New drone helps find missing people without GPS

One challenge for search and rescue operations in the jungle using helicopters is that they cannot see everything below the canopy of large trees. Meanwhile, current drones rely on GPS signals, which can be weak or absent in deep jungle areas. To address these challenges, researchers at MIT have developed a drone that does not use GPS signals by default.

Instead, the drones will move around and create a 3D map using laser technology installed on them. This map will be displayed in a “control center”, in which the areas the drone has not passed through will be dark, and the areas the drone has passed through will be highlighted. The drones will also mark obstacles (mostly trees) on the map to help rescuers easily narrow down the search area.

The map setting is very interesting and is based on the idea of ​​famous real-time strategy games such as Warcraft, Starcraft, Age of Empires,... In these games, when starting a match you will receive a completely black map, you need to send people or soldiers to explore the map to find locations such as mineral mines to exploit, enemy locations,... MIT's map is also set up in the same way, when finding the target, the drone will immediately send the exact location to the center.