The speed of their response is impressive.

Engineers taught the drones to play dodgeball. New control system for the drones allows them to react so quickly that they have time to catch and throw the ball. The work of researchers from the University of Zurich published on the website of the University, says “hi-Tech”.

Most modern systems prevent collision with the obstacle takes about 20-40 milliseconds to handle changes in the environment. It’s too many for situations when a drone is necessary to avoid a collision with a bird or other predator.

Low speed response makes the free navigation problem in large cities where many drones can fly in a limited area, or in areas of natural or technological disasters, where the drones need to move quickly.

In the new study, the researchers equipped the quadrocopter with cameras specifically designed to detect rapid movements, as well as new algorithms that have made their response several times faster. As a result, the time required for processing data and prevent collisions, dropped to 3-5 milliseconds.

As a demonstration of the capabilities of the new approach, the researchers gave drones a team to play dodgeball (dodgeball) — a dynamic game with the ball where two drone needs to get the ball in the third.