Rice University students developed the hardware and software required to coordinate sensor-carrying drones. "The system is designed to be application-agnostic in the sense that you can use our APIs and libraries to build any kind of autonomous solution that you want," said Kevin Lin, the team member. Each drone is equipped with a Wi-Fi that enables communication across long distances, and a LIDAR (Light detection and ranging) to avoid obstacles and track altitude. The team tested several applications, "that was useful because it showcased two drones coordinating and sharing their data," said Lin. UAV's have been used to check and inspect towers after natural disasters and measure signal strength in high-traffic venues. The idea is that people could use their drone to measure the magnitude of a leak and determine where people shouldn't be allowed to go.