This work presents a novel approach to the design of an autonomous UAV, specifically to operate in a GPS denied, unknown, cluttered and unstructured environment, without the reliance on reliable communications with a ground station. This was made possible mainly through the development of a robust 3D SLAM algorithm which is able to run in real-time, using solely the UAV's on-board computer. The algorithm, based on a collection of established techniques is novel in its implementation and has allowed the UAV to be the first in its class to be capable of fully on-board LiDAR based 3D SLAM. This negates the need for a ground-station, prior knowledge of its environment or assumptions about the environments geometric structure. The UAV is able to remain in control even if the communications to the ground station are lost, and able to backtrack through its path until communication is restored, or land in a pre-taught safe location allowing the UAV to be recovered. Although being autonomous, the UAV is designed to assist teleoperation, the UAVreceives position targets from an operator, and autonomously navigates to the specified positions, ignoring commands that would cause risk of collisions. Flight tests have showed the UAV control to be robust and reliable, a few videos are available at: www.mobilerobotics. Warwick, ac.uk/uav/videos/ Although untested in its intended environment, early onsite demonstrations to the sponsors (Sellafield Ltd) indicate that the approach and the resulting built UAV is suitable for its intended application. Further development includes integrating an altimeter to the SLAM algorithm to allow for flight above 5 metres (outside the range of the sonar sensor) and refining the control system to improve response time and minimise positional deviation.


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    Title :

    Towards an autonomous indoor aerial inspection vehicle


    Contributors:

    Published in:

    The Industrial Robot ; 40 , 3 ; 196-207


    Publication date :

    2013


    Size :

    12 Seiten, 18 Bilder, 4 Tabellen, 20 Quellen




    Type of media :

    Article (Journal)


    Type of material :

    Print


    Language :

    English




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