Engineers at the University of South Australia have taken a page from the days of wooden sailing ships and developed a way for drones to navigate by the stars at night using simple, lightweight equipment for areas where GPS signals aren't available.

An autonomous drone is usually only as good as its GPS navigation system. Without it, the uncrewed aerial vehicles (UAVs) are essentially dead in the air unless a human can remotely take over piloting duties.

Researchers have developed a vision-based navigation system that uses visual data from stars. The system developed by engineers at the University of South Australia (UniSA) offers a reliable alternative for nighttime navigation in areas where GPS signals are inaccessible or unreliable.

A surge in GPS jamming attacks in drone warfare has inspired Australian researchers to develop a celestial navigation system that uses visual data from stars rather than relying on the global positioning system.