I assume this was done with a FPV piloted drone. I just got into FPV flying and this was pretty impressive! My stomach lurched a few times recalling times I've tried to squeeze into tight spaces only to drift where I shouldn't be.
No reason that it needs to be FPV - if they have a 3D model of the factory they could have created a path for it to fly. I don't think Ardupilot or Betaflight is up to that(?), but a small team of engineers working for a couple of months would be able to make it work.
Inside-out indoor 3D positioning is an _exceptionally hard_ problem. Like, really hard. It parallels inside-out road positioning enough that there is crossover (and IIRC there is a lot of employee motion between Tesla and DJI and other drone autonomy makers), but I don't think this would be an easy "few months" project and certainly not cost effective.
Beacon systems can be used (but might not work well in metal enclosures like in the video).
Just accurate trajectory following is very difficult in itself depending on the speed/accel/turning.
The cars in the video were moving and so the drone had to be time synced. Same with the stuff inside the factory.
They built a factory using a high degree of automation in a 3D space - i.e. they have a significant staff of automation engineers.
Intel has been doing tight formation drone light shows outdoors (in weather) since at least 2014, if not earlier. Positioning drones precisely enough (i.e. within N centimeters) is therefore objectively possible if you have the right feedback system (and as a sibling comment points out, IR sensors could work for that). Offload all the processing to a computer rather than the drone, and it isn't an insurpassable problem.
A small team of engineers for a few months is <$1m, which for a marketing campaign this splashy is nothing. Granted, per one of the sibling comments they did use an FPV pilot for at least some of the shots, but there's nothing stopping them from having automated other parts of it.
I don’t have experience using it in volumes as large as the video, but in moderate sized lab space it works very well, and at high frame rates.
The trick is to invert the problem and have the active sensors off-board and the robot is the (reflected energy) beacon.
There are surely cuts in there its not a continues shot but its not all speed up either otherwise some of the machines would work way faster.
I would assume it was FPV, the other version seem like it would be more work and more expensive.
I always assumed there were some neat tricks to get HD from multiple analog channels, after all these years, but none are remotely affordable.
I'm tempted to slap an old 4g android phone onto the car (or two), and turn the cars max speed down, and use that for highish latency, but nearly infinite control range. With a little solar panel stopped on, infinite battery life, with some long, periodic, naps!
Hobbyist: RubyHD, OpenHD (make your own system using raspberrypi zero/jetson nano etc..) and get a decent connection by using off the shelf wifi hardware in monitor mode. Can cost up to $100 - $150. (2 raspberrypis, 1 camera, wifi dongles) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oFGsZ_d3KBw
Commercial: HDZero (proprietary low latency HD system that is fairly popular with FPV quadcopter racers these days). Can cost up to $300. ($50 for camera, $50 for vtx, $150-250 for receiver with hdmi out).: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CHa08sdKoGs . They recently released a 1Watt vtx that costs about $100, and can give you a fairly good range.
Definitely cheaper though!
disclaimer: I just bought a DJI headset. I may be biased and trying to justify my purchase to myself. ;)
The video you linked doesn't represent HDZero fairly though, because they're 2 different cameras - with different settings. Here's a more accurate representation: https://youtu.be/SmfbMTe80Uc?t=126 . (So far, of all the HDZero cameras I have tested, I liked Digisight V3 the best)
RubyHD seems pretty good - except for latency. On a better hardware I think RubyHD would be as good as DJI.
Also do check out the recent root exploit for DJI goggles. It will soon bring you "Canvas mode" (OSD like we had on Analog systems). Happy Flying!
I am still waiting for Orqa to come out with their HD system.
here's a sample: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EA6ntosoZYs