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IPFS News Link • Drones

Super tiny drones will be made with computer chips that are 100 times more energy efficient

• https://www.nextbigfuture.com, brian wang

Standard computer chips for quadcoptors and other similarly sized drones process an enormous amount of streaming data from cameras and sensors, and interpret that data on the fly to autonomously direct a drone's pitch, speed, and trajectory. To do so, these computers use between 10 and 30 watts of power, supplied by batteries that would weigh down a much smaller, bee-sized drone.

Now, engineers at MIT have taken a first step in designing a computer chip that uses a fraction of the power of larger drone computers and is tailored for a drone as small as a bottlecap. They will present a new methodology and design, which they call "Navion," at the Robotics: Science and Systems conference, held this week at MIT.

A new streamlined chip performs all computations while using just below 2 watts of power — making it an order of magnitude more efficient than current drone-embedded chips.