DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, announced Friday that it hit a new milestone in the development of fast, lightweight drones that can navigate themselves. DARPA’s drone is loaded with sensors and can hit speeds of 40 mph or 20 meters per second while flying through a cluttered warehouse. In fact, the DARPA drone could navigate the turns and avoid objects at awesome speeds with ease. In another test in the aircraft hangar turned warehouse, the drone spotted boxes in its path and could fly around them. DARPA says that it’s drone is a work in progress therefore there is some jerkiness in its motion. And yes, there may have been a lot of crashes along the way, too. “We’re excited that we were able to validate the airspeed goal during this first-flight data collection,” said Mark Micire, DARPA program manager, in the announcement. “The fact that some teams also demonstrated basic autonomous flight ahead of schedule was an added bonus.” Here’s what a fully loaded drone flying at 45mph looks like:
