NEW Drone AI Could Give UAVs the Ability to Ride Air Currents Like Birds
AI could help drones ride air currents like birds
SOURCE : https://theconversation.com/ai-could-help-drones-ride-air-currents-like-birds-103564
Birds have long inspired humans to create their own ways to fly. We know that soaring bird species that migrate long distances use thermal updrafts to stay in the air without using up energy flapping their wings. And glider pilots similarly use thermals currents and other areas of rising air in order to remain airborne for longer.
Yet, while we’ve mastered gliding through these updrafts using various instruments, the exact mechanisms that allow birds to soar are still unknown. But a team of researchers from California and Italy have made some telling steps towards answering this question using artificial intelligence (AI). And it could lead to new developments in navigation systems for aircraft, with particular implications for creating drones that can stay airborne for very long periods of time.
The aim of the study, published in Nature, was to train a small two-metre wingspan autonomous glider to fly in thermals, just like a real bird would. The glider was programmed with a kind of AI known as machine learning that enabled it to work out how to use the air currents to stay in the air for longer.
Machine learning is an alternative approach to programming a computer to do a complex task. Rather than feeding a computer (or autonomous glider in this case) a set of instructions telling it how to do something, you tell the computer how you would like it to respond and reward it when it does the right thing.
Over time it will learn what things are rewarded and will tend to do these behaviours instead. This technique is how computer programs such as Google’s AlphaGo can learn to play the board game Go and then beat professional players, a feat simply not possible with conventional programming techniques.
This type of machine learning is called…
