Marionette Show Using Quadrotors

Abstract

A marionett?e show is a play with the puppet controlled from above using wires by human. One ends of the wires are connected on di?erent joints of the marione?e, and the other ends are tied on a control stick. ?e marione?ist makes the puppet move by elab- orately manipulating the control stick. By the marione?ttist, the puppet looks like a living creature, sometimes walking, jumping, talking and dancing. And through the performances of these pup- pet, it gives pleasure to the audience. However, this technique requires a lot of practice, and even a slight shake of the control stick causes a large twisting or swinging of the wires, which results in a completely di?erent motion from the original intention. Our goals are to analyze the puppet shows of skilled marionett?ists, to reproduce them using quadrotors instead of human hands, and ?nally to create new shows. ?adrotor has simple mechanics, high maneuverability and very easy to control, so it has been used in various research topics over the past few years. More recently, fun and challenging tasks such as pole acrobatics [Brescianini et al. 2013], ball juggling [Mller et al. 2011] and ball throwing [Ritz et al. 2012] have been carried out using the quadrotor.