Related papers: Tethered Flying Robot for Information Gathering Sy…
The design of a prototype to carry out take-off and flight tests with tethered aircrafts is presented. The system features a ground station equipped with a winch and a linear motion system. The motion of these two components is regulated by…
A control design approach to achieve fully autonomous take-off and flight maneuvers with a tethered aircraft is presented and demonstrated in real-world flight tests with a small-scale prototype. A ground station equipped with a controlled…
Energy harvesting based on tethered kites benefits from exploiting higher wind speeds at higher altitudes. The setup considered in this paper is based on a pumping cycle. It generates energy by winching out at high tether forces, driving an…
We present the sensor setup and the basic navigation algorithm used for the flight control of the SkySails towing kite system. Starting with brief summaries on system setup and equations of motion of the tethered kite system, we…
Converting the traction power of kites into electricity can be a low cost solution for wind energy. Reliable control of both trajectory and tether reeling is crucial. The present study proposes a modelling framework describing the dynamic…
The problem of autonomous launch and landing of a tethered rigid aircraft for airborne wind energy generation is addressed. The system operates with ground-based power conversion and pumping cycles, where the tether is repeatedly reeled in…
In this paper, we present a full design of a flying robot to investigate the state of power grid components and to perform the appropriate maintenance procedures according to each fail or defect that could be recognized. To realize this…
The autonomous operation of flexible-wing aircraft is technically challenging and has never been presented within literature. The lack of an exact modeling framework is due to the complex nonlinear aerodynamic relationships governed by the…
A previously published algorithm for trajectory tracking control of tethered wings, i.e. kites, is updated in light of recent experimental evidence. The algorithm is, furthermore, analyzed in the framework of delay differential equations.…
Airborne Wind Energy is a lightweight technology that allows power extraction from the wind using airborne devices such as kites and gliders, where the airfoil orientation can be dynamically controlled in order to maximize performance. The…
We present an open source toolkit of flight-proven electronic devices which can be used to track, terminate and recover high altitude balloon flights and payloads. Comprising a beacon, pyrotechnic and non-pyrotechnic cut-down devices plus…
In this paper we present an overview of the methods and systems that give rise to a flying robotic system capable of autonomous inspection, surveying, comprehensive multi-modal mapping and inventory tracking of construction sites with high…
This manuscript contains a description and basic principles for observing inaccessible areas using low cost, easily deployed equipment. The basic premise is to suspend a tiny video camera at an altitude of 10 - 200 meters over the area to…
Catching objects in-flight is an outstanding challenge in robotics. In this paper, we present a closed-loop control system fusing data from two sensor modalities: an RGB-D camera and a radar. To develop and test our method, we start with an…
Aerial robots show significant potential for forest canopy research and environmental monitoring by providing data collection capabilities at high spatial and temporal resolutions. However, limited flight endurance hinders their…
Protecting and restoring forest ecosystems has become an important conservation issue. Although various robots have been used for field data collection to protect forest ecosystems, the complex terrain and dense canopy make the data…
With the rapid development of Aerial Physical Interaction, the possibility to have aerial robots physically interacting with humans is attracting a growing interest. In one of our previous works, we considered one of the first systems in…
This paper develops and compares two motion planning algorithms for a tethered UAV with and without the possibility of the tether contacting the confined and cluttered environment. Tethered aerial vehicles have been studied due to their…
We present an imitation learning method for autonomous drone patrolling based only on raw videos. Different from previous methods, we propose to let the drone learn patrolling in the air by observing and imitating how a human navigator does…
This work focuses on the study of tethered fights of a micro quadcopter, with the aim of supplying continuous power to a small-sized aerial robot. Multiple features for facilitating the interaction between a tethered micro quadcopter and a…