Bio-inspired product and system design has always been a hallmark of technological progress. And this is still true in the era of flying robots. The latest evidence comes to us from Australia, where researchers mapped the visual system of hovering insects to detect acoustic signatures of drones up to 3.5 km away.
Anthony Finn, professor of autonomous systems at the University of South Australia, says insect vision systems have been mapped for some time to improve camera detections. But the application of the same method to acoustic data represents a major innovation.
“Biovision processing has been shown to significantly increase the detection range of drones in visual and infrared data. However, we have now shown that we can detect clear, crisp acoustic signatures from drones, including very small, silent drones, using an algorithm based on the hoverfly’s visual system,” says Anthony Finn.
“Drones pose distinct threats to airports, homes and military bases”
Syrphid flies are a family of flies. They can be used for crop protection. Indeed, they are effective biological control agents against aphids in particular. The larvae can consume hundreds of aphids in a few days.
Potential applications of this research of course include military and defense uses. Defense company Midspar Systems participated in trials using bio-inspired signal processing techniques. According to the researchers, these techniques have a detection rate up to 50% higher than that of existing methods.
The hoverfly, which can hover above plants to gather nectar, was chosen because of its superior vision and tracking abilities. Both dark and lighted regions are visually very noisy, but insects like the hoverfly can process and capture visual cues with remarkable efficiency. The application of this same processing technique to acoustic detection has made it possible to considerably increase detection capacities, including in noisy environments.
“Drones pose distinct threats to airports, homes and military bases,” says Anthony Finn. “It is therefore increasingly important for us to be able to detect the specific location of drones at long distances, using techniques that can pick up even the weakest signals. Our trials using the hoverfly-based algorithms show that we can now do this. »
The researchers specifically looked for patterns (narrowband) and/or general signals (broadband) to detect drone acoustics at close and medium range. The new bio-inspired treatment technique has improved detection distances by 30-49%. The results were published in The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America.
Source: ZDNet.com