This paper presents the design, development, and testing of hardware-software systems by the IISc-TCS team for Challenge 1 of the Mohammed Bin Zayed International Robotics Challenge 2020. The goal of Challenge 1 was to grab a ball suspended from a moving and maneuvering UAV and pop balloons anchored to the ground, using suitable manipulators. The important tasks carried out to address this challenge include the design and development of a hardware system with efficient grabbing and popping mechanisms, considering the restrictions in volume and payload, design of accurate target interception algorithms using visual information suitable for outdoor environments, and development of a software architecture for dynamic multi-agent aerial systems performing complex dynamic missions. In this paper, a single degree of freedom manipulator attached with an end-effector is designed for grabbing and popping, and robust algorithms are developed for the interception of targets in an uncertain environment. Vision-based guidance and tracking laws are proposed based on the concept of pursuit engagement and artificial potential function. The software architecture presented in this work proposes an Operation Management System (OMS) architecture that allocates static and dynamic tasks collaboratively among multiple UAVs to perform any given mission. An important aspect of this work is that all the systems developed were designed to operate in completely autonomous mode. A detailed description of the architecture along with simulations of complete challenge in the Gazebo environment and field experiment results are also included in this work. The proposed hardware-software system is particularly useful for counter-UAV systems and can also be modified in order to cater to several other applications.
Indian Institute of Science（印度科学学院）；Robert Bosch Center for Cyber-Physical Systems（罗伯特·博世网络物理系统中心）
Selective interception of objects in unknown environment autonomously by UAVs is an interesting problem. In this work, vision based interception is carried out. This problem is a part of challenge 1 of Mohammed Bin Zayed International Robotic Challenge, 2020, where, balloons are kept at five random locations for the UAVs to autonomously explore, detect, approach and intercept. The problem requires a different formulation to execute compared to the normal interception problems in literature. This work details the different aspect of this problem from vision to manipulator design. The frame work…
Cooperative Integrated Estimation-Guidance for Simultaneous Interception of Moving Targets
Intelligent Systems & Control (ISaC) Lab, Department of Aerospace Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay（智能系统与控制实验室，航空航天工程系，印度理工学院班加罗尔）；Guidance, Autonomy, Learning, and Control for Intelligent Systems (GALACxIS) Lab, Department of Aerospace Engineering and Engineering Mechanics, University of Cincinnati（智能系统引导、自主、学习与控制实验室，航空航天工程与工程力学系，辛辛那提大学）
Aerial Target Encirclement and Interception with Noisy Range Observations
School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore 639798, Singapore（电子工程学院，南洋理工大学，新加坡）；School of Automation, Guangdong University of Technology, Guangzhou 510006, China（自动化学院，广东技术大学，广州）
The University of Manchester（曼彻斯特大学）；Cardiff University（卡迪夫大学）
In recent years, Unmanned Surface Vehicles (USV) have been extensively deployed for maritime applications. However, USV has a limited detection range with sensor installed at the same elevation with the targets. In this research, we propose a cooperative Unmanned Aerial Vehicle - Unmanned Surface Vehicle (UAV-USV) platform to improve the detection range of USV. A floatable and waterproof UAV is designed and 3D printed, which allows it to land on the sea. A catamaran USV and landing platform are also developed. To land UAV on the USV precisely in various lighting conditions, IR beacon detector …
Cooperative Aerial Robot Inspection Challenge: A Benchmark for Heterogeneous Multi-UAV Planning and Lessons Learned
Robotics Institute, Carnegie Mellon University（卡内基梅隆大学机器人研究所）；School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Nanyang Technological University（南洋理工大学电气与电子工程学院）；School of Artificial Intelligence, Sun Yat-sen University（中山大学人工智能学院）；Zhejiang University（浙江大学）；Department of Mechanical and Automation Engineering, Chinese University of Hong Kong（香港中文大学机械与自动化工程学系）
Indian Institute of Science（印度科学学院）；Robert Bosch Center for Cyber Physical Systems（罗伯特·博世信息物理系统研究中心）
Grabbing a manoeuvring target using drones is a challenging problem. This paper presents the design, development, and prototyping of a novel aerial manipulator for target interception. It is a single Degree of Freedom (DoF) manipulator with passive basket-type end-effector. The proposed design is energy efficient, light weight and suitable for aerial grabbing applications. The detailed design of the proposed manipulation mechanism and a novel in-flight extending propeller guard, is reported in this paper.
