UltraSwarm: A Further Step Towards a Flock of Miniature Helicopters

We describe further progress towards the development of a MAV (micro aerial vehicle) designed as an enabling tool to investigate aerial flocking. Our research focuses on the use of low cost off the shelf vehicles and sensors to enable fast prototyping and to reduce development costs. Details on the design of the embedded electronics and the modification of the chosen toy helicopter are presented, and the technique used for state estimation is described. The fusion of inertial data through an unscented Kalman filter is used to estimate the helicopter’s state, and this forms the main input to the control system. Since no detailed dynamic model of the helicopter in use is available, a method is proposed for automated system identification, and for subsequent controller design based on artificial evolution. Preliminary results obtained with a dynamic simulator of a helicopter are reported, along with some encouraging results for tackling the problem of flocking

Unmanned Aerial Systems for Wildland and Forest Fires

Wildfires represent an important natural risk causing economic losses, human death and important environmental damage. In recent years, we witness an increase in fire intensity and frequency. Research has been conducted towards the development of dedicated solutions for wildland and forest fire assistance and fighting. Systems were proposed for the remote detection and tracking of fires. These systems have shown improvements in the area of efficient data collection and fire characterization within small scale environments. However, wildfires cover large areas making some of the proposed ground-based systems unsuitable for optimal coverage. To tackle this limitation, Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) were proposed. UAS have proven to be useful due to their maneuverability, allowing for the implementation of remote sensing, allocation strategies and task planning. They can provide a low-cost alternative for the prevention, detection and real-time support of firefighting. In this paper we review previous work related to the use of UAS in wildfires. Onboard sensor instruments, fire perception algorithms and coordination strategies are considered. In addition, we present some of the recent frameworks proposing the use of both aerial vehicles and Unmanned Ground Vehicles (UV) for a more efficient wildland firefighting strategy at a larger scale.Comment: A recent published version of this paper is available at: https://doi.org/10.3390/drones501001

Safe, Remote-Access Swarm Robotics Research on the Robotarium

This paper describes the development of the Robotarium -- a remotely accessible, multi-robot research facility. The impetus behind the Robotarium is that multi-robot testbeds constitute an integral and essential part of the multi-agent research cycle, yet they are expensive, complex, and time-consuming to develop, operate, and maintain. These resource constraints, in turn, limit access for large groups of researchers and students, which is what the Robotarium is remedying by providing users with remote access to a state-of-the-art multi-robot test facility. This paper details the design and operation of the Robotarium as well as connects these to the particular considerations one must take when making complex hardware remotely accessible. In particular, safety must be built in already at the design phase without overly constraining which coordinated control programs the users can upload and execute, which calls for minimally invasive safety routines with provable performance guarantees.Comment: 13 pages, 7 figures, 3 code samples, 72 reference

Evolved swarming without positioning information: anapplication in aerial communication relay

In most swarm systems, agents are either aware of the position of their direct neighbors or they possess a substrate on which they can deposit information (stigmergy). However, such resources are not always obtainable in real-world applications because of hardware and environmental constraints. In this paper we study in 2D simulation the design of a swarm system which does not make use of positioning information or stigmergy. This endeavor is motivated by an application whereby a large number of Swarming Micro Air Vehicles (SMAVs), of fixed-wing configuration, must organize autonomously to establish a wireless communication network (SMAVNET) between users located on ground. Rather than relative or absolute positioning, agents must rely only on their own heading measurements and local communication with neighbors. Designing local interactions responsible for the emergence of the SMAVNET deployment and maintenance is a challenging task. For this reason, artificial evolution is used to automatically develop neuronal controllers for the swarm of homogenous agents. This approach has the advantage of yielding original and efficient swarming strategies. A detailed behavioral analysis is then performed on the fittest swarm to gain insight as to the behavior of the individual agent

Mini-UAV Based Sensory System for Measuring Environmental Variables in Greenhouses

This paper describes the design, construction and validation of a mobile sensory platform for greenhouse monitoring. The complete system consists of a sensory system on board a small quadrotor (i.e., a four rotor mini-UAV). The goals of this system include taking measures of temperature, humidity, luminosity and CO2 concentration and plotting maps of these variables. These features could potentially allow for climate control, crop monitoring or failure detection (e.g., a break in a plastic cover). The sensors have been selected by considering the climate and plant growth models and the requirements for their integration onboard the quadrotor. The sensors layout and placement have been determined through a study of quadrotor aerodynamics and the influence of the airflows from its rotors. All components of the system have been developed, integrated and tested through a set of field experiments in a real greenhouse. The primary contributions of this paper are the validation of the quadrotor as a platform for measuring environmental variables and the determination of the optimal location of sensors on a quadrotor.This work has been supported by the Robotics and Cybernetics Research Group at Technical University of Madrid (Spain) and has been funded under the projects “ROTOS: Multi-robot system for outdoor infrastructures protection”, sponsored by the Spanish Ministry of Education, Culture and Sport (DPI2010-17998); the “ROBOCITY 2030 Project”, sponsored by the Autonomous Community of Madrid (S-0505/DPI/ 000235); and the SAVIER Project, sponsored by Airbus Defence & Space.Peer Reviewe

Aerial Vehicles

This book contains 35 chapters written by experts in developing techniques for making aerial vehicles more intelligent, more reliable, more flexible in use, and safer in operation.It will also serve as an inspiration for further improvement of the design and application of aeral vehicles. The advanced techniques and research described here may also be applicable to other high-tech areas such as robotics, avionics, vetronics, and space

A Survey on UAV-Aided Maritime Communications: Deployment Considerations, Applications, and Future Challenges

Maritime activities represent a major domain of economic growth with several emerging maritime Internet of Things use cases, such as smart ports, autonomous navigation, and ocean monitoring systems. The major enabler for this exciting ecosystem is the provision of broadband, low-delay, and reliable wireless coverage to the ever-increasing number of vessels, buoys, platforms, sensors, and actuators. Towards this end, the integration of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in maritime communications introduces an aerial dimension to wireless connectivity going above and beyond current deployments, which are mainly relying on shore-based base stations with limited coverage and satellite links with high latency. Considering the potential of UAV-aided wireless communications, this survey presents the state-of-the-art in UAV-aided maritime communications, which, in general, are based on both conventional optimization and machine-learning-aided approaches. More specifically, relevant UAV-based network architectures are discussed together with the role of their building blocks. Then, physical-layer, resource management, and cloud/edge computing and caching UAV-aided solutions in maritime environments are discussed and grouped based on their performance targets. Moreover, as UAVs are characterized by flexible deployment with high re-positioning capabilities, studies on UAV trajectory optimization for maritime applications are thoroughly discussed. In addition, aiming at shedding light on the current status of real-world deployments, experimental studies on UAV-aided maritime communications are presented and implementation details are given. Finally, several important open issues in the area of UAV-aided maritime communications are given, related to the integration of sixth generation (6G) advancements