HSINCHU, Taiwan, March 4 (Bernama-BUSINESS WIRE) — Although unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) are commonly used in the fields such as communications and agriculture, their use is hampered by their small size and limited battery capacity. However, a multi-disciplinary team at National Tsing Hua University led by professors Tang Kea-tiong of the Department of Electrical Engineering and Lo Chung-chuan of the Department of Life Sciences has recently developed an artificial intelligence (AI) chip that mimics the optical nerves of the fruit fly, allowing drones to automatically avoid obstacles while remaining in an ultra-power-saving mode.
Most of the UAVs currently in use rely on the transmission and reflection of electromagnetic waves to detect and avoid obstacles, but this consumes a lot of power. An alternative approach to avoiding obstacles is to use optical lenses to capture and analyze images, but the amount of information to be processed is too large to be done quickly, and this approach also consumes much power.