This is the first time that drones have flown simultaneously and completely autonomously in a natural environment – as dense as a forest, to boot.
Scientists from the Chinese University of Zheijiang unveiled on May 5, 2022, through a YouTube video, a swarm of 10 drones capable of navigating in a forest in complete autonomy and without human guidance. These drones fly side by side towards the same direction avoiding trees, embankments and a lot of other obstacles. This is a first, but how is it possible?
A drone is an aircraft without a pilot on board. It is remote controlled and can be programmed to fly autonomously, like here. As the authors confide themselves in their paper published in Science Roboticsthese autonomous drones are inspired by films such as Star Wars, Prometheus or blade runner 2049. ” We take a step towards such a future write the authors of this work.
Autonomous drones
Drones have multiple uses: inspecting terrain from the sky in order to have a more complete overall plan, filming and capturing images for high-altitude shots, covering a much wider area in less time than relief operations on land and even carry out intelligence and counter-terrorism operations.
In most cases, the drones are all managed by a central computer which gives them instructions to control their trajectory and check if the area where they are is free of obstacles. This is not the case in this experiment. It is a question of giving autonomy to a dozen drones so that they can manage their tasks perfectly alone. This requires a different type of intelligence to develop.
Managing a swarm of ten drones in a forest full of obstacles is a very difficult thing, especially since these scientists had not programmed data into the drones beforehand. Chinese researchers at Zheijang University first conducted several experiments, which they relate in Science Robotics.
The drones were loaded with sensors in order to individually process, and share in real time, the data they collected with other drones. For example, they embarked cameras and altitude sensors to assess their own position. Thus, thanks to an algorithm embedded in each of them, the small unmanned planes manage to maintain a certain safety distance between them to avoid any collision with trees or other drones.
These new drones could be useful in the event of a natural disaster, because they operate autonomously, without GPS. But it is not difficult to imagine a military use, more worrying undoubtedly.
Is it a matter of time before we see a wider deployment of these drones? In any case, they will first have to undergo more thorough testing, especially in ultra-dynamic environments – that is, places like cities.