A team of engineers and roboticists at the University of Hong Kong have designed, built and tested an aerial robot capable of navigating unknown environments safely at high speeds while avoiding obstacles. In their paper published in the journal Science Robotics, the group describes how they overcame problems encountered by others attempting to build similar robots and how well their quadcopter robot, called SUPER, performed during testing.

Testing showed that SUPER could safely fly through an obstacle course at 20 meters per second. The research team also found that it could follow a target, such as a human being, as it made its way through a forest, successfully avoiding trees, branches and other obstacles it met. They also found that because it is based on LiDAR, it can operate in low-light conditions as well.