After creating the world’s first self-organizing drone flock, researchers at Eötvös Loránd University (ELTE) in Budapest, Hungary have now demonstrated the first large-scale autonomous drone traffic system. This innovative system surpasses the capabilities of human pilots, showcasing a significant advancement in drone technology. The Department of Biological Physics at ELTE has been dedicated to group robotics and drone swarms since 2009. In 2014, they created the world’s first autonomous quadcopter flock with at least ten units. Now, their research group has achieved another milestone by publishing the dense autonomous traffic of one hundred drones in the journal Swarm Intelligence.

Flocking involves units synchronizing through coordinated joint movement, similar to a bird flock. In contrast, autonomous drone traffic involves drones with individual routes and goals, leading to potential conflicts, especially in open spaces where there are no designated routes. This scenario is akin to pedestrians crossing a square in various directions or drones flying freely in the sky.

The ELTE researchers tackled this challenge by combining a real-time updating route planner with traditional bio-inspired flocking models. This approach allows autonomous drones to avoid most traffic conflicts optimally and manage the remaining ones through direct coordination with neighboring drones. They successfully demonstrated continuous high-speed random traffic of up to 5,000 drones in two dimensions with varying speeds and priorities. They also mapped layered three-dimensional cases, illustrating the efficient solution for dense drone traffic situations, which is crucial for future smart cities and decentralized air traffic control systems.

The model was implemented on a fleet of one hundred drones owned by CollMot Robotics Ltd., a company founded at the Department of Biological Physics to commercialize drone swarm technology. This self-organizing drone traffic system was demonstrated live with a hundred drones, marking a significant leap forward in automated swarm drone operations.

This breakthrough paves the way for a new phase of automated swarm drone operations across various applications, including group spraying, drone-based cargo transport, and defense industry applications. CollMot Robotics Ltd., in collaboration with ELTE, aims to continually transform scientific advancements into industrial innovations, pushing the boundaries of what is possible with drone technology.

By Impact Lab