London, 30 August 2024
On 29 and 30 August at City St George’s, University of London, four teams from universities in the Netherlands, United Kingdom, United States, and Austria took part in the SAPIENCE drone competition, part of a project supported by the NATO Science for Peace and Security (SPS) Programme.
The teams prepared for months for this challenge, in which they would adapt technology to address a crisis situation. Using a mock-up of a building hit by disaster, they would have to map the disaster site, identify individuals in need of help, and deliver aid.
The teams used commercially available drones and sensors, and used artificial intelligence that they developed for guidance, navigation, and control. They were faced with increasingly complex tasks, such as navigating without GPS, avoiding obstacles, and mapping and landing safely in poorly-lit areas.
At the closing ceremony, Claudio Palestini, the Head of the NATO SPS Programme underlined how “this activity perfectly captures the spirit of the SPS Programme, bringing together teams of young researchers from NATO and Partner countries to advance technological solutions to tackle modern challenges, such as autonomy, artificial intelligence, human-machine teaming, and more.”
The SAPIENCE project shows how autonomous drones that cooperate with each other may be used in crisis management scenarios. The lessons learned in London will feed into the two other competitions planned as part of the project, which will take place in 2025 in the United States and in 2026 in the Netherlands.
The SAPIENCE project is valuable for NATO as it shows how technical challenges in autonomy and the navigation of drones can be overcome. Through activities like SAPIENCE, the NATO SPS Programme works with research and academic communities as well as governments to address shared security challenges.