’Sheepdog robot’ herds birds away from flight paths

Scientists have equipped a drone with a new algorithm to herd birds without human input, saving aeroplanes and birds alike. The technology, developed by CalTech , Imperial College London, and the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), allows a single drone to herd an entire flock of birds away from the airspace of an airport, without harming individual birds or the flock's formation. This is the first time a drone has been trialled for saving aeroplanes and birds without human input. The researchers tested the equipped drone on flocks of birds near a field in Daejeon, Korea. The experiments were guided and analysed by a team including Dr Aditya Paranjape from Imperial's Department of Aeronautics. They found that their single autonomous drone could keep a flock of dozens of birds out of a designated airspace. The findings are published in IEEE Transactions on Robotics .