Related papers: Observability-Aware Control for Quadrotor Formatio…

Teams of flying robots can be used for inspection, delivery, and construction tasks, in which they might be required to fly very close to each other. In such close-proximity cases, nonlinear aerodynamic effects can cause catastrophic…

Humans are remarkably data-efficient when adapting to new unseen conditions, like driving a new car. In contrast, modern robotic control systems, like neural network policies trained using Reinforcement Learning (RL), are highly specialized…

In this paper a position-tracking controller for quadrotors based on perception feedback is developed, which directly uses measurements from onboard sensors such as low cost IMUs and GPS to generate the control commands without state…

This paper presents a simple method to boost the robustness of quadrotors in trajectory tracking. The presented method features a high-gain disturbance observer (HGDO) that provides disturbance estimates in real-time. The estimates are then…

Autonomous drone racing has risen as a challenging robotic benchmark for testing the limits of learning, perception, planning, and control. Expert human pilots are able to fly a drone through a race track by mapping pixels from a single…

Despite extensive research on sliding mode control (SMC) design for quadrotors, the existing approaches suffer from certain limitations. Euler angle-based SMC formulations suffer from poor performance in high-pitch or -roll maneuvers.…

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…

In the field of space exploration, floating platforms play a crucial role in scientific investigations and technological advancements. However, controlling these platforms in zero-gravity environments presents unique challenges, including…

In this paper we present a maneuver regulation scheme for Vertical Take-Off and Landing (VTOL) micro aerial vehicles (MAV). Differently from standard trajectory tracking, maneuver regulation has an intrinsic robustness due to the fact that…

Inertial odometry is an attractive solution to the problem of state estimation for agile quadrotor flight. It is inexpensive, lightweight, and it is not affected by perceptual degradation. However, only relying on the integration of the…

Quadrotors are among the most agile flying robots. Despite recent advances in learning-based control and computer vision, autonomous drones still rely on explicit state estimation. On the other hand, human pilots only rely on a…

This paper presents a data-driven control framework for quadrotor systems that integrates a deep Koopman operator with model predictive control (DK-MPC). The deep Koopman operator is trained on sampled flight data to construct a…

For tracking and motion capture (MoCap) of animals in their natural habitat, a formation of safe and silent aerial platforms, such as airships with on-board cameras, is well suited. In our prior work we derived formation properties for…

We develop a feedback controller that minimizes the observability of a set of adversarial sensors of a linear system, while adhering to strict closed-loop performance constraints. We quantify the effectiveness of adversarial sensors using…

The Roller-Quadrotor is a novel quadrotor that combines the maneuverability of aerial drones with the endurance of ground vehicles. This work focuses on the design, modeling, and experimental validation of the Roller-Quadrotor. Flight…

Designing robust controllers for precise trajectory tracking with quadrotors is challenging due to nonlinear dynamics and underactuation, and becomes harder with flexible cable-suspended payloads that add degrees of freedom and hybrid…

This paper develops and experimentally evaluates a navigation function for quadrotor formation flight that is resilient to abrupt quadrotor failures and other obstacles. The navigation function is based on modeling healthy quadrotors as…

Perching on the moving platforms is a promising solution to enhance the endurance and operational range of quadrotors, which could benefit the efficiency of a variety of air-ground cooperative tasks. To ensure robust perching, tracking with…

Autonomous swarms of multi-Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) system requires an accurate and fast relative state estimation. Although monocular frame-based camera methods perform well in ideal conditions, they are slow, suffer scale ambiguity,…

This paper proposes an integrated framework for coordinating multiple unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in a distributed manner to persistently enclose and track a moving target without relying on external localization systems. The proposed…