In a pioneering effort, a team of British firefighters, scientists, and engineers are developing a cutting-edge project that envisions swarms of up to 30 autonomous drones working in unison, powered by artificial intelligence (AI), to detect and suppress wildfires before they escalate.
Researchers at the Department of Biological Physics at ELTE (Eötvös Loránd University) have been working on swarm robotics and drone flocks since 2009. In 2014, they created the world’s first autonomously flying quadcopter fleet consisting of at least ten units. The research group has now reached a new milestone, publishing their work on self-driving traffic of one hundred drones in the Swarm Intelligence journal.