A group of bright blue drones lift off in a bamboo forest in China, then follow a flight path through the woods that is best for them.
The experiment, led by scientists at Zhejiang University, evokes scenes from science fiction, and the authors cite films such as Star Wars, Prometheus, and Blade Runner 2049 in the opening of their paper.
The team wrote that they took a step forward to a future like that.
There are many real-world applications, including aerial mapping. The technology needs to mature so that flying robots can adapt to new environments without crashing into one another or objects endangering public safety.
Enrica Soria, a roboticist at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne who was not involved in the research, told Agence France-Presse that drones have been tested in open environments without obstacles or with the location of obstacles programmed in.
She said the experiment was the first time a swarm of drones successfully flew outside in the wild.
The palm-sized robots were built with purpose-built cameras, altitude sensors, and an on-board computer. The biggest advancement was a clever algorithm that incorporated coordination and flight efficiency.
swarms could be used during natural disasters since these drones do not rely on any outside infrastructure.
They could be sent into earthquake-hit areas to survey damage and identify where to send help, or into buildings that are unsafe to send people.
It is possible to use single drones in such scenarios, but a swarm approach would be more efficient.
It is possible to have the swarm lift and deliver heavy objects.
The dark side is that swarms could be weaponized by militaries, just as remote-piloted single drones are today. The Pentagon is carrying out its own tests.
Military research is not shared with the rest of the world and so it is difficult to imagine what the development will be like.
Advances in scientific journals could be used for military purposes.
The Chinese team tested their drones in a number of different scenarios, including swarming through the bamboo forest, avoiding other drones in a high-traffic experiment, and having the robots follow a person.
Zhou wrote in a post that their work was inspired by birds that fly smoothly in a free swarm through dense woods.
He said the challenge was balancing the need for small, lightweight machines with high-computational power and safe trajectory without prolonging flight time.
It is only a matter of a few years before we see such drones deployed in real-life work. They will need to be tested in ultra-dynamic environments, where they will come up against people and vehicles.
It will take additional time for regulations to catch up.
Agence France-Presse
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