Feature Papers of Drones - Volume I

[EN] The present book is divided into two volumes (Volume I: articles 1–23, and Volume II: articles 24–54) which compile the articles and communications submitted to the Topical Collection ”Feature Papers of Drones” during the years 2020 to 2022 describing novel or new cutting-edge designs, developments, and/or applications of unmanned vehicles (drones). Articles 1–8 are devoted to the developments of drone design, where new concepts and modeling strategies as well as effective designs that improve drone stability and autonomy are introduced. Articles 9–16 focus on the communication aspects of drones as effective strategies for smooth deployment and efficient functioning are required. Therefore, several developments that aim to optimize performance and security are presented. In this regard, one of the most directly related topics is drone swarms, not only in terms of communication but also human-swarm interaction and their applications for science missions, surveillance, and disaster rescue operations. To conclude with the volume I related to drone improvements, articles 17–23 discusses the advancements associated with autonomous navigation, obstacle avoidance, and enhanced flight plannin

Mobile Robots Navigation

Mobile robots navigation includes different interrelated activities: (i) perception, as obtaining and interpreting sensory information; (ii) exploration, as the strategy that guides the robot to select the next direction to go; (iii) mapping, involving the construction of a spatial representation by using the sensory information perceived; (iv) localization, as the strategy to estimate the robot position within the spatial map; (v) path planning, as the strategy to find a path towards a goal location being optimal or not; and (vi) path execution, where motor actions are determined and adapted to environmental changes. The book addresses those activities by integrating results from the research work of several authors all over the world. Research cases are documented in 32 chapters organized within 7 categories next described

Vision-based guidance and control of a hovering vehicle in unknown environments

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Mechanical Engineering, 2008.Includes bibliographical references (leaves 115-122).This thesis presents a methodology, architecture, hardware implementation, and results of a system capable of controlling and guiding a hovering vehicle in unknown environments, emphasizing cluttered indoor spaces. Six-axis inertial data and a low-resolution onboard camera yield sufficient information for image processing, Kalman filtering, and novel mapping algorithms to generate a, high-performance estimate of vehicle motion, as well as an accurate three-dimensional map of the environment. This combination of mapping and localization enables a quadrotor vehicle to autonomously navigate cluttered, unknown environments safely. Communication limitations are considered, and a hybrid control architecture is presented to demonstrate the feasibility of combining separated proactive offboard and reactive onboard planners simultaneously, including a detailed presentation of a novel reactive obstacle avoidance algorithm and preliminary results integrating the MIT Darpa Urban Challenge planner for high-level control. The RAVEN testbed is successfully employed as a prototyping facility for rapid development of these algorithms using emulated inertial data and offboard processing as a precursor to embedded development. An analysis of computational demand and a comparison of the emulated inertial system to an embedded sensor package demonstrates the feasibility of porting the onboard algorithms to an embedded autopilot. Finally, flight results using only the single camera and emulated inertial data for closed-loop trajectory following, environment mapping, and obstacle avoidance are presented and discussed.by Spencer Greg Ahrens.S.M

Proceedings of the International Micro Air Vehicles Conference and Flight Competition 2017 (IMAV 2017)

The IMAV 2017 conference has been held at ISAE-SUPAERO, Toulouse, France from Sept. 18 to Sept. 21, 2017. More than 250 participants coming from 30 different countries worldwide have presented their latest research activities in the field of drones. 38 papers have been presented during the conference including various topics such as Aerodynamics, Aeroacoustics, Propulsion, Autopilots, Sensors, Communication systems, Mission planning techniques, Artificial Intelligence, Human-machine cooperation as applied to drones

