A 90mph battle of the drones is coming to London

It will be Britain’s first professional unmanned aerial vehicle race and it's expected that about half of the drones will crash

Drones flying at speeds of up to 90mph will do battle in London at Britain’s first professional unmanned aerial vehicle race.

Quadcopter “pilots” will control UAVs around a three-dimensional course — going up, down and sideways — at Alexandra Palace in the summer.

Next year’s final of the US-based Drone Racing League on June 13 will coincide with London Tech Week 2017, it was announced today by London & Partners, the capital’s official promotional agency.

Pilots from more than 10 countries compete in the league, with six quadcopters being flown per heat.

The identical quadcopters are lit with colourful LEDs and whizz through neon checkpoints as pilots try to negotiate the one-mile obstacle course. About half crash and do not finish.

Drone racing comes to London

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Pilots wear immersive goggles, which look similar to virtual reality headsets, to see through the craft’s front-facing HD cameras and steer it using games console-type joysticks.

Viewers and the live audience get to see the drone’s eye view of events.

Each stripped-back UAV stays airborne using four rotor blades surrounding a central chassis.

The drone pilots, largely male, compete under handles such as Nytfury, UmmaGawd and CodeRed.

In the game: Competitors in the competition

The June 13 final will be broadcast on Sky Sports Mix and the league has secured about $12 million, much of it from venture capital.

Among the Drone Racing League investors are RSE Ventures, founded by Miami Dolphins American football team owner Stephen Ross, and Matt Bellamy, front man of rock band Muse.

The Drone Racing League’s action in London must take place indoors as the capital’s no-fly rules include an outdoor ban on UAVs within 150 metres of buildings.

Drone Racing League founder Nicholas Horbaczewski said only spaces measuring more than 100,000 sq ft with lots of gaps, passageways and storeys will do for a track.

He said: “You have very high-speed drones, being controlled by the very best pilots in the world, flying complex three-dimensional courses at very high speeds with a lot of crashing.

“People call drone racing ‘the real life video game’. We get compared a lot to the pod racing scene in Star Wars, the Phantom Menace, but that was entirely computer-generated — this is real life.

“They can fly very close to the audience as we have safety netting.”

Andrew Cooke, acting chief executive of London & Partners, said: “We want to make London Tech Week open to a wider audience and by bringing the UK’s first professional drone race to London we hope to attract both consumers and business leaders to experience everything London’s booming tech scene has to offer.”

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