Engineers build SonicFly drone that follows others by rotor sounds
Technology
Engineers have built SonicFly, a drone that can follow other drones by listening to their rotor sounds: no GPS, cameras, or radio needed.
It uses four microphones to pick up the target drone's unique noise and follows along using just those sounds.
SonicFly achieves 1.34-meter average error
SonicFly figures out where its target is by running the captured audio through drone-specific acoustic models and a neural network.
The tricky part was ignoring its own propeller noise, but tests showed it could track with impressive accuracy, just about 1.34 meters off on average.
This tech could be a game-changer for things like search-and-rescue missions, drone swarms, deliveries, and even situations where GPS or communication signals don't work.