This algorithm could prevent quadcopter drones from falling out of the sky -- Tech News and Analysis

This algorithm could prevent quadcopter drones from falling out of the sky — Tech News and Analysis

Get started You're subscribed! If you like, you can update your settings Gigaom Research Individual subscription Corporate subscription Company-wide access to Gigaom Research, analyst briefings or inquiries, Gigaom Event tickets & much more. Drones come in all kinds of shapes, from aerodynamic pods with huge wingspans to tiny multicopters with eight propellers. Generally, the more propellers you add, the more stable a drone is going to be, but the trade off is it sucks up more energy. Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich researchers have developed a safeguard to prevent quadcopters–which have four propellers–from falling out of the sky if one or more propellers fail. Right now, drones must be built with at least five propellers in order to be able to stay aloft when one fails. The researchers built an algorithm that shifts more responsibility to keep the drone in the air to its other propellers. When one or more fails, the drone begins spinning in a circle.

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