Indoor flying robot learns from its mistakes

Daily Mail : Although most robots are designed to avoid collisions, the AirBurr is a new breed of drone. The flying robot has been programmed with a random direction algorithm to explore small enclosed spaces where vision-based navigation isn’t possible. As it traverses a dark or smoke-filled area, it regularly runs into walls and other objects. However, its rigid central core, which houses the sensitive rotors and electronic, is protected from such collisions by a series of springs that absorb the impact energy. When a crash sends the robot falling to the ground, its carbon-fiber legs work to return it to a standing position so that it can take off again. The AirBurr learns from its crashes by using the data it gathers to create a map of the environment. Researchers at EPFL’s Laboratory of Intelligent Systems in Switzerland developed the flying robot for a multitude of tasks, including searching for survivors in a collapsed mine or assessing damage in an irradiated nuclear power plant.