High-speed AI drone beats world-champion racers for the first time

Enlarge / A long-exposure image of an AI-trained autonomous UZH drone (the blue streak) that completed a lap a half-second ahead of the best time of a human pilot (the red streak). (credit: UZH / Leonard Bauersfeld)

On Wednesday, a team of researchers from the University of Zürich and Intel announced that they have developed an autonomous drone system named Swift that can beat human champions in first-person view (FPV) drone racing. While AI has previously bested humans in games like chess, Go, and even StarCraft, this may be the first time an AI system has outperformed human pilots in a physical sport.

FPV drone racing is a sport where competitors attempt to pilot high-speed drones through an obstacle course as fast as possible. Pilots control the drones remotely while wearing a headset that provides a video feed from an onboard camera, giving them a first-person view from the drone's perspective.

The researchers at the University of Zürich (UZH) have been trying to craft an ideal AI-powered drone pilot for years, but they previously needed help from a special motion-capture system to take the win. Recently, they came up with an autonomous breakthrough based largely on machine vision, putting the AI system on a more even footing with a human pilot.