14 DAY TRIAL // Building small flying robots, for whatever reason, is a cool thing to do, so we couldn't pass up the opportunity of sneaking a glance in the direction of this small airplane.
Built by three members of MIT's CSAIL group, the MAV (micro air vehicle) has displayed a significant degree of ability in flying through tight spaces full of obstacles.
Normally, a GPS system and/or motion sensors are used to give such small flying machines the ability to navigate an environment.
Problems arise when there is no GPS coverage, and motion sensors don't really help much when things aren't actually moving.
Adam Bry, Abraham Bachrash and Nicholas Roy equipped the MAV in that video up there with a laser rangefinder.
The implementation isn't perfect yet though, so they also gave it a 3D map of the environment to fall back on, but the goal is to make it possible for the MAVs to build their own 3D maps in the future.