Photo source: ETH Zurich Flying Machine Arena
Or more precisely, how to weave it. Because that's what a team at the ETH Zurich Flying Machine Arena in Switzerland has done. It's the first weight-bearing structure built by autonomous flying machines.
How does it work?
The drones have proximity sensors and are wirelessly controlled by a computer that contains the algorithms for building the bridge. Engineers input the coordinates of key points and the distances between them, then let the drones do the work themselves.
It sounds like science fiction, but hey, it's 2016, the year of autonomous cars, vertical-landing rockets, and street-smart Pokemon.