Related papers: Autonomous Flights inside Narrow Tunnels
Nowadays, multirotors are playing important roles in abundant types of missions. During these missions, entering confined and narrow tunnels that are barely accessible to humans is desirable yet extremely challenging for multirotors. The…
We address one of the main challenges towards autonomous quadrotor flight in complex environments, which is flight through narrow gaps. While previous works relied on off-board localization systems or on accurate prior knowledge of the gap…
This article presents novel designs of autonomous UAV prototypes specifically developed for inspecting GPS-denied tunnel construction environments with dynamic human and robotic presence. Our UAVs integrate advanced sensor suites and robust…
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…
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,…
High speed navigation through unknown environments is a challenging problem in robotics. It requires fast computation and tight integration of all the subsystems on the robot such that the latency in the perception-action loop is as small…
Drones are a promising technology for autonomous data collection and indoor sensing. In situations when human-controlled UAVs may not be practical or dependable, such as in uncharted or dangerous locations, the usage of autonomous UAVs…
Autonomous quadrotor flight in confined spaces such as pipes and tunnels presents significant challenges due to unsteady, self-induced aerodynamic disturbances. Very recent advances have enabled flight in such conditions, but they either…
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…
Recently, there have been numerous advances in the development of biologically inspired lightweight Micro Aerial Vehicles (MAVs). While autonomous navigation is fairly straight-forward for large UAVs as expensive sensors and monitoring…
We present the first static-obstacle avoidance method for quadrotors using just an onboard, monocular event camera. Quadrotors are capable of fast and agile flight in cluttered environments when piloted manually, but vision-based autonomous…
Quadrotors hold significant promise for several applications such as agriculture, search and rescue, and infrastructure inspection. Achieving autonomous operation requires systems to navigate safely through complex and unfamiliar…
In this paper, we introduce a complete system for autonomous flight of quadrotors in dynamic environments with onboard sensing. Extended from existing work, we develop an occlusion-aware dynamic perception method based on depth images,…
Although quadrotors, and aerial robots in general, are inherently active agents, their perceptual capabilities in literature so far have been mostly passive in nature. Researchers and practitioners today use traditional computer vision…
Air ducts are integral to modern buildings but are challenging to access for inspection. Small quadrotor drones offer a potential solution, as they can navigate both horizontal and vertical sections and smoothly fly over debris. However,…
Aiming to promote the wide adoption of safety filters for autonomous aerial robots, this paper presents a safe control architecture designed for seamless integration into widely used open-source autopilots. Departing from methods that…
Autonomous landing on a moving platform presents unique challenges for multirotor vehicles, including the need to accurately localize the platform, fast trajectory planning, and precise/robust control. Previous works studied this problem…
In this paper we propose a computational design tool that al-lows end-users to create advanced quadrotor trajectories witha variety of application scenarios in mind. Our algorithm al-lows novice users to create quadrotor based use-cases…
As the market for commercially available unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) booms, there is an increasing number of small, teleoperated or autonomous aircraft found in protected or sensitive airspace. Existing solutions for removal of these…
Performing rescuing and surveillance operations with autonomous ground and aerial vehicles become more and more apparent task. Involving unmanned robot systems allows making these operations more efficient, safe and reliable especially in…