Draper and DoD Work Together on Next Generation of Small Drones
MA-based engineering firm Draper[1] and DoD are working together on the next generation of small drones – developing technology to improve autonomous navigation that could rapidly move into the commercial space.
Under a three-year contract with the Department of Defense, Draper is focused on addressing the hardest parts of autonomous navigation – demonstrating how they can equip small drones to reduce collisions and develop robust new navigation methods.
Autonomy is a key capability for commercial drones as well as military drones. Ease of use – allowing small drones to avoid obstacles more easily – means that drones can be more widely used in the commercial arena, and can be used for inspection or monitoring of any complex environment: whether that’s an urban interior or the underside of a bridge.
Draper and the DoD are working together on a system that could be applied to any small UAV airframe. “The system is platform-agnostic and ready for integration into micro-, mini- and small-UAVs and autonomous land systems,” says the Draper release.
“Draper’s engineers demonstrated their software on a small UAV chosen by the customer to navigate narrow interiors in simulated urban environments, create 3D maps of their interior, identify and avoid objects and return autonomously to the base,” says the Draper release. “Unmanned systems equipped with Draper’s autonomy architecture and software package need no remote pilot, no GPS guidance, no communications link for navigation and no pre-programmed map of the area—the onboard software, lightweight processor and low-cost sensors do all the work autonomously in real-time.”