AirBurr UAV Navigates By Crashing Into Things 74
Zothecula writes "If you've ever watched a fly trying to find its way around a house, you might have noticed that it didn't take a particularly graceful approach – it probably bounced off a lot of windows and walls, until by process of elimination, it found a route that was clear. Well, researchers at Switzerland's EPFL Laboratory of Intelligent Systems are taking that same approach with the latest version of their autonomous AirBurr UAV – it's built to run into things, in order to map and navigate its environment."
Sounds like robotics class in college (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Idiotic approach (Score:4, Interesting)
I can think of a couple of reasons.
1) For the purpose of saving the weight of radar/sonar/laser devices. It's a small flying device. Weight matters.
2) For the purpose of saving the cost of radar/sonar/laser devices.