drones tagged posts

Feline-inspired vision technology enhances accuracy in challenging environments, paving the way for smarter, more efficient autonomous systems

Researchers have unveiled a vision system inspired by feline eyes to enhance object detection in various lighting conditions. Featuring a unique shape and reflective surface, the system reduces glare in bright environments and boosts sensitivity in low-light scenarios. By filtering unnecessary details, this technology significantly improves the performance of single-lens cameras, representing a notable advancement in robotic vision capabilities.

Autonomous systems like drones, self-driving cars, and robots are becoming more common in our daily lives...

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), commonly known as drones, are now used to capture images and carry out a wide range of missions in outdoor environments. While there are now several UAV designs with different advantages and characteristics, most conventional aerial robots are underactuated, meaning that they have fewer independent actuators than their degrees of freedom (DoF).

Underactuated systems are often more cost-effective and can be controlled using simpler control strategies than overactuated systems (i.e., robots that have more independent actuators than their DoF). Nonetheless, they are often less reliable and not as capable of precisely controlling their position and orientation.

Researchers at Tec...

Optical scientists have found a new way to significantly increase the power of fibre lasers while maintaining their beam quality, making them a future key defence technology against low-cost drones and for use in other applications such as remote sensing.

Researchers from the University of South Australia (UniSA), the University of Adelaide (UoA) and Yale University have demonstrated the potential use of multimode optical fibre to scale up power in fibre lasers by three-to-nine times but without deteriorating the beam quality so that it can focus on distant targets.

The breakthrough is published in Nature Communications.

Co-first author Dr Linh Nguyen, a researcher at UniSA’s Future Industries Institute, says the new approach will allow the industry to continue squeezing out ...

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), also known as drones, can help humans to tackle a variety of real-world problems; for instance, assisting them during military operations and search and rescue missions, delivering packages or exploring environments that are difficult to access. Conventional UAV designs, however, can have some shortcomings that limit their use in particular settings.

For instance, some UAVs might be unable to land on uneven terrains or pass through particularly narrow gaps, while others might consume too much power or only operate for short amounts of time. This makes them difficult to apply to more complex missions that require reliably moving in changing or unfavorable landscapes.

Researchers at Zhejiang University have recently developed a new unmanned, wheele...