The autonomous drones that will fly at 30 km/h are coming

© Sofokleousin.gr The autonomous drones that will fly at 30 km/h are coming

Engineers, at US MIT University’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence (CSAIL) Lab, have developed a system that allows drones, although traveling at a speed of at least 30 km/h, to avoid the obstacles they encounter.

Many companies, such as Amazon, have ambitious plans for drones to deliver the packages themselves to the consumer’s door. But -in addition to other legal and institutional obstacles- it has so far proved technically difficult to program drones to fly autonomously in chaotic places filled with unforeseen obstacles.

The difficulty is even greater for small drones that have limited computing capabilities in real time. Now, for the first time, engineers at US MIT University’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence (CSAIL) Laboratory have developed a system that allows drones, although traveling at a speed of at least 30 km/h, to avoid the obstacles they encounter.

The NanoMap system, which allows drones to fly quickly with relative (but not yet absolute) safety alone within cities, forests and other complex environments, combines sensors and algorithms to continuously calculate how far the objects around it are. Thanks to its artificial intelligence, it can even make predictions of what awaits it in the next corner!

“It’s like storing, in a big movie in your mind, all the pictures you’ve seen already”

said lead researcher Pitt Florence. Tests have shown that so far with the new system, the impact of autonomous drones on objects has been limited to 2% (from 25% without the new system).

The new system, as transmitted by AMNA, can be used in various types of drones with autonomous navigation: commercial, military, recreational, research and rescue. Not at all accidently, this research was funded by the US Pentagon’s Advanced Defense Research Programs (DARPA).

Source: www.sofokleousin.gr