Security

Bat Senses Could Help Mini-Drones in Urban Combat

As if fake cat brains and robotic pack mules weren’t enough. Military-funded researchers are getting to show off detectors that could let tiny drones that sense their surroundings like bats. The Pentagon’s brains would like to see swarms of tiny drones zipping through urban canyons, looking for enemies. But to pull off such maneuvers, the […]

Sleepingbats As if fake cat brains and robotic pack mules weren't enough. Military-funded researchers are getting to show off detectors that could let tiny drones that sense their surroundings like bats.

The Pentagon's brains would like to see swarms of tiny drones zipping through urban canyons, looking for enemies. But to pull off such maneuvers, the machines are going to have to get better at figuring out their environment. Otherwise, they'll keep crashing into buildings and street signs. One project, funded by the Air Force, aims to help the drones out, by combining "bat-inspired echolocation for obstacle detection with a phenomenon called 'optic flow' for navigation," Graham Warwick* *reports.

The bat-senses will allow the mini-drone "detect and dodge obstacles like trees, poles and wires," he adds, in an* Ares *blog post. Then, the system will use the "optical flow" technique, which "allows a person to judge how close he is to certain objects" by whether those obstacles are expanding or receding in his vision, and by how much.

The drone tech gurus Aurora Flight Sciences have been working on this bat-like system for a few years. They just won another Air Force award to continue on with the work. Test flights should come by 2010.

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