Aerial-ground robotic system for autonomous delivery tasks

Abstract

In this paper we present a study of a robotic system that consists of an unmanned aerial vehicle equipped with a pair of manipulator arms (MMUAV), and unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs). The envisioned application scenario includes autonomous packet transportation, where MMUAV is used for picking/placing packets, while both MMUAV and UGV can be used for packet transportation, with different energy consumption profiles. We propose a reactive method for decentralized task planning and coordination of robots using hierarchical task decomposition based on TAEMS framework. Our approach takes into account low-level motion-planning aspects of the system as well as high-level mission specification, making this a multi-layered system. For low-level planning we use sampling-based planner combined with obstacle-free trajectory generation. Methods are verified in simulations and on an experimental testbed, using 3D Robotics quadcopter and Pioneer 3DX mobile robots with the results showing stability and robustness of the presented methods.

Improved Altitude Control Algorithm for Quadcopter Unmanned Aerial Vehicles

“…Many applications of quadcopters in the real world have been discussed in recent years. The most widely mentioned topics include autonomous landing on moving platforms [6][7][8][9], precision landing for autonomous docking and wireless self-charging system [10,11], and autonomous delivery tasks [12][13][14]. These applications are all, somehow, based on a reliable altitude controller.…”

“…We prescribe a maximum acceleration/deceleration of the vehicle which allows the controller to have the vehicle move at an appropriate acceleration before fast and hard approaching a target. This contributes to a safer and smoother flight performance of both single vehicles performing specific missions [5,14,41,42] and multi-agent systems flying in formation or switching their inter-communication topology [43,44]. For safety reasons, we firstly evaluate the performance of our new controller with numerical simulations and then we will conduct experimental flights to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm in real flight conditions.…”

“…Quadcopters are an important class of UAVs that are superior in many ways: they have a simple structure, are quick to manufacture, and are inexpensive [4,5]. Controlling their position, in general, and altitude, in particular, has been the subject of numerous studies [6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23] with ever more advanced algorithms having been proposed to address the quadcopter control problem.…”

System identification and H∞-based control of quadrotor attitude

“…Quadrotors are widely considered due to their remarkable features and applications in a variety of areas such as monitoring [1,2], surveillance [3,4], search and rescue [5,6], agriculture [7,8], and delivery of goods [9,10]. Quadrotors are also of paramount interest owing to the advantages of low cost, maneuverable, small size, simple design structure.…”

Investigation into Swarm-based Cooperative Behaviour in Execution of Open Field Agricultural Tasks

“…Similar to exploration, map building of unknown environments is a common task tackled in this application domain, though the difference is that in exploration, there may or may not be a particular formation among the team. The problem of exploration and flocking is related to several applications such as transshipment operations in harbours, airports and marshalling yards (Arbanas et al, 2016), motion coordination in industrial applications and exploration of dangerous environments (Solovey et al, 2015).…”