rule drone racing
Humans still rule drone racing, but NASA's AI pilot might change that
For the NASA drones to successfully fly around a course, the devices need to know where they are in space. For that, they use two onboard cameras--one that looks forward, and the other, down, a common setup for mid-to-high-level consumer drones. Drones that fly around outside can make use of GPS, but that's not an option when flying indoors, in a complex environment, at speeds of 30 to 40 mph. The drone also needs an onboard three-dimensional map of the course at hand, so it can match what it sees with the cameras to that internal map and know where it actually is. That process is known as relocalization.