Many routes lead to an overview image: Path planning for drone swarms

A forest is ablaze: Before the fire service can even commence fire-fighting operations, an overview is required. This could be an opportunity for the deployment of drone swarms, dispatched to survey the affected area from the air and to take photos. But how do the drones know which paths they should ideally survey? Jürgen Scherer is working on improving the process of path planning for drone swarms.

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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 12th.

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“A cyber attack is not a spontaneous occurrence, but rather an event that has been prepared a long time ahead”

Targeted attacks aimed at the IT infrastructure of public institutions, companies or even entire nation states are frequently classified as “advanced persistent threats” by the scientific community. These attacks make use of a variety of techniques, including methods of social engineering, and they are prepared stealthy and a long time in advance. IT security expert Stefan Rass is working on a set of support tools, which are designed to simplify the selection of safety measures.

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Vom Außen aufs Innere schließen: Inverse Probleme in der Mathematik ermöglichen neue Einblicke

Inverse Probleme in der Mathematik bestimmen die Ursachen für Effekte: Beispielsweise kann man über das Messen von Spannungsverteilung an der Körperoberfläche auf die Beschaffenheit des Gewebes im Körper schließen. Die Lösung solcher Probleme ist derzeit häufig sehr rechenzeitintensiv. Barbara Kaltenbacher arbeitet daher nun in einem FWF-Projekt an neuen Rechenverfahren für allgemeine inverse Probleme.

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