A Cooperative Aerial System of A Payload Drone Equipped with Dexterous Rappelling End Droid for Cluttered Space Pickup
School of Aerospace Science and Engineering, Beihang University（北京航空航天大学航空航天科学与工程学院）；Hangzhou International Innovation Institute of Beihang University（北京航空航天大学杭州国际创新研究院）；Institute of Unmanned System, Beihang University（北京航空航天大学无人系统研究院）；Tianmushan Laboratory（天门山实验室）
Bauman Moscow State Technical University（鲍曼莫斯科国立技术大学）；Semenov Federal Research Center for Chemical Physics of the Russian Academy of Sciences（俄罗斯科学院谢苗诺夫化学物理联邦研究中心）
This paper presents a new reward function that can be used for deep reinforcement learning in unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) control and navigation problems. The reward function is based on the construction and estimation of the time of simplified trajectories to the target, which are third-order Bezier curves. This reward function can be applied unchanged to solve problems in both two-dimensional and three-dimensional virtual environments. The effectiveness of the reward function was tested in a newly developed virtual environment, namely, a simplified two-dimensional environment describing th…
Digital documentation of large interiors of historical buildings is an exhausting task since most of the areas of interest are beyond typical human reach. We advocate the use of autonomous teams of multi-rotor Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) to speed up the documentation process by several orders of magnitude while allowing for a repeatable, accurate, and condition-independent solution capable of precise collision-free operation at great heights. The proposed multi-robot approach allows for performing tasks requiring dynamic scene illumination in large-scale real-world scenarios, a process pre…
Fusion of Visual-Inertial Odometry with LiDAR Relative Localization for Cooperative Guidance of a Micro-Scale Aerial Vehicle
Multi-robot Systems Group, Department of Cybernetics, Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Czech Technical University in Prague, Technick\'a 2, Prague, 166 27, Czech Republic
With the deepening of research on the SLAM system, the possibility of cooperative SLAM with multi-robots has been proposed. This paper presents a map matching and localization approach considering the cooperative SLAM of an aerial-ground system. The proposed approach aims to help precisely matching the map constructed by two independent systems that have large scale variance of viewpoints of the same route and eventually enables the ground mobile robot to localize itself in the global map given by the drone. It contains dense mapping with Elevation Map and software "Metashape", map matching wi…
Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Czech Technical University in Prague（布拉格捷克理工大学电气工程学院）
This paper presents a system for autonomous cooperative wall building with a team of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs). The system was developed for Challenge 2 of the Mohamed Bin Zayed International Robotics Challenge (MBZIRC) 2020. The wall-building scenario of Challenge 2 featured an initial stack of bricks and wall structure where the individual bricks had to be placed by a team of three UAVs. The objective of the task was to maximize collected points for placing the bricks within the restricted construction time while following the prescribed wall pattern. The proposed approach uses initial…
Visibility-Aware Cooperative Tracking with Decentralized LiDAR-Based Aerial Swarms
Department of Mechanical Engineering, The University of Hong Kong（香港大学机械工程系）；School of Intelligent System Engineering, Sun Yat-sen University（中山大学智能系统工程学院）
Drones Guiding Drones: Cooperative Navigation of a Less-Equipped Micro Aerial Vehicle in Cluttered Environments
Multi-robot Systems Group, Department of Cybernetics, Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Czech Technical University in Prague（多机器人系统组，控制系，电气工程系，捷克技术大学）
In recent years, teams of robot and Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) have been commissioned by researchers to enable accurate, online wildfire coverage and tracking. While the majority of prior work focuses on the coordination and control of such multi-robot systems, to date, these UAV teams have not been given the ability to reason about a fire's track (i.e., location and propagation dynamics) to provide performance guarantee over a time horizon. Motivated by the problem of aerial wildfire monitoring, we propose a predictive framework which enables cooperation in multi-UAV teams towards collab…
Predefined-time One-Shot Cooperative Estimation, Guidance, and Control for Simultaneous Target Interception
Intelligent Systems and Control (ISaC) Lab, Department of Aerospace Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay（智能系统与控制实验室，航空航天工程系，印度理工学院班加罗尔）；Guidance, Autonomy, Learning, and Control for Intelligent Systems (GALACxIS) Lab, Department of Aerospace Engineering and Engineering Mechanics, University of Cincinnati（智能系统引导、自主、学习与控制实验室，航空航天工程与工程力学系，辛辛那提大学）
Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are becoming largely ubiquitous with an increasing demand for aerial data. Accurate navigation and localization, required for precise data collection in many industrial applications, often relies on RTK GNSS. These systems, able of centimeter-level accuracy, require a setup and calibration process and are relatively expensive. This paper addresses the problem of accurate positioning and navigation of UAVs through cooperative localization. Inexpensive ultra-wideband (UWB) transceivers installed on both the UAV and a support ground robot enable centimeter-level re…
Intelligent Systems & Control (ISaC) Lab, Department of Aerospace Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay（智能系统与控制实验室，航空航天工程系，印度理工学院孟买分校）；Guidance, Autonomy, Learning, and Control for Intelligent Systems (GALACxIS) Lab, Department of Aerospace Engineering and Engineering Mechanics, University of Cincinnati（智能系统引导、自主性、学习与控制（GALACxIS）实验室，航空航天工程与工程力学系，辛辛那提大学）
University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign（伊利诺伊大学厄巴纳-香槟分校）
We propose a novel scheme for surveillance of a dynamic ground convoy moving along a non-linear trajectory, by aerial agents that maintain a uniformly spaced formation on a time-varying elliptical orbit encompassing the convoy. Elliptical orbits are used as they are more economical than circular orbits for circumnavigating the group of targets in the moving convoy. The proposed scheme includes an algorithm for computing feasible elliptical orbits, a vector guidance law for agent motion along the desired orbit, and a cooperative strategy to control the speeds of the aerial agents in order to qu…
University of Cyprus（塞浦路斯大学）；KIOS Research and Innovation Center of Excellence（KIOS卓越研究与创新中心）
As the number of unauthorized operations of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) is rising, the implementation of a versatile counter-drone system is becoming a necessity. In this work, we develop a drone-based counter-drone system, that employs algorithms for detecting and tracking a rogue drone, in conjunction with wireless interception capabilities to jointly jam the rogue drone while achieving self positioning for the pursuer drone. In the proposed system a software-defined-radio (SDR) is used for switching between jamming transmissions and spectrum sweeping functionalities to achieve the desir…
Integration of a Variable Stiffness Link for Long-Reach Aerial Manipulation
Department of Electrical and Photonics Engineering Control, Robotics and Embodied AI, Technical University of Denmark（技术大学丹麦分校电气与光子工程系）；GRVC Robotics Laboratory, Universidad de Sevilla（塞维利亚大学GRVC机器人实验室）
KIOS Research and Innovation Centre of Excellence (KIOS CoE)（KIOS卓越研究与创新中心（KIOS CoE））；University of Cyprus（塞浦路斯大学）
This work investigates the problem of simultaneous tracking and jamming of a rogue drone in 3D space with a team of cooperative unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). We propose a decentralized estimation, decision and control framework in which a team of UAVs cooperate in order to a) optimally choose their mobility control actions that result in accurate target tracking and b) select the desired transmit power levels which cause uninterrupted radio jamming and thus ultimately disrupt the operation of the rogue drone. The proposed decision and control framework allows the UAVs to reconfigure themsel…
Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) are now becoming increasingly accessible to amateur and com-mercial users alike. Several types of airspace structures are proposed in recent research, which include several structured free flight concepts. In this paper, for simplic-ity, distributed coordinating the motions of multicopters in structured airspace concepts is focused. This is formulated as a free flight problem, which includes convergence to destination lines and inter-agent collision avoidance. The destination line of each multicopter is known a priori. Further, Lyapunov-like functions are design…
This paper systematically studies the cooperative area coverage and target tracking problem of multiple-unmanned aerial vehicles (multi-UAVs). The problem is solved by decomposing into three sub-problems: information fusion, task assignment, and multi-UAV behavior decision-making. Specifically, in the information fusion process, we use the maximum consistency protocol to update the joint estimation states of multi-targets (JESMT) and the area detection information. The area detection information is represented by the equivalent visiting time map (EVTM), which is built based on the detection pr…
Planar-Sector LOS Guidance for Interception of Agile Targets with Lifting-Wing Quadcopters
School of Automation Science and Electrical Engineering, Beihang University（北京航空航天大学自动化科学与电气工程学院）；Research and Development Department, China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology（中国运载火箭技术研究院研发部）
