Video

How to Make UAVs Fully Autonomous

The sense-and-avoid system uses a four-megapixel camera on a pan tilt to detect obstacles from the ground. It puts red boxes around planes and birds, and blue boxes around movement that it determines is not an obstacle (e.g., dust on the lens). The green box shows the actual position of the Piper Archer II airplane being tracked from two to five miles away. Such a visual system will be useful to UAVs trying to avoid obstacles.

• Reporting by Kristina Grifantini
• July 15, 2009