In life, there are no certainties at all, and neither are there guarantees for the more serious stuff. When it comes to mechanical devices, you know for sure that nothing will ever work with a 100% record forever, as it needs maintenance and replacement parts. The quadcopter drone might be a device which is extremely agile in the air, performing acrobatics that are sure to impress, but sometimes, they do fail – and fall to earth (literally) with a less than graceful drop. ETH Zurich’s Mark Mueller intends to see this particular issue being solved once and for all, through the incorporation of a new failsafe algorithm that will ensure that the quadcopter drones have a higher rate of surviving a crash.
I do hope that those drones used to deliver your goods via Amazon Prime Air will also come with such failsafe algorithms in the future. As you can see in the video demonstration above, the software is smart enough to automatically compensate any rotor failures, ensuring the drone returns to its original position so that the pilot or owner has a chance to land it properly. It is nice to know that the failsafe controller relies on readily hardware on a standard quadrocopter, which means it can be installed as an algorithmic-only for existing models.
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