Opportunities and challenges with autonomous micro aerial vehicles

We survey the recent work on micro unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), a fast-growing field in robotics, outlining the opportunities for research and applications, along with the scientific and technological challenges. Micro-UAVs can operate in three-dimensional environments, explore and map multi-story buildings, manipulate and transport objects, and even perform such tasks as assembly. While fixed-base industrial robots were the main focus in the first two decades of robotics, and mobile robots enabled most of the significant advances during the next two decades, it is likely that UAVs, and particularly micro-UAVs, will provide a major impetus for the next phase of education, research, and development.

[1]  C. H. Wolowicz,et al.  Similitude requirements and scaling relationships as applied to model testing , 1979 .

[2]  S. Shankar Sastry,et al.  Adaptive Control of Mechanical Manipulators , 1987, Proceedings. 1986 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation.

[3]  Mark W. Spong,et al.  Adaptive motion control of rigid robots: a tutorial , 1988, Proceedings of the 27th IEEE Conference on Decision and Control.

[4]  Jean-Jacques E. Slotine,et al.  Performance in Adaptive Manipulator Control , 1988, Proceedings of the 27th IEEE Conference on Decision and Control.

[5]  Daniel E. Koditschek,et al.  Comparative experiments with a new adaptive controller for robot arms , 1991, Proceedings. 1991 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation.

[6]  J. Wen,et al.  The attitude control problem , 1991 .

[7]  R. Murray,et al.  Differential Flatness of Mechanical Control Systems: A Catalog of Prototype Systems , 1995 .

[8]  Vicsek,et al.  Novel type of phase transition in a system of self-driven particles. , 1995, Physical review letters.

[9]  R. Murray,et al.  Real‐time trajectory generation for differentially flat systems , 1998 .

[10]  R. Jeanne.  Group size, productivity, and information flow in social wasps , 1999 .

[11]  J. Hutchinson.  Animal groups in three dimensions , 1999 .

[12]  Vijay Kumar,et al.  Modeling and control of formations of nonholonomic mobile robots , 2001, IEEE Trans. Robotics Autom..

[13]  Xiaoming Hu,et al.  Formation constrained multi-agent control , 2001, Proceedings 2001 ICRA. IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (Cat. No.01CH37164).

[14]  S. Shankar Sastry,et al.  A vision system for landing an unmanned aerial vehicle , 2001, Proceedings 2001 ICRA. IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (Cat. No.01CH37164).

[15]  Randal W. Beard,et al.  A coordination architecture for spacecraft formation control , 2001, IEEE Trans. Control. Syst. Technol..

[16]  Jie Yu,et al.  Comparison of nonlinear control design techniques on a model of the Caltech ducted fan , 2001, at - Automatisierungstechnik.

[17]  Bernard Mettler.  Modeling small-scale unmanned rotorcraft for advanced flight control design , 2001 .

[18]  Jie Yu,et al.  Unconstrained receding-horizon control of nonlinear systems , 2001, IEEE Trans. Autom. Control..

[19]  Gaurav S. Sukhatme,et al.  Vision-based autonomous landing of an unmanned aerial vehicle , 2002, Proceedings 2002 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (Cat. No.02CH37292).

[20]  S. Shankar Sastry,et al.  Nonlinear model predictive tracking control for rotorcraft-based unmanned aerial vehicles , 2002, Proceedings of the 2002 American Control Conference (IEEE Cat. No.CH37301).

[21]  S. Shankar Sastry,et al.  Decentralized nonlinear model predictive control of multiple flying robots , 2003, 42nd IEEE International Conference on Decision and Control (IEEE Cat. No.03CH37475).

[22]  Sebastian Thrun,et al.  ARA*: Anytime A* with Provable Bounds on Sub-Optimality , 2003, NIPS.

[23]  Munther A. Dahleh,et al.  Maneuver-based motion planning for nonlinear systems with symmetries , 2005, IEEE Transactions on Robotics.

[24]  John Hauser,et al.  On the stability of receding horizon control with a general terminal cost , 2005, IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control.

[25]  Steven M. LaValle,et al.  Planning algorithms , 2006 .

[26]  D. Pines,et al.  Challenges Facing Future Micro-Air-Vehicle Development , 2006 .

[27]  Gerd Hirzinger,et al.  Energy-efficient Autonomous Four-rotor Flying Robot Controlled at 1 kHz , 2007, Proceedings 2007 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation.

