UAV Drone 3D Map Makers

Engineers at MIT have built a quadrocopter using Microsoft Kinect, that will fly around a room and create a 3D map of the environment.

The drone itself is a lightweight UAV with four rotors, an antenna, protective and stabilising shielding and the guts of a Kinect sensor. It communicates with a nearby computer, but all sensing and computation to determine position is done onboard an internal computer.

Most small drones use GPS or pre-coded information about the area to avoid collisions but this UAV does all those calculations on board and in real time.The primary goal of the project is to create drones that do not rely on pre-made maps or GPS. In environments where maps are unavailable, such as indoors or in dense urban environments, a UAV runs the risk of becoming lost, operating in high threat regions, or colliding with obstacles.

Drones such as these could be used to create the 3d maps required by 3d GPS systems