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The miniaturisation of sensors and processors, the advancements in connected edge intelligence, and the exponential interest in Artificial Intelligence are boosting the affirmation of autonomous nano-size drones in the Internet of Robotic…
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…
Fully-autonomous miniaturized robots (e.g., drones), with artificial intelligence (AI) based visual navigation capabilities are extremely challenging drivers of Internet-of-Things edge intelligence capabilities. Visual navigation based on…
Nano-sized unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are ideal candidates for flying Internet-of-Things smart sensors to collect information in narrow spaces. This requires ultra-fast navigation under very tight memory/computation constraints. The…
Nano-size drones hold enormous potential to explore unknown and complex environments. Their small size makes them agile and safe for operation close to humans and allows them to navigate through narrow spaces. However, their tiny size and…
Relative drone-to-drone localization is a fundamental building block for any swarm operations. We address this task in the context of miniaturized nano-drones, i.e., 10cm in diameter, which show an ever-growing interest due to novel use…
Palm-sized autonomous nano-drones, i.e., sub-50g in weight, recently entered the drone racing scenario, where they are tasked to avoid obstacles and navigate as fast as possible through gates. However, in contrast with their bigger…
Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (drones) are emerging as a promising technology for both environmental and infrastructure monitoring, with broad use in a plethora of applications. Many such applications require the use of computer vision…
Computing at the edge offers intriguing possibilities for the development of autonomy and artificial intelligence. The advancements in autonomous technologies and the resurgence of computer vision have led to a rise in demand for fast and…
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…
Precise relative localization is a crucial functional block for swarm robotics. This work presents a novel autonomous end-to-end system that addresses the monocular relative localization, through deep neural networks (DNNs), of two peer…
Visual exploration and smart data collection via autonomous vehicles is an attractive topic in various disciplines. Disturbances like wind significantly influence both the power consumption of the flying robots and the performance of the…
Drones are increasingly used in fields like industry, medicine, research, disaster relief, defense, and security. Technical challenges, such as navigation in GPS-denied environments, hinder further adoption. Research in visual odometry is…
This paper presents a novel approach for aerial drone autonomous navigation along predetermined paths using only visual input form an onboard camera and without reliance on a Global Positioning System (GPS). It is based on using a deep…
Accurate drone detection is strongly desired in drone collision avoidance, drone defense and autonomous Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) self-landing. With the recent emergence of the Vision Transformer (ViT), this critical task is reassessed…
Nano-drones, distinguished by their agility, minimal weight, and cost-effectiveness, are particularly well-suited for exploration in confined, cluttered and narrow spaces. Recognizing transparent, highly reflective or absorbing materials,…
We propose an object detection system that relies on a multi-region deep convolutional neural network (CNN) that also encodes semantic segmentation-aware features. The resulting CNN-based representation aims at capturing a diverse set of…
The proliferation of drones, or unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), has raised significant safety concerns due to their potential misuse in activities such as espionage, smuggling, and infrastructure disruption. This paper addresses the…
Nano-quadcopters are versatile platforms attracting the interest of both academia and industry. Their tiny form factor, i.e., $\,$10 cm diameter, makes them particularly useful in narrow scenarios and harmless in human proximity. However,…
Miniaturized autonomous unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are gaining popularity due to their small size, enabling new tasks such as indoor navigation or people monitoring. Nonetheless, their size and simple electronics pose severe challenges…