Aerial-Ground collaborative sensing: Third-Person view for teleoperation

Rapid deployment and operation are key requirements in time critical application, such as Search and Rescue (SaR). Efficiently teleoperated ground robots can support first-responders in such situations. However, first-person view teleoperation is sub-optimal in difficult terrains, while a third-person perspective can drastically increase teleoperation performance. Here, we propose a Micro Aerial Vehicle (MAV)-based system that can autonomously provide third-person perspective to ground robots. While our approach is based on local visual servoing, it further leverages the global localization of several ground robots to seamlessly transfer between these ground robots in GPS-denied environments. Therewith one MAV can support multiple ground robots on a demand basis. Furthermore, our system enables different visual detection regimes, and enhanced operability, and return-home functionality. We evaluate our system in real-world SaR scenarios.Comment: Accepted for publication in 2018 IEEE International Symposium on Safety, Security and Rescue Robotics (SSRR

Experimental Evaluation of a Team of Multiple Unmanned Aerial Vehicles for Cooperative Construction

Nº Artículo 9314142This article presents a team of multiple Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) to perform cooperative missions for autonomous construction. In particular, the UAVs have to build a wall made of bricks that need to be picked and transported from different locations. First, we propose a novel architecture for multi-robot systems operating in outdoor and unstructured environments, where robustness and reliability play a key role. Then, we describe the design of our aerial platforms and grasping mechanisms to pick, transport and place bricks. The system was particularly developed for the Mohamed Bin Zayed International Robotics Challenge (MBZIRC), where Challenge 2 consisted of building a wall cooperatively with multiple UAVs. However, our approach is more general and extensible to other multi-UAV applications involving physical interaction, like package delivery. We present not only our results in the final stage of MBZIRC, but also our simulations and field experiments throughout the previous months to the competition, where we tuned our system and assessed its performance

Voliro: An Omnidirectional Hexacopter With Tiltable Rotors

Extending the maneuverability of unmanned areal vehicles promises to yield a considerable increase in the areas in which these systems can be used. Some such applications are the performance of more complicated inspection tasks and the generation of complex uninterrupted movements of an attached camera. In this paper we address this challenge by presenting Voliro, a novel aerial platform that combines the advantages of existing multi-rotor systems with the agility of omnidirectionally controllable platforms. We propose the use of a hexacopter with tiltable rotors allowing the system to decouple the control of position and orientation. The contributions of this work involve the mechanical design as well as a controller with the corresponding allocation scheme. This work also discusses the design challenges involved when turning the concept of a hexacopter with tiltable rotors into an actual prototype. The agility of the system is demonstrated and evaluated in real- world experiments.Comment: Submitted to Robotics and Automation Magazin

Experimental Evaluation of a Team of Multiple Unmanned Aerial Vehicles for Cooperative Construction

This article presents a team of multiple Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) to perform cooperative missions for autonomous construction. In particular, the UAVs have to build a wall made of bricks that need to be picked and transported from different locations. First, we propose a novel architecture for multi-robot systems operating in outdoor and unstructured environments, where robustness and reliability play a key role. Then, we describe the design of our aerial platforms and grasping mechanisms to pick, transport and place bricks. The system was particularly developed for the Mohamed Bin Zayed International Robotics Challenge (MBZIRC), where Challenge 2 consisted of building a wall cooperatively with multiple UAVs. However, our approach is more general and extensible to other multi-UAV applications involving physical interaction, like package delivery. We present not only our results in the final stage of MBZIRC, but also our simulations and field experiments throughout the previous months to the competition, where we tuned our system and assessed its performance

A survey of single and multi-UAV aerial manipulation

Aerial manipulation has direct application prospects in environment, construction, forestry, agriculture, search, and rescue. It can be used to pick and place objects and hence can be used for transportation of goods. Aerial manipulation can be used to perform operations in environments inaccessible or unsafe for human workers. This paper is a survey of recent research in aerial manipulation. The aerial manipulation research has diverse aspects, which include the designing of aerial manipulation platforms, manipulators, grippers, the control of aerial platform and manipulators, the interaction of aerial manipulator with the environment, through forces and torque. In particular, the review paper presents the survey of the airborne platforms that can be used for aerial manipulation including the new aerial platforms with aerial manipulation capability. We also classified the aerial grippers and aerial manipulators based on their designs and characteristics. The recent contributions regarding the control of the aerial manipulator platform is also discussed. The environment interaction of aerial manipulators is also surveyed which includes, different strategies used for end-effectors interaction with the environment, application of force, application of torque and visual servoing. A recent and growing interest of researchers about the multi-UAV collaborative aerial manipulation was also noticed and hence different strategies for collaborative aerial manipulation are also surveyed, discussed and critically analyzed. Some key challenges regarding outdoor aerial manipulation and energy constraints in aerial manipulation are also discussed

System Architectures for Cooperative Teams of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles Interacting Physically with the Environment

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) have become quite a useful tool for a wide range of applications, from inspection & maintenance to search & rescue, among others. The capabilities of a single UAV can be extended or complemented by the deployment of more UAVs, so multi-UAV cooperative teams are becoming a trend. In that case, as di erent autopilots, heterogeneous platforms, and application-dependent software components have to be integrated, multi-UAV system architectures that are fexible and can adapt to the team's needs are required. In this thesis, we develop system architectures for cooperative teams of UAVs, paying special attention to applications that require physical interaction with the environment, which is typically unstructured. First, we implement some layers to abstract the high-level components from the hardware speci cs. Then we propose increasingly advanced architectures, from a single-UAV hierarchical navigation architecture to an architecture for a cooperative team of heterogeneous UAVs. All this work has been thoroughly tested in both simulation and eld experiments in di erent challenging scenarios through research projects and robotics competitions. Most of the applications required physical interaction with the environment, mainly in unstructured outdoors scenarios. All the know-how and lessons learned throughout the process are shared in this thesis, and all relevant code is publicly available.Los vehículos aéreos no tripulados (UAVs, del inglés Unmanned Aerial Vehicles) se han convertido en herramientas muy valiosas para un amplio espectro de aplicaciones, como inspección y mantenimiento, u operaciones de rescate, entre otras. Las capacidades de un único UAV pueden verse extendidas o complementadas al utilizar varios de estos vehículos simultáneamente, por lo que la tendencia actual es el uso de equipos cooperativos con múltiples UAVs. Para ello, es fundamental la integración de diferentes autopilotos, plataformas heterogéneas, y componentes software -que dependen de la aplicación-, por lo que se requieren arquitecturas multi-UAV que sean flexibles y adaptables a las necesidades del equipo. En esta tesis, se desarrollan arquitecturas para equipos cooperativos de UAVs, prestando una especial atención a aplicaciones que requieran de interacción física con el entorno, cuya naturaleza es típicamente no estructurada. Primero se proponen capas para abstraer a los componentes de alto nivel de las particularidades del hardware. Luego se desarrollan arquitecturas cada vez más avanzadas, desde una arquitectura de navegación para un único UAV, hasta una para un equipo cooperativo de UAVs heterogéneos. Todo el trabajo ha sido minuciosamente probado, tanto en simulación como en experimentos reales, en diferentes y complejos escenarios motivados por proyectos de investigación y competiciones de robótica. En la mayoría de las aplicaciones se requería de interacción física con el entorno, que es normalmente un escenario en exteriores no estructurado. A lo largo de la tesis, se comparten todo el conocimiento adquirido y las lecciones aprendidas en el proceso, y el código relevante está publicado como open-source