MIT’s Leading the Pack With This Cool New Autonomous Drone Tech:

Any Star Wars fan knows that the chances of successfully navigating an asteroid field are approximately 3,720 to 1. The odds are probably significantly higher against today’s autonomous drones, which fly quite a bit slower than light- speed.

Researchers at MIT believe they have hit upon a solution—more than one, actually—to train drones to move quickly through a crowded, complex environment, though we’re probably light years away from navigating through hostile star systems.

One solution, dubbed “Flight Goggles,” involves streaming a virtual reality environment to the drone as it flies through empty space.

Generally, today’s autonomous drones are capable of mapping their surroundings as long as they cruise at low speeds. It is to challenge human pilots in the emerging sport of drone racing, where aircraft zip through obstacle courses at speeds of 120 miles per hour, but a faster pace requires a different approach. That’s because even the smartest drones can’t process visual information fast enough without crashing from the slightest changes in the environment. The VR environment is useful for developing many types of robotic vehicles, especially when the physics of the vehicle are very complex.

“When you have drones go very, very fast, their aerodynamics dominate their behavior. In this VR environment, the drone senses the real aerodynamics of fast flight. It is believed this is key to developing the drones themselves. Aerodynamics for fast vehicles is very hard to simulate.”

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