A decentralized swarm approach for the fast cooperative flight of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) in feature-poor environments without any external localization and communication is introduced in this paper.
A novel model of a UAV neighborhood is proposed to achieve robust onboard mutual perception and flocking state feedback control, which is designed to decrease the inter-agent oscillations common in standard reactive swarm models employed in fast collective motion.
The novel swarming methodology is supplemented with an enhanced Multi-Robot State Estimation (MRSE) strategy to increase the reliability of the purely onboard localization, which may be unreliable in real environments.
Although MRSE and the neighborhood model may rely on information exchange between agents, we introduce a communication-less version of the swarming framework based on estimating communicated states to decrease dependence on the often unreliable communication networks of large swarms.
The proposed solution has been verified by a set of complex real-world experiments to demonstrate its overall capability in different conditions, including a UAV interception-motivated task with a group velocity reaching the physical limits of the individual hardware platforms.
Localization is one of the most important technologies needed to use Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) in actual fields. Currently, most UAVs use GNSS to estimate their position. Recently, there have been attacks that target the weaknesses of UAVs that use GNSS, such as interrupting GNSS signal to crash the UAVs or sending fake GNSS signals to hijack the UAVs. To avoid this kind of situation, this paper proposes an algorithm that deals with the localization problem of the UAV in GNSS-denied environments. We propose a localization method, named as BRM (Building Ratio Map based) localization, for …
An Aerial Transport System in Marine GNSS-Denied Environment
School of Aerospace Engineering（航空航天学院）；Beijing Institute of Technology（北京理工大学）；Centre for Autonomous Robotic Systems（自主机器人系统中心）；Khalifa University（哈利法大学）
AUSLUN: A Fixed-Hover UAV--USV System for GNSS-Denied Maritime Search and Navigation
School of Aerospace Engineering, Beijing Institute of Technology（北京理工大学航空航天工程学院）；Khalifa University Center for Autonomous Robotic Systems (KUCARS), Khalifa University（哈利法大学自主机器人系统中心（KUCARS））
Polytechnic University of Madrid（马德里理工大学）；Boeing Research & Technology Europe (BR&TE)（波音欧洲研究与技术部）
Autonomous unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) inertial navigation exhibits an extreme dependency on the availability of global navigation satellite systems (GNSS) signals, without which it incurs in a slow but unavoidable position drift that may ultimately lead to the loss of the platform if the GNSS signals are not restored or the aircraft does not reach a location from which it can be recovered by remote control. This article describes an stochastic high fidelity simulation of the flight of a fixed wing low SWaP (size, weight, and power) autonomous UAV in turbulent and varying weather intended to…
Optimizing Indoor Farm Monitoring Efficiency Using UAV: Yield Estimation in a GNSS-Denied Cherry Tomato Greenhouse
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST)（机械工程系，乌山国立科学技术研究院）；Agricultural Robotics and Artificial Intelligence, Metafarmers（农业机器人与人工智能，Metafarmers）
University of Turku（图尔库大学）；École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL)（洛桑联邦理工学院（EPFL））
Small unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) have penetrated multiple domains over the past years. In GNSS-denied or indoor environments, aerial robots require a robust and stable localization system, often with external feedback, in order to fly safely. Motion capture systems are typically utilized indoors when accurate localization is needed. However, these systems are expensive and most require a fixed setup. Recently, visual-inertial odometry and similar methods have advanced to a point where autonomous UAVs can rely on them for localization. The main limitation in this case comes from the environ…
Control and State Estimation of Vehicle-Mounted Aerial Systems in GPS-Denied, Non-Inertial Environments
Robotics, Intelligent Systems, and Control Lab, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), Thuwal, Saudi Arabia（机器人、智能系统与控制实验室，国王阿卜杜勒-阿齐兹大学科学与技术学院（KAUST），沙特阿拉伯图瓦尔）
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…
Micro aerial vehicles (MAVs) have high potential for information gathering tasks to support situation awareness in search and rescue scenarios. Manually controlling MAVs in such scenarios requires experienced pilots and is error-prone, especially in stressful situations of real emergencies. The conditions of disaster scenarios are also challenging for autonomous MAV systems. The environment is usually not known in advance and GNSS might not always be available. We present a system for autonomous MAV flights in unknown environments which does not rely on global positioning systems. The method i…
Centre for Automation and Robotics, Polytechnic University of Madrid（马德里理工大学自动化与机器人中心）
