MIT’s Drones for Good Water

WaterflyMimics a Swarm of Dragonflies thatCan Communicate with Each other, Fly Collaboratively, and Land on Bodies of Water to Collect Samplesfor Environmental Testing

When a team from MIT's Senseable City Lab flew to Dubai this weekend to participate inDrones for Good, acontest hosted by the UAE government, they brought a swarm of five amphibious drones in tow.

Theirproject, dubbed "Waterfly," mimics a swarm of dragonflies. Each Frisbee-like device is just over four pounds, and together, theycan communicate with each other, fly collaboratively, and land on bodies of water to collect samplesfor environmental testing. The team will have them on display at the contest semifinals this week at Dubai's Internet City.

"When you have a swarm they can be much more efficient," said Carlo Ratti, director of the Senseable City Lab, which designed the distinctive crafts. If the goal is to photograph a region, or collect multiple water samples, five drones could collect a more comprehensive sample, faster.

In a region where the associations with the word "drone" carries a more threatening meaning—think large Predators with missiles rather than more innocuous quadcopters—the Emiratis have taken a strikingly optimistic stance aboutthe potential benefits ofsmall autonomouscrafts.

In its quest for the $1 million dollar prize, Waterfly will be vying with projects like Flyability, which is a Swiss-made drone housed in a spherical cage that protects it from collisions, and a team from New Zealand that'll demonstrate how drones can help Coast Guards better do their job.

The ‘Gimball' drone, another entry in the Drones for Good challenge, can bounce off obstacles and continue flying unharmed. (Photo: Flyability)

The MIT design is novel one; the drone's light, carbon fiber skeleton and shape mean the crafts can land on water and then take off again.Chris Green, one of the architects behind the water sampling drone, was also the builder of "Skycall" concept. In a video published last year, he demonstrated how a drone could potentially be summoned via a smartphone app, and then act as a guide through MIT's campus.

But this contender in the Dubai contest is just the latest in a groundswell of research that is attempting to mimic the natural mathematics of bird and insect swarms, where many individual creatures track a seemingly coordinated yet chaotic path.

The Army's Micro Autonomous Systems and Technology alliance is one example of military research that isfundingvery tiny, flying swarms. At Vijay Kumar's GRASP lab at University of Pennsylvania, paperweight-sized quadcopters are being trained to work together. (Kumar is also a keynote speaker at the Drones for Good event.)

Source: BetaBoston

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