Vijay Kumar, who gave a TED talk in 2012 and is a GRASP leader, says that new research with drones after receiving a $5.5 million grant will help society in significant ways. Photo by Courtesy of TED Talks In Penn Engineering’s General Robotics, Automation, Sensing and Perception Laboratory, flying machines dodge and zip around obstacles, aided by location data collected by motion-tracking cameras and fed to them through a computer. And soon, more will be flying about. Earlier this month, the GRASP Lab received a three-year, $5.5 million Department of Defense grant to develop new flying robots capable of autonomously navigating environments that humans cannot physically see or access themselves, such as inside collapsed buildings. The grant is part of an effort by the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency, which seeks out emerging technologies for potential military use, to expand the U.S. military’s drone program. “DARPA’s Fast Lightweight Autonomy, or FLA, program seeks unmanned aerial vehicles that weigh less than three kilograms and can fly at speeds as fast as 65 feet per second,” University Communications Science News Officer Evan Lerner said in a press release. The GRASP Lab was established in 1979 by then-Chair of Computer Science and […]
