Indoor Autonomous Airship Control and Navigation System

Fedorenko, Roman; Krukhmalev, Victor

doi:10.1051/matecconf/20164201006

Cited by 8 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 9 publications

(8 reference statements)

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“…The buoyancy, mass effects, and aerodynamics of blimps are similar to those of submarines. Several model-based schemes have been devices to control the movement of blimps (González et al, 2009;Fedorenko and Krukhmalev, 2016). One study by (Ko et al, 2007) used model-free RL with a Gaussian-process model for yaw control.…”

Section: Robotic Blimp -Duckiefloatmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Heterogeneous Unmanned Ground Vehicle and Blimp Robot Team for Search and Rescue using Data-driven Autonomy and Communication-aware Navigation

Lu¹,

Huang²,

Huang³

et al. 2022

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This paper describes the architecture and implementation of a heterogeneous team comprising unmanned ground vehicles and blimp robots capable of navigating unknown subter- ranean environments for search and rescue missions. The ground vehicles are equipped with a range of sensors for accurate perception, localization, and mapping. The blimps feature a long flight duration and collision tolerance when traversing uneven terrain. The design of the system was meant to satisfy the requirements of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Subterranean Challenge in terms of perception capability and autonomy. To facilitate navigation through smoke-filled spaces, we employed novel millimeter wave radar to enable cross-modal representations for integration via deep reinforcement learning. The autonomy of the proposed scheme was augmented using simulations to train deep neural networks, thereby allowing the system to perform sequential decision-making for collision avoidance and navigation toward a specific goal. The navigation system was evaluated in the DARPA SubT Urban Circuit, and quantitative localization results and recovery strategy from failures was discussed. The proposed communication system comprises mesh WiFi with XBee (ZigBee network with XBee radios) and ultra-wideband (UWB) communication modules as well as spherical nodes that can be shot out like a cannonball and miniature cars deployed as mobile nodes. The propagation and radio signal strength index of various modules were evaluated using data collected during field tests in order to overcome the uncertainties of subterranean environments, including non-line-of-sight propagation, multipath propagation, and fading reception. We also discuss the lessons learned during this project and reflect on future plans.

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Section: Robotic Blimp -Duckiefloatmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Heterogeneous Unmanned Ground Vehicle and Blimp Robot Team for Search and Rescue using Data-driven Autonomy and Communication-aware Navigation

Lu¹,

Huang²,

Huang³

et al. 2022

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“…Our proposed system to the DARPA SubT Challenge is an autonomous blimp, which is low-power consumption due to its non-rigid body and the energy-free floating (lighter than air, LAT) characteristic, making it perfectly suited for search and rescue tasks. Several researches about blimp control using model-based methods [17], [18] and using model-free reinforcement learning [19], [20]. Vision-based SLAM is also implemented on blimps [21].…”

Section: B Autonomous Blimp Systemsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Duckiefloat: a Collision-Tolerant Resource-Constrained Blimp for Long-Term Autonomy in Subterranean Environments

Huang,

Lu,

Chen

et al. 2019

Preprint

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There are several challenges for search and rescue robots: mobility, perception, autonomy, and communication. Inspired by the DARPA Subterranean (SubT) Challenge, we propose an autonomous blimp robot, which has the advantages of low power consumption and collision-tolerance compared to other aerial vehicles like drones. This is important for search and rescue tasks that usually last for one or more hours. However, the underground constrained passages limit the size of blimp envelope and its payload, making the proposed system resource-constrained. Therefore, a careful design consideration is needed to build a blimp system with on-board artifact search and SLAM. In order to reach long-term operation, a failure-aware algorithm with minimal communication to human supervisor to have situational awareness and send control signals to the blimp when needed.We carry out experiments in a controlled environment with the blimp's pose tracked when performing trajectory following in remote control and autonomous scenarios. Artifact search and communication performances are evaluated in real environments. Finally, we show that the "situational awareness" human intervention under limited communication allows the blimp to escape from getting stuck (such as in a constrained passage) and prolong the search operation time. Lesson learnt is discussed for future develops of the proposed blimp in different subterranean environments.

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“…Within the growing technical field of lighter-than-air (LTA) flying vehicles, unmanned airships are gaining a special interest for applications in very-low-or very-high-altitude atmospheric missions. Targets of the former include inspection of pipelines or power lines and indoor/quasi-indoor operations like social event photography/video recording [1][2][3]. The latter include high-altitude pseudo-satellite (HAPS) missions, typically carried out in the top layers of the atmosphere (>30 km from ground) [4][5][6][7].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Autonomous Flight in Hover and Near-Hover for Thrust-Controlled Unmanned Airships

Riboldi,

Rolando

2023

Drones

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The ability of airships to fly in hover is a major plus of this category of flying vehicles. However, especially for the case of autonomous flight, this feature can be exploited only recurring to a carefully designed layout of the thrusters on board. Furthermore, the thrusters need to be suitably governed by a dedicated control algorithm. This paper explores a scheme for the control in hover of a thrust-controlled airship without thrust vector control, also assessing its effectiveness in near-hover positioning problems. The control scheme proposed herein extends the capability of a stability augmentation and guidance controller for forward flight, previously introduced by the authors for a conceptually similar airship. A control action based on a system of thrust forces required for hover, and additional thrust components for stabilizing and steering the airship in slow (near-hover) navigation, is thoroughly described. The ensuing control suite is applied and tested in the present paper on the high-fidelity virtual model of a five-thruster airship, showing reasonable stability levels and navigation accuracy of the controlled system.

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Indoor Autonomous Airship Control and Navigation System

Cited by 8 publications

References 9 publications

A Heterogeneous Unmanned Ground Vehicle and Blimp Robot Team for Search and Rescue using Data-driven Autonomy and Communication-aware Navigation

A Heterogeneous Unmanned Ground Vehicle and Blimp Robot Team for Search and Rescue using Data-driven Autonomy and Communication-aware Navigation

Duckiefloat: a Collision-Tolerant Resource-Constrained Blimp for Long-Term Autonomy in Subterranean Environments

Autonomous Flight in Hover and Near-Hover for Thrust-Controlled Unmanned Airships

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