Page 27 - Winter 2025

Industry News

Institution of

Electronics

MOTION CAPTURE News

TECHNOLOGY SHAPES

FUTURE OF DRONE SWARMS

Visiting Professor at Brown University, Eric Ewing, a
specialist in multi-robot systems, has successfully
applied motion capture technology to better control
and coordinate drone swarms.
The system used is the Vicon motion capture system,
consisting of ultra-wideband instruments and
‘lighthouse stations’ that can perform triangulation
alongside high-accuracy sensors on board the
drones. These lighthouse stations are similar to those
that would be found as the base station for an HTC
Vive. Using this technology the drones can be directly
tracked in real-time with high levels of accuracy.

Data centralisation allows all of the information
produced by all of the drones in a swarm to be
centralised on one computer such that data
collection is simplified. Precise state data allows the
researchers to refine control algorithms without the
added complexity of managing noise or latency, low-
latency being essential for drone swarms.
Traditional localisation methods that don’t use INSTITUTION OF ELECTRONICS NEWS:
Professor Ewing is quoted as follows:
a centralised system mean that the drones FROM THE ARCHIVES 28
“ We have the Vicon camera system set up in themselves know where they are, but we don’t
our drone lab so that it’s feeding us low latency have a centralised system that does, unless we OBSERVATIONS FROM 25 YEARS OF COMMUNITY RADIO OPERATION 30
information at very high speeds, very accurately are directly communicating with each of the NATIONAL ELECTRONICS COMPETITION 32
on the state of our drones and where they drones. That transmission information comes
MASTERS DEGREE - CLIMATE SOLUTIONS 34
are. This information is then utilised to feed at a cost, a cost that comes with complexities.
the drones information so that they can act If every drone has to communicate its position THE PLAN TO POWER CAT USING LOCAL RENEWABLES 35
accordingly. What this does is ‘cut out’ some of back, and we have a lot of drones, we’re going to ARLOEISI DOLGELLAU EMBRACING A DIGITAL FUTURE 36
the issues that robotics and drones face, such as overwhelm the radio, through this new process
CELEBRATING THE NEXT GENERATION OF CHANGEMAKERS:
state estimation. It’s really nice to have perfect we are able to avoid that potential issue”.
ARKWRIGHT ENGINEERING SCHOLARSHIPS AWARDED 38
state estimation so that I don’t have to worry
Reference: Fowle, H., ‘How Motion Capture Technology is shaping the
about that side of things and focus solely on the Future of Drone Swarms’, Electronic Specifier, 4th. November MAKE ROBOTS, NOT EXCUSES 39
planning side of things. MAKE YOUR BUSINESS THE FIRST TO BE FOUND ON GOOGLE 40
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