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Autonomous docking between Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) and ground robots is essential for heterogeneous systems, yet most existing approaches target wheeled platforms whose limited mobility constrains exploration in complex terrains.…
Over the last decade, the use of autonomous drone systems for surveying, search and rescue, or last-mile delivery has increased exponentially. With the rise of these applications comes the need for highly robust, safety-critical algorithms…
This paper introduces a quadrotor's autonomous take-off and landing system on a moving platform. The designed system addresses three challenging problems: fast pose estimation, restricted external localization, and effective obstacle…
Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) are increasingly used in automated inspection, delivery, and navigation tasks that require reliable autonomy. This project develops a reinforcement learning (RL) approach to enable a single UAV to…
Drone technology is proliferating in many industries, including agriculture, logistics, defense, infrastructure, and environmental monitoring. Vision-based autonomy is one of its key enablers, particularly for real-world applications. This…
Autonomous drones are rapidly reshaping industries ranging from aerial delivery and infrastructure inspection to environmental monitoring and disaster response. Ensuring the safety, reliability, and efficiency of these systems is paramount…
Autonomous fixed-wing UAV landing based on differential GPS is now a mainstream providing reliable and precise landing. But the task still remains challenging when GPS availability is limited like for military UAVs. We discuss a solution of…
Onboard terrain sensing and mapping for safe planetary landings often suffer from missed hazardous features, e.g., small rocks, due to the large observational range and the limited resolution of the obtained terrain data. To this end, this…
Path planning is a critical component in autonomous drone operations, enabling safe and efficient navigation through complex environments. Recent advances in foundation models, particularly large language models (LLMs) and vision-language…
With autonomous aerial vehicles enacting safety-critical missions, such as the Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity rover's landing on Mars, the tasks of automatically identifying and reasoning about potentially hazardous landing sites is…
Navigating unmanned aerial vehicles in environments where GPS signals are unavailable poses a compelling and intricate challenge. This challenge is further heightened when dealing with Nano Aerial Vehicles (NAVs) due to their compact size,…
In the distant future, humans will surely fly to Mars. Even today, probes and vehicles are carrying out measurements on the surface of Mars. However, most landings on Mars cannot be carried out with parachutes alone. Instead, landing…
Exploration of Mars has been made possible using a series of landers, rovers and orbiters. The HiRise camera on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) has captured high-resolution images covering large tracts of the surface. However, orbital…
Localization is paramount for autonomous robots. While camera and LiDAR-based approaches have been extensively investigated, they are affected by adverse illumination and weather conditions. Therefore, radar sensors have recently gained…
This paper considers the problem of finding a landing spot for a drone in a dense urban environment. The conflicting requirement of fast exploration and high resolution is solved using a multi-resolution approach, by which visual…
Aerial manipulation combines the versatility and speed of flying platforms with the functional capabilities of mobile manipulation, which presents significant challenges due to the need for precise localization and control. Traditionally,…
Safe autonomous landing for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) in populated areas is a crucial aspect for successful urban deployment, particularly in emergency landing situations. Nonetheless, validating autonomous landing in real scenarios…
Quadrotors are agile. Unlike most other machines, they can traverse extremely complex environments at high speeds. To date, only expert human pilots have been able to fully exploit their capabilities. Autonomous operation with on-board…
Aerial field robotics research represents the domain of study that aims to equip unmanned aerial vehicles - and as it pertains to this chapter, specifically Micro Aerial Vehicles (MAVs)- with the ability to operate in real-life environments…
A planetary research drone is proposed, which is capable for vertical takeoff and landing. A hybrid flight concept utilizing static lift enables the exploration over ground. The static lift is achieved with a lighter than CO2 gas like air,…