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This drone is so smart that it can dodge obstacles on its own while flying 30 miles per hour

Drones hold a lot of potential as an expedited delivery system, but they have one big problem—they tend to crash a lot. 

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Recently a drone crashed into power lines in West Hollywood, California, causing a blackout for 650 people, BBC reported. Other notable crashes include a drone attempting to smuggle drugs and hacksaws crashing at an Oklahoma prison and a federal intelligence worker crashing his drone into the White House.

MIT autonomous drone
MIT's autonomous drone. YouTube/ MITCSAIL

But a researcher from MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab (CSAIL) has developed technology that allows drones to fly autonomously at 30 miles per hour without crashing into obstacles.

“Everyone is building drones these days, but nobody knows how to get them to stop running into things,” Andrew Barry, the MIT graduate student who developed the system as part of his thesis, said in a press statement. “If we want drones that can fly quickly and navigate in the real world, we need better, faster algorithms.”

Barry's software allows drones to detect objects and create a map of its surroundings in real-time so that it can zip past obstacles.

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Current software captures images at multiple distances, but that process moves so slowly that drones can only fly 5 to 6 miles per hour. LIDAR sensors, which self-driving cars use to detect obstacles, are too heavy for drones.

Barry's system operates 20 times faster than existing software and only captures distances of 10 meters away.

"You don’t have to know about anything that’s closer or further than that," he said.

The drone, which has a 34-inch wingspan, has a camera on each wing and two processors to capture images and dart around obstacles.

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Barry plans to continue refining the technology so that drones can fly in environments as dense as a forest.

Watch the full video of the autonomous drone in action:

 

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