Now that you can easily fly drones with the FAA’s permission, what type of drone do you want to fly? There are plenty of options on the market and a range of capabilities each drone offers, but what if there isn”T an all-in-one drone out there that fits all your needs?
Researchers from MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) have developed a new system that allows users to customize, simulate and build a drone, as well as change its size, shape and structure. According to the researchers, users can customize a drone depending on their individual needs.
“This system opens up new possibilities for how drones look and function,” said MIT professor Wojciech Matusik in a statement. “It’s no longer a one-size-fits-all approach for people who want to make and use drones for particular purposes.”
Thanks to an easy database of parts and capabilities, users can take things like payload, costs and battery usage into consideration. The system will then design the elements and metrics and decide whether or not the user’s drone will fly.
“This is the first system in which users can interactively design a drone that incorporates both geometry and control,” said Nobuyuki Umetani, a research scientist at Autodesk. “This is very exciting work that has the potential to change the way people design.”