Automatic Pilot Helicopters – MIT profs create autonomous UAVs

The MIT Team is using DraganFlyer helicopters, Gentoo Linux, Gumstix, and Vicon Motion Capture Systems and has sponsorship from Boeing.

Creating a robot that can manage to fly around a room on its own without hitting a wall is a mean feat to pull off, but that’s exactly what a team of professors at MIT have managed to do. Their multiple-UAV test platform is capable of complex tasks like following moving ground-based objects with little or no direct control from a human — yup, unfortunately that geek dream of a cockpit will no longer be required if these guys get their way. The current test setup is made up of $700 four-rotorblade helicopters, monitored by networked computers, which could theoretically allow a single person — or even a bored student with an internet connection — to control several UAVs at a time. Current flying drone systems require a team of trained personnel to keep a single UAV airborne and on target, so this endeavor is certainly a step up in software terms. How well the test system will transition from tracking radio controlled cars in a lab to lets say, a stolen car going at 125MPH, remains to be seen.

Read – Videos of the UAV in action
Read – The Boston Globe

via thehobbyguy via

2 Responses to Automatic Pilot Helicopters – MIT profs create autonomous UAVs

1. Carl says:

   August 25, 2007 at 1:29 pm

   Very cool, love it.
2. Izl says:

   August 29, 2007 at 12:14 pm

   But theres already ground bots that dont hit anything, how is air that harD?