Tiny Drones for Unknown Environments

We explored the approach of using small swarms of drones.   In industrial and outdoor forestry and logging spaces.....

Swarm of Tiny Drones Explores Unknown Environments
Delft University of Technology

A swarm of tiny drones that can explore unknown environments on their own was created by researchers from the Netherlands’ Delft University of Technology (TU Delft) and Radboud University of Nijmegen, and the U.K.'s University of Liverpool. The camera-equipped, 33-gram drones navigate autonomously, with limited sensing and computational capabilities. A proof of concept for search-and-rescue operations demonstrated that a six-drone swarm could investigate about 80% of open rooms, and swarming added redundancy so data otherwise lost by one malfunctioning drone could be supplied by others. A wireless communications chip installed in each drone allows them to detect and avoid each other by reading signal strength between the chips. Delft’s Kimberly McGuire said, “The main advantages of this method are that it does not require extra hardware on the drone and that it requires very few computations.”