This new drone comes with 'whiskers' to help it navigate in the dark or smoky and dusty areas like battlefields — and it weighs less than 100g

Two artificial whiskers give this tiny drone a working sense of touch Pressure sensors at the whisker base detect surface contact instantly Onboard software processes tactile data using only 34 kilobytes of memory A research team from Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands has developed a tiny drone that uses artificial whiskers to navigate where conventional sensors struggle.

The system relies on physical contact rather than cameras or satellite positioning, allowing the aircraft to detect nearby surfaces through touch.

The researchers designed the technology for drones weighing below 100 grams, where adding substantial sensing equipment can quickly consume available capacity.

Tiny whiskers give the drone another way to sense surroundings The device carries two slender filaments near its nose, angled upward and connected to miniature pressure sensors underneath.

When either filament touches an object, pressure changes provide information that helps the aircraft estimate its position relative to nearby surfaces.

That information allows the drone to move around obstacles, maintain contact with structures, and construct a basic representation of surrounding spaces.

The approach takes inspiration from rodents and other mammals, which use facial hairs to move through confined environments with limited visibility.

“Here, we aim to equip drones with rich tactile sensing — not for manipulation in the air, but for a novel concept of tactile navigation,” said Salua Hamaza, Associate Professor of Aerial Physical Interaction and Embodied Intelligence.

The system needed to be lightweight, process rapidly, and consume limited energy before tactile navigation could become practical aboard small aircraft.

The sensing system runs on only 34KB A major hurdle was airflow, since passing wind can easily disturb whisker readings and confuse the pressure sensors beneath them.

To solve this, the researchers wrote a lightweight processing program that separates turbulence from genuine surface contact in real time with millimetric precision.

The complete onboard software occupies just 34 kilobytes of memory, keeping the computational requirements unusually low for an autonomous sensing system.

Traditional navigation software built for larger drones typically demands considerably more computing power than this compact whisker-processing system requires today “We wanted to show that touch does not have to come at the cost of size or computational power,” said Chaoxiang Ye, a PhD candidate and researcher at Deft.

The small size allows the drone to interpret environmental information without depending on external processing.