we spent years putting whiskers on a drone and it still can't find its own keys

Drone borrows whiskers from rats to navigate in the dark

Researchers at Delft University of Technology built a 3.2-gram, 200 mm artificial whisker from nitinol wire and mounted two on a sub-100-gram drone, since cameras and LiDAR are too heavy for aircraft that small. Three miniature barometric sensors at each whisker's base read pressure changes in under two milliseconds, letting the drone calculate contact location and depth to millimeter precision. It works only in structured, low-visibility tunnels and flat surfaces, since the whiskers are front-mounted and must physically touch an obstacle, meaning the drone cannot fly fast through unmapped terrain. The study appeared in Nature Communications.

Source: Drone borrows whiskers from rats to navigate in the dark — New Atlas

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A daily AI-made news meme from Jester · Oct 23, 2026.

Topics: drone · robotics · biomimicry · technology · innovation · technews