New drone helps search for missing people without GPS.

Currently, a challenge in search and rescue operations for missing persons in forests using helicopters is the inability to see everything below the dense canopy of trees. Meanwhile, existing drones rely on GPS signals, which may be weak or absent in deep forest areas. To address these obstacles, researchers at MIT have developed a drone that does not rely on the default GPS signal.

Instead, these drones will move around and create a 3D map using laser technology installed on them. This map will be displayed at a "control center," where areas the drone hasn't yet visited will be dark, while areas it has visited will be highlighted. The drones will also mark obstacles (mostly trees) on the map to help rescue teams easily pinpoint the search area.

This map design is very interesting and based on the ideas of popular real-time strategy games like Warcraft, Starcraft, Age of Empires, etc. In these games, at the start of a match you receive a completely black map, and you need to send villagers or soldiers to scout the map to find locations such as mineral deposits to exploit, enemy positions, etc. The MIT map is also created in a similar way; when an object is found, the drone immediately sends the exact location back to the control center.