Autonomous Plane Navigates Parking Garage Without Using GPS

A fixed-wing drone built by MIT autonomously piloted its way through a subterranean parking garage using only on-board sensors and two sophisticated control algorithms. Autonomous navigation in an obstacle-dense, GPS-denied environment is typically executed by rotorcrafts like quadcopters. Their slow movement gives them time to compute the data from their onboard sensors and their high maneuverability allows them to avoid objects more easily.

But a group of researchers from MIT’s Robust Robotics Group insisted on flying an airplane indoors. The reason for switching from a rotorcraft to a fixed-wing plane is that the latter presents a more complicated and interesting problem. Also it enables a much longer flight-time.