This article proposes a method to diminish the pose (position plus attitude) drift experienced by an SVO (Semi-Direct Visual Odometry) based visual navigation system installed onboard a UAV (Unmanned Air Vehicle) by supplementing its pose estimation non linear optimizations with priors based on the outputs of a GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite System) Denied inertial navigation system. The method is inspired in a PI (Proportional Integral) control system, in which the attitude, altitude, and rate of climb inertial outputs act as targets to ensure that the visual estimations do not deviate far…
Polytechnic University of Madrid（马德里理工大学）；Boeing Research & Technology Europe（波音欧洲研究与技术公司）；National University of Distance Education（国立远程教育大学）；Center for Automation and Robotics (UPM-CSIC)（自动化与机器人中心（UPM-CSIC））
This article proposes an inertial navigation algorithm intended to lower the negative consequences of the absence of GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite System) signals on the navigation of autonomous fixed wing low SWaP (Size, Weight, and Power) UAVs (Unmanned Air Vehicles). In addition to accelerometers and gyroscopes, the filter takes advantage of sensors usually present onboard these platforms, such as magnetometers, Pitot tube, and air vanes, and aims to minimize the attitude error and reduce the position drift (both horizontal and vertical) with the dual objective of improving the aircraft…
Long Distance GNSS-Denied Visual Inertial Navigation for Autonomous Fixed Wing Unmanned Air Vehicles: SO(3) Manifold Filter based on Virtual Vision Sensor
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）
Conventional autonomous Unmanned Air Vehicle (abbr. UAV) autopilot systems use Global Navigation Satellite System (abbr. GNSS) signal for navigation. However, autopilot systems fail to navigate due to lost or jammed GNSS signal. To solve this problem, information from other sensors such as optical sensors are used. Monocular Simultaneous Localization and Mapping algorithms have been developed over the last few years and achieved state-of-the-art accuracy. Also, map matching localization approaches are used for UAV localization relatively to imagery from static maps such as Google Maps. Unfortu…
Multi-robot Systems Group, Department of Cybernetics, Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Czech Technical University in Prague（布拉格捷克技术大学电气工程学院控制学系多机器人系统组）；Turku Intelligent Embedded and Robotic Systems (TIERS) Lab, University of Turku（图尔库大学智能嵌入式与机器人系统实验室）
APR-Transformer: Initial Pose Estimation for Localization in Complex Environments through Absolute Pose Regression
Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Chair of Agent Technology, Technische Universität Berlin（电气工程与计算机科学学院，智能体技术教授，柏林技术大学）；Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Technische Universität Berlin（电气工程与计算机科学学院，柏林技术大学）
Ultra-wideband (UWB) wireless technology has seen an increased penetration in the robotics field as a robust localization method in recent years. UWB enables high accuracy distance estimation from time-of-flight measurements of wireless signals, even in non-line-of-sight measurements. UWB-based localization systems have been utilized in various types of GNSS-denied environments for ground or aerial autonomous robots. However, most of the existing solutions rely on a fixed and well-calibrated set of UWB nodes, or anchors, to estimate accurately the position of other mobile nodes, or tags, throu…
Lidar-based simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) approaches have obtained considerable success in autonomous robotic systems. This is in part owing to the high-accuracy of robust SLAM algorithms and the emergence of new and lower-cost lidar products. This study benchmarks current state-of-the-art lidar SLAM algorithms with a multi-modal lidar sensor setup showcasing diverse scanning modalities (spinning and solid-state) and sensing technologies, and lidar cameras, mounted on a mobile sensing and computing platform. We extend our previous multi-modal multi-lidar dataset with additional …
Marker-Constrained Pose-Graph Correction for Cross-Platform Georeferencing in GNSS-Denied Environments
University of Luxembourg（卢森堡大学）；Interdisciplinary Centre for Security, Reliability and Trust (SnT)（安全、可靠性与信任跨学科中心（SnT））；Faculty of Science, Technology and Medicine, University of Luxembourg（卢森堡大学科学、技术与医学院）
Robust Tightly-Coupled Filter-Based Monocular Visual-Inertial State Estimation and Graph-Based Evaluation for Autonomous Drone Racing
Unmanned Systems Research Group (USRG), School of Electrical Engineering, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST)（无人系统研究组（USRG）、电气工程学院、韩国科学技术院（KAIST））
Automotive Speed Estimation: Sensor Types and Error Characteristics from OBD-II to ADAS
Dept. of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Queen’s University at Kingston（电气与计算机工程系，昆士顿女王大学）；Navigation and Instrumentation (NavINST) Lab at the Royal Military College of Canada（加拿大皇家军事学院导航与仪器实验室）；School of Computing, Queen’s University at Kingston（计算学院，昆士顿女王大学）
