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Nano-sized drones, with palm-sized form factor, are gaining relevance in the Internet-of-Things ecosystem. Achieving a high degree of autonomy for complex multi-objective missions (e.g., safe flight, exploration, object detection) is…
Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), in particular Drones, have gained significant importance in diverse sectors, mainly military uses. Recently, we can see a growth in acceptance of autonomous UAVs in civilian spaces as well. However, there is…
Obstacle avoidance in unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), as a fundamental capability, has gained increasing attention with the growing focus on spatial intelligence. However, current obstacle-avoidance methods mainly depend on limited…
Nano-size unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), with few centimeters of diameter and sub-10 Watts of total power budget, have so far been considered incapable of running sophisticated visual-based autonomous navigation software without external…
Micro aerial vehicles are becoming increasingly important in search and rescue operations due to their agility, speed, and ability to access confined spaces or hazardous areas. However, designing lightweight aerial systems presents…
Artificial intelligence-powered pocket-sized air robots have the potential to revolutionize the Internet-of-Things ecosystem, acting as autonomous, unobtrusive, and ubiquitous smart sensors. With a few cm$^{2}$ form-factor, nano-sized…
Nano quadcopters are small, agile, and cheap platforms that are well suited for deployment in narrow, cluttered environments. Due to their limited payload, these vehicles are highly constrained in processing power, rendering conventional…
In literature, several approaches are trying to make the UAVs fly autonomously i.e., by extracting perspective cues such as straight lines. However, it is only available in well-defined human made environments, in addition to many other…
A collision avoidance system based on simple digital cameras would help enable the safe integration of small UAVs into crowded, low-altitude environments. In this work, we present an obstacle avoidance system for small UAVs that uses a…
This paper presents a vision-only autonomous flight system for small UAVs operating in controlled indoor environments. The system combines semantic segmentation with monocular depth estimation to enable obstacle avoidance, scene…
Fixed-wing Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) are one of the most commonly used platforms for the burgeoning Low-altitude Economy (LAE) and Urban Air Mobility (UAM), due to their long endurance and high-speed capabilities. Classical obstacle…
Collision-free path planning is an essential requirement for autonomous exploration in unknown environments, especially when operating in confined spaces or near obstacles. This study presents an autonomous exploration technique using a…
Detecting small objects, such as drones, over long distances presents a significant challenge with broad implications for security, surveillance, environmental monitoring, and autonomous systems. Traditional imaging-based methods rely on…
Sub-30g nano-sized aerial robots can leverage their agility and form factor to autonomously explore cluttered and narrow environments, like in industrial inspection and search and rescue missions. However, the price for their tiny size is a…
This work presents a multi-sensory anti-collision system design to achieve robust autonomous exploration capabilities for a swarm of 10 cm-side nano-drones operating on object detection missions. We combine lightweight single-beam laser…
Obstacle avoidance path planning for uncrewed aerial vehicles (UAVs), or drones, is rarely addressed in most flight path planning schemes, despite obstacles being a realistic condition. Obstacle avoidance can also be energy-intensive,…
In practical applications, autonomous quadrotors are still facing significant challenges, such as the detection and avoidance of very small and even dynamic obstacles (e.g., tree branches, power lines). In this paper, we propose a compact,…
Autonomous navigation by drones using onboard sensors, combined with deep learning and computer vision algorithms, is impacting a number of domains. We examine the use of drones to autonomously follow and assist Visually Impaired People…
Autonomous collision avoidance requires accurate environmental perception; however, flight systems often possess limited sensing capabilities with field-of-view (FOV) restrictions. To navigate this challenge, we present a safety-aware…
Sub-10cm diameter nano-drones are gaining momentum thanks to their applicability in scenarios prevented to bigger flying drones, such as in narrow environments and close to humans. However, their tiny form factor also brings their major…