The Friday Aug. 10 episode of the HISTORY series ''In Search Of,'' hosted by actor and Carnegie Mellon University alum Zachary Quinto, will feature a segment that was shot last year at the CMU Robotics Institute.

In the segment, Quinto talked with Nathan Michael, assistant research professor of robotics, and Ellen Cappo, Ph.D. student in robotics, about their research involving swarms of small drones that can interact with people. Quinto entered the netted drone enclosure in the Planetary Robotics Lab, where several drones circled benignly around him as he plucked them individually out of the air.

The segment is part of an episode on artificial intelligence, which also included a visit by Quinto to the Uber Advanced Technologies Center in Pittsburgh for a look at self-driving cars. The new series, inspired by the original ''In Search Of'' hosted by Rod Serling and later by Leonard Nimoy from 1977-82, delves into all manner of mysterious phenomena. Quinto serves as executive producer of the series, which airs at 10 p.m. ET Fridays on HISTORY. The network now reaches more than 96 million homes.