AI-piloted drone wins against top human racers

Swift beat the racers at their own game in 15 races and clocked an overall fastest lap of 17.47 seconds. (Image: Leonard Bauersfeld)

An Artificial Intelligence (AI) powered quadcopter has beaten the top human drone racers in the world. The AI drone called Swift was developed by researchers at the University of Zurich, and successfully beat human racers in 15 out of 25 races.

It even recorded the fastest lap time, which the researchers say is, "a milestone for mobile robotics and machine intelligence, which may inspire the deployment of hybrid learning-based solutions in other physical systems".

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Drone racing is a niche but competitive sport which sees human competitors flying their drones with the aid of a headset and camera. They pilot their drones through an obstacle course at high speeds.

Swift beat the racers at their own game in 15 races and clocked an overall fastest lap of 17.47 seconds. That time was half a second better than the human competitors.

Swift was trained using a digital obstacle course in a week, which is the same time given to human racers to learn the obstacle course. The AI was trained by using simulation and data. During the race, Swift sent a video feed to a neural network that helps it make quick decisions.

This method of training AI is called Deep Reinforcement Learning. The AI learns through trial and error, with correct actions being rewarded and the wrong discouraged.

Speaking with The Guardian, Elia Kaufman, a researcher on the project said that the result marks, "the first time that a robot powered by AI has beaten a human champion in a real physical sport designed for and by humans".

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One of the champion racers, Thomas Bitmatta, said it was the, "start of something that could change the whole world".

“It feels different racing against a machine, because you know that the machine doesn’t get tired," said Marvin Schaepper, another one of the racers.