being used against humans... phew.
[1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidaxe/2024/09/19/ukraines-gu...
Palletrone is by all means a demonstrator that the idea is possible, an utter MVP.
> And in cases where you would want flight capability, why wouldn't you just use a standard aerial drone (obviously used already to great effect in the Ukraine war)?
The key thing IMHO is the fusion of aerial and ground movement. A gun on wheels is nice but it's immediately stopped in its tracks by anything from swampy terrain ("rasputiza") over a random trench to hedgehogs [1], not to mention mines. Give it aerial capability, even if it's just enough to hop over a hedgehog or a smaller river, and the ability to defend itself while airborne, and the game becomes much more serious.
All you need to be is the first one to actually pull it off and hope it's enough of a surprise effect that the enemy gets hindered long enough that you can make some military gain out of it.
Side thought: I wonder how much downforce a drone can actually exert on the ground. Could a heavy enough drone with serious bottom armor be powerful enough to detonate anti-personnel mines without being endangered in the process?
Again, the whole idea presented in this article is that it responds to people pushing on it. What you have just described is what a standard, existing aerial drone is capable of. There is already terrain-following tech that allows a drone to stay at a given height above the ground.
If you have any actual thoughts on how a device like this could ever be relevant in the real world, I'm all ears.
Step 1: Impress investors
Step 2: Get $$$
Step 3: ???