Will planes someday fly without pilots? Three EPFL laboratories, commissioned by Honeywell and operating under the auspices of EPFL’s Transportation Center, are working on this possibility by developing collision-prediction, avoidance, and real-time vision algorithms. The project is a formidable technological challenge.

via A step towards total autopilot.

Interdisciplinary research

The group has recently acquired a flight-testing area with a testing room and will soon have a state-of-the-art 3D positioning system. Sensors and algorithms will be tested on small flying robots called quadrirotors. “We will work on integrating trajectory prediction, avoidance, stability, vision, and data-exchange algorithms developed by various laboratories, and see how to get them working together in real time,” explains laboratory director Alcherio Martinoli.