An Integrated Teleoperation Assistance System for Collision Avoidance of High-speed UAVs in Complex Environments

Abstract

UAV teleoperation is a demanding task, especially for amateur operators who wish to successfully accomplish their mission without collision. In this work we present an integrated 2D LIDAR based Sense-and-Avoid system which actively assists unskilled human operator in obstacle avoidance, so that the operator can focus on higher-level decisions and global objectives in UAV applications such as search and rescue, farming etc. Specifically, with our perception-assistive vehicle control design, novel adaptive virtual cushion force field (AVCFF) based avoidance strategy, and integrated sensing solution, the proposed UAV teleoperation assistance system is capable of obstacle detection and tracking, as well as automatic avoidance in complex environment where both static and dynamic objects are present. The proposed system is constructed on the basis of Hector Quadrotor open source framework [1], and its effectiveness is demonstrated and validated on a realistic simulated UAV platform in Gazebo simulations where the UAV is operated at a high speed.

UAV Autonomous Indoor Exploration and Mapping for SAR Missions: Reflections from the ICUAS 2022 Competition

“…UAVs can be employed in real-time to aid the first responders during SAR missions [1], e.g., in hazardous environments such as fire incidents [2], [3] or a collapsed building [4], UAVs can be deployed to locate victims or survivors [5]. Despite the UAV technological advancements, in terms of exploration and reliability, those systems are most often controlled by a trained operator to avoid obstructions on such incident sites [6]. For autonomous exploration, the UAVs deployed in SAR missions operate at higher altitudes, with reliable Global Positioning System (GPS) coverage, and no occlusion in their Field of View (FoV).…”

Teleoperated aerial manipulator and its avatar. Part 1: Communication, system's interconnection, control, and virtual world

“…Some of the most important problems for aerial manipulators are the control, and the complexity in achieving a variety of grasping and manipulation tasks [1]- [3]. For that, several efforts have been conducted for robot teleoperation , [4] [5]. One of the major problems of teleoperated systems is the difficulties encountered by the human pilot while he/she is performing a task due to its visualization restriction [6].…”