[28]  James F. Whidborne,et al.  A prototype of an autonomous controller for a quadrotor UAV , 2007, 2007 European Control Conference (ECC).

[29]  George J. Pappas,et al.  Flocking in Fixed and Switching Networks , 2007, IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control.

[30]  Samir Bouabdallah,et al.  Design and control of quadrotors with application to autonomous flying , 2007 .

[31]  Sebastian Scherer,et al.  Flying Fast and Low Among Obstacles , 2007, Proceedings 2007 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation.

[32]  Pieter Abbeel,et al.  Apprenticeship learning and reinforcement learning with application to robotic control , 2008 .

[33]  Nicholas Roy,et al.  Planning in information space for a quadrotor helicopter in a GPS-denied environment , 2008, 2008 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation.

[34]  Holiday Valley Inn.  GNC Challenges for Miniature Autonomous Systems Workshop , 2008 .

[35]  Stergios I. Roumeliotis,et al.  A Kalman Filter-Based Algorithm for IMU-Camera Calibration: Observability Analysis and Performance Evaluation , 2008, IEEE Transactions on Robotics.

[36]  Karl Henrik Johansson,et al.  A Study On Distributed Model Predictive Consensus , 2008, ArXiv.

[37]  Oliver Purwin,et al.  Performing aggressive maneuvers using iterative learning control , 2009, 2009 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation.

[38]  Roland Siegwart,et al.  Modular Simulation Model for Coaxial Rotary Wing MAVs , 2009 .

[39]  Abraham Bachrach,et al.  Autonomous flight in unstructured and unknown indoor environments , 2009 .

[40]  Nicholas Roy,et al.  Autonomous Flight in Unknown Indoor Environments , 2009 .

[41]  Wolfram Burgard,et al.  Towards a navigation system for autonomous indoor flying , 2009, 2009 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation.

[42]  Oliver Brock,et al.  Planning Long Dynamically-Feasible Maneuvers for Autonomous Vehicles , 2009 .

[43]  Russ Tedrake,et al.  LQR-trees: Feedback motion planning on sparse randomized trees , 2009, Robotics: Science and Systems.

[44]  Jorge Cortes,et al.  Distributed Control of Robotic Networks: A Mathematical Approach to Motion Coordination Algorithms , 2009 .

[45]  Robert E. Mahony,et al.  Image-Based Visual Servo Control of the Translation Kinematics of a Quadrotor Aerial Vehicle , 2009, IEEE Transactions on Robotics.

[46]  Stergios I. Roumeliotis,et al.  Vision-Aided Inertial Navigation for Spacecraft Entry, Descent, and Landing , 2009, IEEE Transactions on Robotics.

[47]  Steven Lake Waslander,et al.  Aerodynamics and control of autonomous quadrotor helicopters in aggressive maneuvering , 2009, 2009 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation.

[48]  Aaron M. Dollar,et al.  Hovering Stability of Helicopters With Elastic Constraints , 2010 .

[49]  J. Sean Humbert,et al.  Experimental Study of Gust Effects on Micro Air Vehicles , 2010 .

[50]  Vijay R. Kumar,et al.  The Direct Kinematics of Objects Suspended From Cables , 2010 .

[51]  Vijay Kumar,et al.  The GRASP Multiple Micro-UAV Testbed , 2010, IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine.

[52]  Roland Siegwart,et al.  MAV navigation through indoor corridors using optical flow , 2010, 2010 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation.

[53]  Taeyoung Lee,et al.  Geometric tracking control of a quadrotor UAV on SE(3) , 2010, 49th IEEE Conference on Decision and Control (CDC).

[54]  Christian Bermes,et al.  Design and dynamic modeling of autonomous coaxial micro helicopters , 2010 .

[55]  I. Faruque,et al.  Dipteran insect flight dynamics. Part 2: Lateral-directional motion about hover. , 2010, Journal of theoretical biology.

[56]  Claire J. Tomlin,et al.  Design of guaranteed safe maneuvers using reachable sets: Autonomous quadrotor aerobatics in theory and practice , 2010, 2010 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation.

[57]  Roland Siegwart,et al.  Vision based MAV navigation in unknown and unstructured environments , 2010, 2010 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation.

[58]  Andreas Zell,et al.  Low-Cost Visual Tracking of a Landing Place and Hovering Flight Control with a Microcontroller , 2010, J. Intell. Robotic Syst..

[59]  Vijay Kumar,et al.  Trajectory Generation and Control for Precise Aggressive Maneuvers with Quadrotors , 2010, ISER.

