🇺🇸 A PURDUE DRONE CAN NOW CHASE A PERSON THROUGH DENSE FOREST WITHOUT GPS OR A CLOUD CONNECTION 😨 The autonomous system tracks a moving target under heavy tree cover, predicts where that person is heading when they disappear behind obstacles, and makes navigation decisions onboard instead of relying on remote computing. That matters far beyond search-and-rescue. Purdue’s IDEAS Lab has a five-year, $1.5 million agreement with the U.S. Army to develop autonomous aerial and ground robots that can map hostile terrain, scout threats and operate where GPS is unavailable or jammed. A drone that can keep following a human through trees after losing direct sight of them is exactly the kind of autonomy militaries want in environments where GPS and communications may disappear. Dystopia, here we come! Source: RN Intel (TG), Purdue / Writer: Sol