The age of commercial and private drones is upon us, exemplified by increasingly common stories of drone mishaps and even the likes Amazon announcing plans to launch a drone delivery service in the coming years.
But there may not always be enough handlers trained or available to control all the varieties of drones making their way into the skies, so one team from the Netherlands developed a lightweight unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) that can traverse the skies on its own.
With a 28-centimeter wingspan and weighing just 20 grams (about the weight of four sheets of paper), the DelFly Explorer uses a small stereovision system, composed of two cameras and a tiny embedded computer, to avoid obstacles in its path.
The stereovision system (which weighs just 4 grams) allows the DelFly Explorer to determine the distance between it and any flight barriers in its environment in real-time.
In the presentation video, the DelFly Explorer’s creators envision the device being used for reconnaissance missions in emergency situations and even during concerts to allow for innovative video shoots.
However, at present, there are no plans to try to bring the DelFly Explorer to the commercial market. Instead its creators are focusing on further developing the capabilities of the device.
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