Drones are tons of fun to fly. But every time you take one out for a spin, there’s a threat waiting to spoil your day aloft: Trees. Colliding with a big, lumbering oak or elm can spell the end for most small drones.
Thankfully, researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory have developed a drone that’s capable of detecting and avoiding trees before it meets its untimely demise.
Motherboard reports the aircraft continuously scans objects in its immediate path. Its onboard computer then decides whether evasive action is necessary. This all happens nearly instantaneously; the drone isn’t programmed with any prior knowledge of the obstacles in its route beforehand.
Watch MIT’s tree-ducking drone in all its automated glory above.
Discover How Drones Are Made in Israel
An Israeli soldier from the Sky Rider Unit launches a Skylark mini-Unmanned Arial Vehicle (UAV) during a demonstration close to the border with Gaza. Sky Rider units provide real-time video from the battlefield. Vittoria Mentasti and Daniel TepperA small trailer used as a clubhouse by soldiers in the Sky Rider unit, on an Israeli military base next to the Erez Crossing on, the border with Gaza.
Vittoria Mentasti and Daniel TepperAn employee working at the Aeronautics factory in Yavne, Israel.Vittoria Mentasti and Daniel TepperThe Orbiter mini UAV inside the Aeronautics Defense Systems factory in Yavne, Israel. This highly autonomous UAV can locate and track moving targets while piloting itself along a patrol route. The Orbiter is flown by military forces in over 30 countries including Mexico, Ireland, and Poland.Vittoria Mentasti and Daniel TepperEmployees working on airframe components inside the Aeronautics factory in Yavne, Israel.
The bodies of modern UAVs are mostly made up of composite materials. At the Aeronautics factory, workers employ a series of labor-intensive processes in which thin sheets of composite materials are combined to create solid pieces of the drone’s airframe. Vittoria Mentasti and Daniel TepperA group of Micro-STAMP imaging payloads, made by Controp at the company’s factory outside of Petah-Tikva, Israel. Each unit has a color video camera as well as an infrared thermal imaging camera that can see at night or through thick cloud cover and fog. Vittoria Mentasti and Daniel TepperA prototype of the Picador, a VTOL (vertical take off and landing) UAV, sitting in a storage area inside the Aeronautics factory.in Yavne, Israel.Vittoria Mentasti and Daniel TepperGround control stations used to pilot larger UAV’s, inside a hangar at Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) main facility near Ben Gurion Airport, Israel. Vittoria Mentasti and Daniel TepperA joystick for manually controlling a UAV inside a ground control station at the Aeronautics factory in Yavne, Israel.Vittoria Mentasti and Daniel TepperA screen grab of test footage from an infrared camera provided by Controp.Vittoria Mentasti and Daniel TepperInside a hangar at Israeli Aerospace Industries’s (IAI) main facility, near Ben Gurion Airport, Israel. Founded in 1953, the state-owned company is the largest aerospace and defense manufacturer in the country. IAI has produced fighter jets, missiles, and satellites for domestic and international clients and is the largest manufacturer of UAV systems in Israel. This hangar is used as a showroom, exhibiting the many UAVs and related systems produced by the company. The small vehicle on the right is a scale-model of the Naval Rotary Unmanned Air Vehicle – a helicopter drone used for naval ISR missions.Vittoria Mentasti and Daniel Tepper
