A bee-sized quadcopter autonomously charts its route indoors, like a space probe through an asteroid field. Its camera works as a photometry instrument, capturing reflected light, while the processor decides where to turn at the speed of light.
The algorithms have been compressed to the state of cosmic dust, maintaining accuracy. Now, transit through a maze of chairs and tables takes a fraction of a second. Surprising fact: all this vision consumes less than 2% of the battery — like a tiny LED in a device.
The first autonomous indoor drone (2012) crawled along at 0.5 m/s and constantly crashed into walls.
It's like a swarm of reconnaissance spy drones from Star Wars — just without the blasters.