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Fri, Dec 13, 2019

It's Man Vs. AI In Drone Racing Showdown

Spoiler Alert: Man Beats AI Around The Course

There has been a lot of talk about autonomous drones that has even filtered down into drone racing. But when it came to a head-to-head matchup between a human pilot and a programmed drone ... the human won the day.

Digital Trends reports that the race was organized by the Drone Racing League in partnership with Lockheed Martin. DRL wanted to be the first to pit its new AI racing drones against a human competitor.

The drone pilot was Gabriel Kocher from Switzerland. The AI drone was Team MAVLab, which had won LMC's $1 million prize for being the fastest AI-controlled drone around the race course.

But at the end of the day, Kocher won the race wearing a set of FPV goggles and flying a standard DRL racing drone. And he not only won, he smoked the AI drone, completing the course in just six seconds, while the AI drone took 12 seconds.

It's not known of Kocher won anything other than bragging rights. But for now at least, it appears that the human brain is still superior to AI.

For now ...

(DRL image)

FMI: Source report

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