Democratizing Drone Autonomy via Edge Computing

Fully autonomous flight by low-cost, lightweight commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) drones could transform many use cases involving real-time computer vision. We show how such autonomy can be achieved using edge computing from a flight platform costing less than $800, and composed of a 320 g COTS drone with a 26 g COTS wearable device as payload. In spite of the extreme austerity of this platform and thermal limits on its LTE transmission, the system is able perform tasks such as detecting and then tracking a target. It is also able to visually navigate around obstacles. Such capabilities are only found on heavier and more expensive drones today.