Researchers at Vancouver’s Simon Frasier University have developed a fleet of Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) that accept group voice commands or can be controlled silently through hand gestures. In addition, individualUAS recognize which of them their controller is speaking to via on-board face recognition cameras.
Once a UAS recognises that it is being singled out, it can be commanded to join or remove itself from the group. Packs of UAS can then be given group commands such as take off, land or perform a pre-set mission.
To determine which of them is being commanded, each UAS rates the angle of the controller’s face relative to the camera. After comparing each other’s “Face Rank”, the drone with the highest score is then deemed to be the one targeted.
The controller can then tell the targeted UAS to join the group by saying “And you” or remove itself from the group with “not you”. Alternately, controllers can add drones by waving their right hand. Once grouped, sets of drones can be commanded with “You two” or “you three” to perform the same action simultaneously.
Presented at the the IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS) in Japan this month, the researchers’ paper says that work still needs to be done on the robotic systems face recognition system. In addition, they hope to expand voice commands so groups of UAS can be given names (e.g. “you all are team red” etc.)
Source: Canadian Manufacturing