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Phys.org — Technology · September 17, 2026 · On the brief until October 1, 2026

Flexible flight corridors let drones navigate cluttered spaces faster and more safely

Aerospace EngineeringRoboticsCivil Engineering
THE AI ANGLE
Autonomous real-time trajectory planning and obstacle avoidance

Researchers at Durham University developed CORTO-Planner, an open-source autonomous drone navigation system that utilizes adaptive 'piecewise parametric safe corridors' to fly quickly and smoothly through cluttered spaces. By providing up to six times more usable space and 59 percent wider obstacle clearances than existing methods, the system resolves computational bottlenecks to enable real-time path planning critical for infrastructure inspection, environmental monitoring, and search and rescue.

Summary written by AI Business Lens with an AI model from the article at techxplore.com. It is not the article, and the publisher has not reviewed it. For publishers.

THE TEACHING ANGLE
Instructors can explore the core motion-planning tension between accurately modeling complex obstacle spaces—which traditionally induces jerky trajectories—and enforcing smoothness constraints that often severely restrict flight speed and clearance.

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