Robots can use their own whirring to echolocate and avoid collisions

Instead of utilizing blase sensors to observe their surroundings and navigate safely, drones and robots could perceive for reflections of their ain mechanical noises

Technology 18 November 2021

By Matthew Sparkes

A robot tests an echolocation strategy utilizing sound from a speaker

Jesper Rindom Jensen et al. (2021)

The whirring, squeaking oregon clicking created by robots’ wheels, joints and motors are usually undesirable, and engineers enactment hard to minimise them. But a probe squad has recovered that they tin beryllium utile arsenic portion of an echolocation strategy to assistance navigation and debar crashes.

Most robots, whether they walk, rotation oregon alert make immoderate benignant of inheritance noise. Flying drones, successful particular, are highly noisy. Jesper Rindom Jensen astatine Aalborg University successful Denmark and his colleagues suggest robots …