The most advanced drones rely on GPS and all kinds of advanced features to track people. In fact, some of them could struggle in dense forests and other confined areas. Purdue University’s IDEAS Lab has built an autonomous drone that can track people through dense forests. It doesn’t use any GPS or cloud service. It runs 3D LiDAR mapping and obstacle avoidance entirely on chip.
Purdue University’s IDEAS Lab built an autonomous drone that tracks runners through dense forests completely without GPS or cloud networks.
By running 3D LiDAR mapping and obstacle-avoidance AI entirely on-chip, it can weave under tree canopies and predict target movement through blind spots in real time.
Massive implications for next-gen search & rescue and edge AI. https://t.co/HFsnKweHLY
— Praveen Kumar Verma (@Alacritic_Super) October 25, 2026
Thanks to this approach, it is possible to track subjects in GPS denied and unmapped environments.
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