Reuters ran this new report on the flocking abilities of the Swinglet MAV built by Swiss start-up Sensefly.
The aircraft are programmed to “flock” like birds, according to Dario Floreano of the Swiss Federal Polytechnic of Lausanne, the leader of the team .”So what we have got here is a number of flying robots that can flock in the sky completely autonomously,”
“They can cover a preset area. You simply decide which area they have to fly over and they would go, they would take off, cover this area, take photographs, they can monitor air pollution or other types of measurements you want to take and they make sure they stay in contact, they don’t collide with each other and when the mission is over they come back to the position where you launched them.”
The unmanned aircraft communicate with each other through Wi-Fi and use a Swinglet CAM that is programmed on a laptop during flight to record data and take hi-res photos. Sensefly sells the individual aircraft for about $10,000.
So far, Floreano’s team has programmed 10 aircraft to fly together towards a set location without crashing into each other. Better sensors on the units would be required to allow larger “flocks” of Swinglets to be launched safely.
Floreano said an early application is to combine their individual photographs to create 3D images of the landscape they fly over. Computer simulations using algorithms convert the flock’s photographs to create 3D images of the land below. Professor Floreano says improved sensors would allow a larger flock to stay together without crashing.
“These planes could be equipped with antennas and one of the purposes of developing the system indeed is to deploy these flying vehicles in the air so they can create an ad hoc network so people on the ground can talk over dedicated band so that they don’t rely on GSM or traditional means of communication.” Apart from cameras, the aircraft can also carry payloads like sensors to measure air pollution.
Source: Reuters