the article
As great as flying robots are, there is only so much they are currently capable of doing. They can be used for survalience and inspection, there is a special case in which a bot was able to deliver stuff but, that is pretty much as much as we've come to expect from them. Enter the German Aerospace Center (DLR). The simplest way to attach a robot arm to a UAV is to simply bolt it on. DLR decided to attach a 7 degree of freedom industrial arm to an autonomous mini-helicopter. With the use of an on-board vision system they bot was able to pick up a pole placed in the ground. While this doesn't sound particularly hard, the helicopter's center of gravity changes every time the arm moves which in turn move the helicopter.
future implications
While this is just the first step in a long road, DLR is looking forward to robots capable of some heavy lifting. In the future they may be bots capable of transporting materials for construction sites such as steel girders. It could even be possible to have several helicopters in cooperation with one another to aid in construction and building.