MIT Researchers Drone Fleets to Aid Rescue Operations

New York: Researchers at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have developed an autonomous system for a fleet of drones that can collaboratively search for lost hikers under dense forest canopies, without the help of GPS. The system allows drones to cooperatively explore terrain by using only onboard computation and wireless communication under thick forest canopies where GPS signals are unreliable.”Essentially, we’re replacing humans with a fleet of drones to make the search part of the search-and-rescue process more efficient,” said lead author Yulun Tian from MIT’s Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AeroAstro). Each autonomous quadrotor drone is equipped with laser-range finders for position estimation, localisation, and path planning. As the drone flies around, it creates an individual 3D map of the terrain. Algorithms help it recognise unexplored and already-searched spots, so it knows when it has fully mapped an area. An off-board ground station fuses individual maps from multiple drones into a global 3D map that can be monitored by human rescuers. (IANS)

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