Anthony Tzes, professor and head of electrical and computer engineering at NYU Abu Dhabi, has spent his career developing new types of drone technology, plus robotics, and control engineering applications.
For autonomous drone technology to work, he says, the drones “need to communicate with each other. They can communicate as long as they know where they are,” which is easiest outdoors using GPS. Inside a collapsed building or tunnel, however, things become tricky. “How do drones know where they are?”
In search-and-rescue operations, autonomous drones need to be uniquely programmed to figure out where they are on their own, Tzes explains. Simultaneous localization and mapping technology helps a drone create a map of its surroundings as it moves around an unknown environment, and pinpoint its own location within the map.
To achieve this kind of precision, researchers attach stereoscopic cameras to the drones — two or more cameras that can create 3D images — so the drones can precisely measure where obstacles are located. The navigation technology they’re working with is similar to what’s used on commercial airplanes: GPS, accelerometers, magnetometers, and gyroscopes. All of this is then combined with computer algorithms to generate maps.
A fleet of autonomous drones are being tested inside NYU Abu Dhabi’s motion capture lab Kinesis, a shared research facility that is part of the Core Technology Platform. Under simulated conditions, the drones fly around indoors, navigating their way through a mock obstacle course, while researchers test their mapping accuracy.
In the near future, Tzes says, NYU Abu Dhabi ’s autonomous drones will also be equipped with robotic arms that will allow them to come in contact with objects nearby. “By ‘touching’ the environment, these drones can be used for inspection purposes or in medical-related operations.”