Innovation and research
Innovation and research

Drones, Machine Learning, Swarm Intelligence - University of Bedfordshire

17 Apr 2019

Where current drones have, at most, about 30 minutes of flight time, Andrews UK are looking into drones with flight time of at least 12 hours.

Andrews UK approached the University of Bedfordshire to explore the commercial market and technical feasibility of ultra-long flight time drones.

The university explored the benefits using a swarm of drones that would use enhanced autonomy and a cloud-based form of artificial intelligence to assist with tasks from search and rescue missions to intelligence gathering. A swarm of drones also overcomes the limitations of current battery technology, one drone can seamlessly take the place of another as and when the batteries run low.

After extensively reviewing existing literature on swarm intelligence, machine learning, and cloud systems, the university delivered a plan detailing system concepts, key components, interfaces, and cloud management strategies that would need to be considered when putting the idea in to practice.

Andrews UK are now working closer with the university, not only funding a PhD student as part of the technical feasibility, but also contracting space from the university to accommodate their rapidly growing business.