An autonomous racing drone that needs no pilot at the controls has been created in the Netherlands. In Abu Dhabi, it competed against reigning world champions and beat them all, according to infohub.kz.
A team from Delft University of Technology developed MonoRace, a quadcopter that navigates the track on its own and controls its flight using artificial intelligence.
During the competition, the drone accelerated to about 100 km/h, passed through racing gates, and performed complex maneuvers. In the heats, MonoRace outperformed other AI-powered teams and also posted a faster time than three former world champions among human pilots.
In regular FPV (first-person view) racing, pilots control drones through special goggles that transmit video from an onboard camera. At speeds up to 160 km/h, they must react instantly to turns and obstacles. MonoRace handles this task on its own.
Instead of a complex sensor system, the engineers used a single camera and an inertial measurement unit that tracks acceleration and rotation. A neural network processes this data and sends commands to the motors about 500 times per second. This allows the drone to navigate the track without GPS or a pre-planned route.
It is worth noting that the development will be useful not only for competitions. For example, such technologies could be used in self-driving cars and robots that must move autonomously among obstacles.
Earlier, Kursiv LifeStyle reported that conscript soldiers in Kazakhstan had begun training to operate drones.