Implementation of wide-field integration of optic flow for autonomous quadrotor navigation

Conroy, Joseph; Gremillion, Gregory M.; Ranganathan, Badri N.; Humbert, J. Sean

doi:10.1007/s10514-009-9140-0

Cited by 146 publications

(98 citation statements)

References 38 publications

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“…However, so far this method has been validated only on tethered drones. An error correction method has also been demonstrated on a quadcopter equipped with omnidirectional vision to fly in corridors by continuously making corrections aimed at reducing the difference between measured optic flow and optic flow expected from flight at the desired altitude, attitude, speed, heading and distance from walls 63 . Quadcopter and flapping-wing drones are intrinsically unstable and must compensate for positional drift generated by noise in gyroscope and accelerometer signals to hover in place and maintain attitude.…”

Section: Review Insightmentioning

confidence: 99%

Science, technology and the future of small autonomous drones

Floreano

Wood

2015

Nature

1,087

552

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Drones, a popular nickname for unmanned aerial vehicles and micro aerial vehicles, often conjure up images of unmanned aeroplanes that fly thousands of miles for espionage and to deploy munitions. However, over the past few years, an increasing number of public and private research laboratories have been working on small, human-friendly drones that one day may autonomously fly in confined spaces and in close proximity to people. The development of these small drones, which is the main focus of this Review, has been supported by the miniaturization and cost reduction of electronic components (microprocessors, sensors, batteries and wireless communication units), largely driven by the portable electronic device industry. These improvements have enabled the prototyping and commercialization of small (typically less than 1 kg) drones at smartphone prices.Small drones will have important socio-economic impacts (Fig. 1). Images from drones that are capable of flying a few metres above the ground will fill a gap between expensive, weather-dependent and lowresolution images provided by satellites and car-based images limited to human-level perspectives and the availability of accessible roads. Specialized flying cameras and cloud-based data analytics will allow farmers to continuously monitor the quality of crop growth. Such platforms will enable construction companies to measure work progress in real time. Drones will let mining companies obtain precise volumetric data of excavations. Energy and infrastructure companies will be able to exhaustively survey pipelines, roads and cables. Humanitarian organizations could immediately assess and adapt aid efforts in continuously changing refugee camps. Transportation drones that are capable of safely taking off and landing in the proximity of buildings and humans will allow developing countries -without a suitable road network -to rapidly deliver goods and to finally unleash the full potential of their e-commerce telecommunication infrastructure. Transportation drones will also help developed countries to improve the quality of service in congested or remote areas, and will enable rescue organizations to quickly deliver medical supplies in the field and on demand. Inspection drones that are capable of flying in confined spaces will help fire-fighting and emergency units to assess dangers faster and more safely, logistic companies to detect cracks in the inner and outer shells of ships, road maintenance companies to measure signs of wear and tear in bridges and tunnels, security companies to improve building safety by monitoring areas outside the range of surveillance cameras, and disaster mitigation agencies to inspect partially collapsed buildings where ground clutter is an obstacle for terrestrial robots. Coordinated teams of autonomous drones will enable missions that last longer than the flight time of a single drone by allowing some drones to temporarily leave the team for battery replacement. Drone teams will permit rescue organizations to quickly deploy dedicated commu...

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Section: Review Insightmentioning

confidence: 99%

Science, technology and the future of small autonomous drones

Floreano

Wood

2015

Nature

1,087

552

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…Despite their limitations, it is because of these advantages that has led to the popularization and commercialization of quadcopters and therefore, their inexpensive nature [31]. As a result, hovercraft and quadcopters have seen the widest range of application including obstacles avoidance, odometry, and lateral, ventral, and forward OF control [17,26,32]. However, their complex dynamics make the control problem very difficult, and most demonstrations have been on single DoFs or in very constrained environments.…”

Section: B Insect Behavior and Cognitive Embodimentmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The quadcopter design process proposed by Bouabdallah for sUAVs was used here and first chooses a propulsion group based on overall weight [32]. Quadcopters over 1kg are typically designed with a motor specification between 700-900Kv (and between 1300-2200Kv for less than 500g).…”

Section: B Beebot Platform Designmentioning

confidence: 99%

An inexpensive flying robot design for embodied robotics research

Sabo

Yavuz

Cope

et al. 2017

2017 International Joint Conference on Neural Networks (IJCNN)

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-Flying insects are capable of a wide-range of flight and cognitive behaviors which are not currently understood. The replication of these capabilities is of interest to miniaturized robotics, because they share similar size, weight, and energy constraints. Currently, embodiment of insect behavior is primarily done on ground robots which utilize simplistic sensors and have different constraints to flying insects. This limits how much progress can be made on understanding how biological systems fundamentally work. To address this gap, we have developed an inexpensive robotic solution in the form of a quadcopter aptly named BeeBot. Our work shows that BeeBot can support the necessary payload to replicate the sensing capabilities which are vital to bees' flight navigation, including chemical sensing and a wide visual field-of-view. BeeBot is controlled wirelessly in order to process this sensor data off-board; for example, in neural networks. Our results demonstrate the suitability of the proposed approach for further study of the development of navigation algorithms and of embodiment of insect cognition.

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“…Based on the findings obtained at our Laboratory on the fly's visual sensory system [12], several versions of the 2-pixel Local Motion Sensor (LMS) [10,13,14,44,46] were developed, using an algorithm introduced by [5,39], which was later called the "time of travel scheme" (see [2,33]). Several visionbased systems have been previously designed to measure the optic flow onboard UAVs (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles) [8,19,22] and in particular in the range expe-rienced during lunar landing [20,28,52]. Most of these visual systems were quite demanding in terms of their computational requirements and/or their weight or were not very well characterized, except for the optical mouse sensors [4], with which a standard error of approximately ±5 • /s around 25 • /s was obtained in the case of an optical mouse sensor measuring motion in a ±280 • /s overall range.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Toward an Autonomous Lunar Landing Based on Low-Speed Optic Flow Sensors

Sabiron

Chavent

Burlion

et al. 2013

Advances in Aerospace Guidance, Navigation and Control

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For the last few decades, growing interest has returned to the quite challenging task of the autonomous lunar landing. Soft landing of payloads on the lunar surface requires the development of new means of ensuring safe descent with strong final conditions and aerospace-related constraints in terms of mass, cost and computational resources. In this paper, a two-phase approach is presented: first a biomimetic method inspired from the neuronal and sensory system of flying insects is presented as a solution to perform safe lunar landing. In order to design an autopilot relying only on optic flow (OF) and inertial measurements, an estimation method based on a two-sensor setup is introduced: these sensors allow us to accurately estimate the orientation of the velocity vector which is mandatory to control the lander's pitch in a quasi-optimal way with respect to the fuel consumption. Secondly a new low-speed Visual Motion Sensor (VMS) inspired by insects' visual systems performing local angular 1-D speed measurements ranging from 1.5 • /s to 25 • /s and weighing only 2.8 g is presented. It was tested under free-flying outdoor conditions over various fields onboard an 80 kg unmanned helicopter. These preliminary results show that the optic flow measured despite the complex disturbances encountered closely matched the ground-truth optic flow.

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Implementation of wide-field integration of optic flow for autonomous quadrotor navigation

Cited by 146 publications

References 38 publications

Science, technology and the future of small autonomous drones

Science, technology and the future of small autonomous drones

An inexpensive flying robot design for embodied robotics research

Toward an Autonomous Lunar Landing Based on Low-Speed Optic Flow Sensors

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