Advancing UAV Autonomy Through Neurorobotics with Hippocampal-Inspired Cognitive Mapping and Route Planning Algorithms

Abstract

The ability of autonomous unmanned aerial vehicles, also known as UAVs, to do dangerous and monotonous tasks in lieu of people has made them an integral part of contemporary aeronautical engineering. First and foremost, it is important to highlight their widespread use in vital sectors such as disaster relief (e.g., transporting medical supplies to impacted areas, focusing on legitimate targets during wartime, etc.), surveillance, and environmental monitoring. These sectors offer optimism for the future of aviation, as unmanned aircraft are more efficient, effective, and secure than human pilots. However, there is still a significant gap between the decision-making capabilities of green systems and UAVs, even if all present efforts are focused on making UAVs more autonomous via the integration of flexible navigation algorithms. First, the existing techniques, which vary from traditional pathfinding to optimizations based on biological principles, are inadequate when faced with real-world environments that need rapid, efficient changes. Finding and closing the gap between the navigational skills of the human brain and those of AI algorithms is the primary goal of this research. To achieve this goal, we introduce the Hippocampal Route Planner (HRP), a neurorobotics design inspired by the navigational abilities of the mammalian hippocampus. UAVs are able to naturally sense their surroundings and navigate in real time thanks to the HRP algorithm. In other words, UAVs equipped with the HRP algorithm may mimic the mental maps seen in living things. We have tested our model in air supremacy, and it outperforms other models with less CPU overhead and power consumption and more successful runs. What makes the HRP algorithm so impressive is its ability to learn and make judgments over time; this is perhaps the most astounding feature of all of them. With scalability and efficiency in mind, there's a better likelihood of widespread adoption across industries, which will boost airborne operations' safety and dependability.