In some places pigeons are a nuisance. Like on the roof of a university building in Switzerland. Here a drone takes over the job of a high-tech scarecrow. With success!
A pigeon flies to a house roof. (Source: Depositphotos / Hopf23)
- Pigeons have a reputation for transmitting diseases. If they appear in large numbers, they can damage buildings.
- Various tricks can prevent them from landing.
- Researchers at Lausanne-based EPFL University are using drones and artificial intelligence to humanely evict pigeons.
Roofs and facades full of pigeons are a thorn in the side of people in many places. Homeowners in particular are annoyed by them. On the other hand, they are already using drones to clean solar cells and other things, some of which are strange. Couldn’t quadrocopters and co. also chase away the annoying pigeons?
The Swiss researchers may have had similar considerations. They first installed a camera on the roof of a building, which was frequently visited by pigeons and was correspondingly dirty.
An AI then evaluated the data collected over a period of 21 days. Patterns emerged as to how long pigeons stayed in certain places. Even a rough estimate of the coordinates was possible.
In a further step, a Parrot quadcopter was integrated into the software. As soon as the camera detected a certain number of pigeons, the drone automatically descended from the base station, flew to the roof and scared the birds away. Within 5 days, the quadrocopter flew 55 times to the roof. The result: a clean roof.
You can view the full report on the project here or take a closer look at the embedded video.
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