The first autonomous drones that flock like birds are Hungarian!

Our cofounder and Academic Director, Tamás Vicsek, has made it to Nature Magazine again with an absolutely fascinating project: the creation of autonomous drones that flock like birds.

Tamás Vicsek

He coordinates the COLLMOT Robotic Research Project, a five-year program on the complex structure and dynamics of collective motion, funded by EU ERC.

Based on their findings on the collective behavior of birds such as pigeons, his team of Hungarian researchers created 10 self-organizing drones that follow rules of collective motion. "We came to the conclusion that one of the best ways to understand how animals move together is to build robots - flying robots", said Vicsek.

Equipped with GPS trackers and radios that allow them to navigate in formation, the quadcopters were tested in open-field environment for maximum authenticity. Instead of a central control, the drones use a flocking algorithm when their flying path becomes jammed, and wait for their turn while hovering in place.

Watch the video to see them in action: