Our robots help map historical objects

Shooting hard to reach areas of historic interiors - a task for members of the Multi-robot Systems Group, operating at the Department of Cybernetics at Faculty of Electrical Engineering, that help conservationists using robotic drones. On 26 February, scientists together with the staff of the National Heritage Institute in Olomouc, have successfully captured the interior of the Sternberg parish building, using unmanned helicopters

Documenting the difficult to reach spots in the church will help historians and architects assess needs for any restoration work within the project to restore the parish. In addition to capture high parts of the church dome, which are otherwise reachable only through costly scaffolding,  field tests of unique technology were carried out. It is based on mutual stabilizing of the formation of autonomous helicopters, where one of the helicopters carries a camera and other helicopters carry a light source illuminating the scene at a predetermined angle.

Currently, the team is negotiating the use of drones to capture also other monuments. The St. Nicholas Church at the Old Town Square in Prague could be among them.

Czech television also informed about the project