With references to sci-fi movies like Prometheus, Ender’s Game (The Ender’s Game) or Star Wars: Episode III and blade runner 2049scientists from Zhejiang University in China published in the journal Science Robotics a study titled: “A swarm of flying micro-robots in the wild.”
” The ability to navigate and coordinate swarms (note: drones) in these films has inspired many researchers. […] We are taking a step towards such a future. In a video posted on YouTube by one of the study’s researchers, a dozen small drones weighing less than 300 g each move through a dense bamboo forest avoiding obstacles.
The drone swarm can warp to avoid trees and reform in empty space. The flight is carried out in total autonomy by relying on a trajectory planner which works in a few milliseconds from limited information provided by integrated sensors.
Impressive… and worrying?
The researchers thus emphasize that there is no external installation or GPS-type infrastructure, nor even prior mapping of the environment. To stay in formation, the small drones with on-board computers communicate with each other and share the data collected by their stereo cameras in order to adapt a trajectory.
The technique used can also be exploited to allow the swarm to follow a target such as a moving person, for example, even if the view of one of the drones is obstructed. The feat remains this ability for the swarm of drones to fly in such a dense environment that was not known in advance.
As often with such demonstrations, they also raise some concerns about use in the context of surveillance or attacks for example.
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