MIT automated drone trajectory tech yields 100% collision-free trials

Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) say they’ve created an automated system allowing drones to select safe flight trajectories with what trials indicated was a 100% collision-free success rate.

In a paper on their experiment, the MIT team describes how they updated the MADER system they created in 2020 that permits drones to communicate with one another, and choose flight paths that avoid collision. The hitch with that tech, the researchers said, was while it was flawless in simulations, in live trials with UAVs it ran into trouble when information transfers between craft slowed, and vehicles chose routes that wound up intersecting others.

To solve that problem, members of the MIT unit factored in short delays in drones selecting their next trajectories to ensure they wouldn’t wind up running into others in the area. The resulting Robust MADER system delivered what wound up being 100% safety to the system during recent…