A drone race was held in Zurich - autonomous drones defeated live people

In 2021, the drones of Robotics and Perception Group defeated live humans in a race. In the rematch, drones once again prevailed.

What's known

Last year, drones relied on additional electronics and external systems during the race, while humans relied exclusively on images from FPV-camera, which were streamed to VR-headset. In the rematch, the quadcopters used only onboard navigation systems.

Despite the limitations, the drones won the second time as well. But humans significantly reduced the gap. Last year, the drone made a lap in 5.3 seconds, reaching speeds of up to 110 km/h. Humans needed 1.8 seconds more time. For the new competition, the UAVs trained on CAD-models and used only Intel RealSense sensors with stereo vision.

The drone operators went over 700 times as part of the training. But it didn't help them. In the video, the blue drone is piloted by humans, while the red drone flies itself. The autonomous quadcopter reached a speed of 80 km/h. In three laps, the UAV beat the human by 0.5 seconds.

Source: IEEE Spectrum