Intelligent Transportation Related Complex Systems and Sensors

Building around innovative services related to different modes of transport and traffic management, intelligent transport systems (ITS) are being widely adopted worldwide to improve the efficiency and safety of the transportation system. They enable users to be better informed and make safer, more coordinated, and smarter decisions on the use of transport networks. Current ITSs are complex systems, made up of several components/sub-systems characterized by time-dependent interactions among themselves. Some examples of these transportation-related complex systems include: road traffic sensors, autonomous/automated cars, smart cities, smart sensors, virtual sensors, traffic control systems, smart roads, logistics systems, smart mobility systems, and many others that are emerging from niche areas. The efficient operation of these complex systems requires: i) efficient solutions to the issues of sensors/actuators used to capture and control the physical parameters of these systems, as well as the quality of data collected from these systems; ii) tackling complexities using simulations and analytical modelling techniques; and iii) applying optimization techniques to improve the performance of these systems. It includes twenty-four papers, which cover scientific concepts, frameworks, architectures and various other ideas on analytics, trends and applications of transportation-related data

Advances in Robot Navigation

Robot navigation includes different interrelated activities such as perception - obtaining and interpreting sensory information; exploration - the strategy that guides the robot to select the next direction to go; mapping - the construction of a spatial representation by using the sensory information perceived; localization - the strategy to estimate the robot position within the spatial map; path planning - the strategy to find a path towards a goal location being optimal or not; and path execution, where motor actions are determined and adapted to environmental changes. This book integrates results from the research work of authors all over the world, addressing the abovementioned activities and analyzing the critical implications of dealing with dynamic environments. Different solutions providing adaptive navigation are taken from nature inspiration, and diverse applications are described in the context of an important field of study: social robotics

Feature Papers of Drones - Volume II

[EN] The present book is divided into two volumes (Volume I: articles 1–23, and Volume II: articles 24–54) which compile the articles and communications submitted to the Topical Collection ”Feature Papers of Drones” during the years 2020 to 2022 describing novel or new cutting-edge designs, developments, and/or applications of unmanned vehicles (drones). Articles 24–41 are focused on drone applications, but emphasize two types: firstly, those related to agriculture and forestry (articles 24–35) where the number of applications of drones dominates all other possible applications. These articles review the latest research and future directions for precision agriculture, vegetation monitoring, change monitoring, forestry management, and forest fires. Secondly, articles 36–41 addresses the water and marine application of drones for ecological and conservation-related applications with emphasis on the monitoring of water resources and habitat monitoring. Finally, articles 42–54 looks at just a few of the huge variety of potential applications of civil drones from different points of view, including the following: the social acceptance of drone operations in urban areas or their influential factors; 3D reconstruction applications; sensor technologies to either improve the performance of existing applications or to open up new working areas; and machine and deep learning development

Conference on Intelligent Robotics in Field, Factory, Service, and Space (CIRFFSS 1994), volume 1

The AIAA/NASA Conference on Intelligent Robotics in Field, Factory, Service, and Space (CIRFFSS '94) was originally proposed because of the strong belief that America's problems of global economic competitiveness and job creation and preservation can partly be solved by the use of intelligent robotics, which are also required for human space exploration missions. Individual sessions addressed nuclear industry, agile manufacturing, security/building monitoring, on-orbit applications, vision and sensing technologies, situated control and low-level control, robotic systems architecture, environmental restoration and waste management, robotic remanufacturing, and healthcare applications

Advances in Human-Robot Interaction

Rapid advances in the field of robotics have made it possible to use robots not just in industrial automation but also in entertainment, rehabilitation, and home service. Since robots will likely affect many aspects of human existence, fundamental questions of human-robot interaction must be formulated and, if at all possible, resolved. Some of these questions are addressed in this collection of papers by leading HRI researchers

Proceedings of the NASA Conference on Space Telerobotics, volume 3

The theme of the Conference was man-machine collaboration in space. The Conference provided a forum for researchers and engineers to exchange ideas on the research and development required for application of telerobotics technology to the space systems planned for the 1990s and beyond. The Conference: (1) provided a view of current NASA telerobotic research and development; (2) stimulated technical exchange on man-machine systems, manipulator control, machine sensing, machine intelligence, concurrent computation, and system architectures; and (3) identified important unsolved problems of current interest which can be dealt with by future research