Self Driving drone: A new algorithm that helps drones fly faster than the human pilots in the race. For the very first time in history, an autonomously flying auto-quadrotor has performed better than two human pilots in the drone race.
This success is based on the new novel algorithm which was developed by the University of Zurich and it also calculates time-optimal trajectories which are fully considered the limitations of drones.
The drones need to be quick to be counted as useful because the drone consists of batteries that are limited and the drone has to perform its function or provided task in less period.
Tasks such as delivering cargo, searching of survivors after the disaster on the site, inspecting building in the least possible time and they perform these tasks by going through series of waypoints such as rooms, windows, or any specific location which is suspicious, adoption of the best trajectory and the right deceleration and acceleration at every segment.
The research group of the University of Zurich has now come with an algorithm that helps in finding the trajectory so quickly with the help of a quadrotor, an automatic drone with four propellers with a series of waypoints on the circuit.
Self Driving drones, In the research, the team did a test in which they concluded that their drone has beaten the fastest lap of world-class 2 human pilots on the experimental track, stated by Davide Scaramuzza who is the head of Robotics and Perception of the UZH and the Rescue Robotics Grand Challenge given by NCCR Robotics who funded the research.
He also stated that the previous works are based on the simplification of the quadrotor system or the description of the fight path.
The researchers hired two pilots to fly the same drone on the race circuit. They also employed external cameras for precisely capturing the motions of the drone and to provide real-time information to the algorithm to figure out where was the drone at the moment in the case of the autonomous drone.
Self Driving drones, The researchers gave a chance to the 2 human pilots for practicing on the circuit to be prepared for the race.
Read More: New AI allows Drone to help Disaster Victims by locating them through screams
