A married couple of scientists has developed a system that will not allow the failed drone to fall on your head

Most UAVs are actually only half a drones. Yes, there are no people on board, but in most cases, such devices are operated remotely by specially trained operators. No problem if you need to manage a military drone or a private quadcopter. Well, who will manage the thousands of copters who will work as couriers? In fact, if large companies plan to use drones for the delivery of goods, then they will not recruit thousands of operators who can manage each of the drivers separately.

This problem is, in fact, very important, because without solving it, drones will not be used as couriers. The problem is not only that the systems will not be able to fly themselves - they can, there are different ways to achieve this goal. But the problem is - what to do if the drone suddenly has a dead battery or some other system has failed? In this case, you can imagine a picture of how a drone falls on someone's head with a stone. And the presented situation is quite real, in many respects, precisely because of security problems, the legislators are in no hurry to change the existing norms and standards regarding the use of Copters in localities. What to do?

Lou Glaab, a scientist working at NASA, together with his wife, a programmer, developed a system that they thought would solve this problem. They called the system Safe2Ditch, a software package that resides on a stand-alone computer aboard a drone, and starts to work if something goes wrong. Failure of any system or untimely dead battery - and the computer takes control. According to the developers, Safe2Ditch can land the copter without any problems in a safe place.
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Perhaps with the large-scale use of such a system, the Federal Aviation Administration in the United States will be able to mitigate drone requirements.

Safe2Ditch is a software and hardware platform designed specifically for relatively small and relatively inexpensive aircraft. She monitors the work of various drone systems, and makes decisions (offline) whether it is worth urgently landing a drone or whether the flight can be continued in case of any problems. The system has a base where information is stored about possible landing sites in case of a drone failure. The decision on emergency landing is made depending on the location of the drone, time of day, type of relief and other parameters.



The developers themselves say the following about their system: “Safe2Ditch was designed to replace a pilot in a certain sense, who usually makes decisions if something goes wrong in order to react and maneuver to protect people on earth” . As soon as a problem arises, in the presence of which it is impossible to continue the flight, the system selects a seat and makes a soft landing. If there are no available places listed in the database, then Safe2Ditch evaluates the surroundings and puts the kopter into a place that the computer deemed optimal.

This is a much more advanced system than those used in conventional, albeit expensive, multicopters. In general, if something goes wrong, the drone is simply sent "home." But this is not always possible, because in the event of a serious breakdown, the device may simply not get where it should be. Most models will not be able to understand the situation when the battery charge level has drastically decreased, and there is not enough energy to return the drone.

In some cases, the developers of Safe2Ditch say, operators of ordinary copters simply forget to indicate the point of return in a new place. And then the kopter tries to return to the point indicated earlier. And it can be tens of kilometers. Some drone models hang up in the air in case of problems, giving the operator time to decide what to do next.

Safe2Ditch independently evaluates the neighborhood, trying to identify people, cars, or other objects at the alleged drone landing site. If an "undesirable" object is detected, then the system re-evaluates the terrain and takes the device to where there is nobody and nothing that could interfere with the landing.

The developers worked together with representatives of Brigham Young University, who helped refine the software for the platform.

So far, Safe2Ditch cannot be called an ideal system. For example, it is not protected from abandoning itself. Also, it was not yet possible to find a solution to the problem, for example, when an important cable accidentally falls off, or the battery is disconnected, or the operator himself is lost and makes the wrong decisions. But the work is going on and on, and scientists hope that they will soon be able to provide a 100% reliable, autonomous emergency landing system for copters. And then you can already talk about the widespread introduction of multicopter.

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