[60]  Vijay Kumar,et al.  Cooperative Grasping and Transport Using Multiple Quadrotors , 2010, DARS.

[61]  Raffaello D'Andrea,et al.  A simple learning strategy for high-speed quadrocopter multi-flips , 2010, 2010 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation.

[62]  Vijay Kumar,et al.  The Inverse Kinematics of 3-D Towing , 2010 .

[63]  Paul Y. Oh,et al.  Exploring the Effect of Obscurants on Safe Landing Zone Identification , 2010, J. Intell. Robotic Syst..

[64]  Gordon Wyeth,et al.  Aerial SLAM with a single camera using visual expectation , 2011, 2011 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation.

[65]  Marc Pollefeys,et al.  Real-time photo-realistic 3D mapping for micro aerial vehicles , 2011, 2011 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems.

[66]  Vijay Kumar,et al.  Time scales and stability in networked multi-robot systems , 2011, 2011 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation.

[67]  Vijay Kumar,et al.  Design, modeling, estimation and control for aerial grasping and manipulation , 2011, 2011 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems.

[68]  Stefano Soatto,et al.  Visual-inertial navigation, mapping and localization: A scalable real-time causal approach , 2011, Int. J. Robotics Res..

[69]  Nathan Michael,et al.  Multi-robot persistent surveillance planning as a Vehicle Routing Problem , 2011, 2011 IEEE International Conference on Automation Science and Engineering.

[70]  Vijay Kumar,et al.  Autonomous multi-floor indoor navigation with a computationally constrained MAV , 2011, 2011 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation.

[71]  Roland Siegwart,et al.  Monocular‐SLAM–based navigation for autonomous micro helicopters in GPS‐denied environments , 2011, J. Field Robotics.

[72]  Gaurav S. Sukhatme,et al.  Visual-Inertial Sensor Fusion: Localization, Mapping and Sensor-to-Sensor Self-calibration , 2011, Int. J. Robotics Res..

[73]  Roland Siegwart,et al.  Closed-form solution for absolute scale velocity determination combining inertial measurements and a single feature correspondence , 2011, 2011 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation.

[74]  Marc Pollefeys,et al.  PIXHAWK: A system for autonomous flight using onboard computer vision , 2011, 2011 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation.

[75]  Marc Pollefeys,et al.  MAV visual SLAM with plane constraint , 2011, 2011 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation.

[76]  Vijay Kumar,et al.  Opportunities and Challenges with Autonomous Micro Aerial Vehicles , 2011, ISRR.

[77]  Nicholas Roy,et al.  RANGE–Robust autonomous navigation in GPS‐denied environments , 2011, J. Field Robotics.

[78]  Marc Pollefeys,et al.  Autonomous obstacle avoidance and maneuvering on a vision-guided MAV using on-board processing , 2011, 2011 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation.

[79]  Vijay Kumar,et al.  Minimum snap trajectory generation and control for quadrotors , 2011, 2011 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation.

[80]  Vijay Kumar,et al.  Cooperative manipulation and transportation with aerial robots , 2009, Auton. Robots.

[81]  Vijay Kumar,et al.  Planning and control for cooperative manipulation and transportation with aerial robots , 2011, Int. J. Robotics Res..

[82]  George Vachtsevanos,et al.  Towards energy efficiency in micro hovering air vehicles , 2011, 2011 Aerospace Conference.

[83]  Vijay Kumar,et al.  Control of Ensembles of Aerial Robots , 2011, Proceedings of the IEEE.

[84]  P. Abbeel,et al.  LQG-MP: Optimized path planning for robots with motion uncertainty and imperfect state information , 2011 .

[85]  Vijay Kumar,et al.  Trajectory design and control for aggressive formation flight with quadrotors , 2012, Auton. Robots.

[86]  Vijay Kumar,et al.  Mixed-integer quadratic program trajectory generation for heterogeneous quadrotor teams , 2012, 2012 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation.

[87]  Vijay Kumar,et al.  Autonomous indoor 3D exploration with a micro-aerial vehicle , 2012, 2012 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation.

[88]  Roland Siegwart,et al.  Versatile distributed pose estimation and sensor self-calibration for an autonomous MAV , 2012, 2012 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation.

[89]  Dana Mackenzie.  Avionics. A flapping of wings. , 2012, Science.

[90]  Nicholas Roy,et al.  Construction of Cubic Structures with Quadrotor Teams , 2012 .