Efficient and intelligent: Drones get to grips with planning the delivery of goods

When goods are needed urgently, for instance, in rural areas poorly served by transport infrastructure, or in large, heavily congested cities, they could be delivered by drones. In 2013, Amazon was one of the first to declare the intention to work towards the automated delivery of goods by small autonomous helicopters. A multi-disciplinary research team at the Alpen-Adria-Universität assembled by Christian Bettstetter and Friederike Wall is due to deliver initial insights on the efficient operation of (self-organised) delivery of goods. Doctoral student Pasquale Grippa will present the results at the conference “Robotics: Science and Systems”, which is scheduled to take place at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) from July 12^th.

“We are surrounded by cameras, whether we like it or not.”

Bernhard Rinner pleads for greater levels of awareness when it comes to the security and privacy of camera and sensor networks. In numerous projects, together with doctoral student Ihtesham Haider among others, his team is working on new technologies.

Machines that can feel, act and work with one another

Industry 4.0. The Internet of Things. These are buzzwords for a development that is being championed by many national economies. Tasks that are today carried out by humans, such as operating industrial plants, driving a car or organising energy networks, will increasingly be done by machines in future. The first stone in this new development has been laid, and now work is commencing on the next generation of these systems.