Distributed control and navigation system for quadrotor UAVs in GPS-denied environments

The problem of developing distributed control and navigation system for quadrotor UAVs operating in GPS-denied environments is addressed in the paper. Cooperative navigation, marker detection and mapping task solved by a team of multiple unmanned aerial vehicles is chosen as demo example. Developed intelligent control system complies with on 4D\RCS reference model and its implementation is based on ROS framework. Custom implementation of EKF-based map building algorithm is used to solve marker detection and map building task.Comment: Camera-ready as submitted (and accepted) to the 7th IEEE International Conference Intelligent Systems IS'2014, September 24-26, 2014, Warsaw, Polan

FIDO: a Field Integrated Design & Operations Rover for Mars Surface Exploration

We overview our recent development and testing of the FIDO rover, an advanced technology prototype for long range mobile planetary science. The current rover is capable of semi-autonomously navigating to, and gathering multi-modal science data from widely dispersed rock-soil targets of interest. Commands are input to FIDO through a high-level "web" interface enabling geographically distributed and collaborative science planning, sequencing and data analysis. The rover carries a diverse instrument suite: a mastmounted panoramic science camera, navigational camera, and bore-sighted infrared point spectrometer, also, a front-mounted robot arm with multiple affixed smaller instruments, one being a color micro-imager. FIDO further integrates instrumentation and controls for rock coring. The rover, in form and function, is a model for the NASA Mars Exploration Rovers 2003 mission. We have conducted several recent FIDO trials with mission scientists and flight operations personnel so as to characterize the underlying robotic technologies and science approach. We overview this work, noting highlights of both the rover design and science testing. We comment briefly on related work that extends operations to Mars sample return