Design and Development of ReCOPTER : An Open source ROS-based Multirotor Platform for Research

Selection of multi-rotor aircraft systems for robotics research is a trade-off between competing objectives. While Commercial Off The Shelf systems are fast to set up and provide a ready-made platform, they often lack complete documentation and have limited extensibility for allowing researchers to modify them for scientific work. Conversely, developing an aircraft from the ground up is labour intensive and time consuming, and requires substantial experience to ensure a satisfactory result. This paper ranks common robotic multi-rotor aircraft used in research against several criteria for openness, extensibility and performance. We propose a standard platform using open components and an open-source design, specifically geared to the needs of the research community.

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