In 2021, researchers from the University of Zurich debuted an autonomous drone control system that could outfly human pilots on race tracks. In the two years since.
Why it matters: As first-person (FPV) drone racing grows in popularity, AI implementations have continued improving their results against human pilots. While a great deal of uncharted territory remains for this area of research, it could eventually impact various real-world applications for autonomous drones.
In 2021, researchers from the University of Zurich debuted an autonomous drone control system that could outfly human pilots on race tracks. In the two years since then, they’ve developed a successor they claim defeated three world-champion FPV drone racers.
The emerging sport tasks competitors with flying a small drone through a series of gates in the correct order as quickly as possible, with the video feed from the drone’s camera connected to the pilot’s goggles.
