New Team Member for Urban Warfare Settings

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Urban and underground spaces are the battlefields of the future. Indoors environments such as parking garages can hide threats such as ambush by infantry and armed vehicles. Robotic solutions for scouting the environment can safeguard lives. However, the interiors of massive buildings with thick, concrete walls can make it difficult for GPS navigation and radio control. 

A new aerial robot system senses and detects its surroundings in real-time to rapidly gather critical information — including high-fidelity 3D maps and human and object detection, providing situational awareness. The drones with AI-based software constitute critical team members for ground intelligence in complex, GPS-denied environments.

Exyn Technologies has built code to allow drones to fly in and map a GPS-denied environment. Dubbed “Scoutonomy,” this configuration expresses the autonomous scouting capability of small drones.

The drones are fully autonomous, capable of navigating within dynamic, complex, and dangerous environments without the need for a human operator or pre-loaded maps, according to the company website.

The process involves small drones flying and mapping in real-time, creating a useful picture of the world around them which both the drones and humans can use to understand the space. It includes the ability to detect and navigate around obstacles in the area being mapped, such as people or vehicles.

The technology can be applied also in other settings, including disaster response, when the drones can explore buildings, finding people who need rescuing without jeopardizing the lives of human rescuers in the process.

Other use cases include mining, logistics and construction, according to c4isrnet.com.