Obstacle Detection and Collision Avoidance for a UAV With Complementary Low-Cost Sensors

Abstract

This paper demonstrates an innovative and simple solution for obstacle detection and collision avoidance of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) optimized for and evaluated with quadrotors. The sensors exploited in this paper are low-cost ultrasonic and infrared range finders, which are much cheaper though noisier than more expensive sensors such as laser scanners. This needs to be taken into consideration for the design, implementation, and parametrization of the signal processing and control algorithm for such a system, which is the topic of this paper. For improved data fusion, inertial and optical flow sensors are used as a distance derivative for reference. As a result, a UAV is capable of distance controlled collision avoidance, which is more complex and powerful than comparable simple solutions. At the same time, the solution remains simple with a low computational burden. Thus, memory and time-consuming simultaneous localization and mapping is not required for collision avoidance.INDEX TERMS Collision avoidance, obstacle detection, ultrasonic, infrared, autonomous, UAV, quadrotor, quadrocopter.

Low‐cost solution in international robotic challenge: Lessons learned by Tuscany Robotics Team at ERL Emergency Robots 2017

“…The concept was based on a combination of Wi‐Fi and 3G, to improve communication reliability while maintaining a low development cost for each craft, below $800. Contrarily, concerning the air domain, performances of low‐cost micro aerial vehicle platform AR‐drone (~$150) was investigated in Saska, Krajník, Faigl, Vonásek, and Preucil (), while in Gageik, Benz, and Montenegro () authors focused on low‐cost sensors to achieve obstacle detection and collision avoidance for an unmanned aerial vehicle.…”

Risk Analysis of the Future Implementation of a Safety Management System for Multiple RPAS Based on First Demonstration Flights

“…As foreseen by SMS requirements [32], boundaries and system constraints shall be defined a priori (before starting the analysis). The system is intended to be composed of at least RPAS and remote pilots, manned aircraft and pilots, ATC operators, airspaces with their own rules like, for example, right of way, horizontal and vertical separations, collision avoidance with respect to other manned or unmanned aircraft, generic obstacles, terrain (see [35] for an interesting approach to the possible use of low cost-sensors to accomplish these detect and avoid functions) and aviation infrastructure. With reference to possible airspace configurations, suggestions come from the last RPAS Eurocontrol workshop held at NATO Headquarters, Brussels in April 2017 [36], where many examples of operative scenarios below 500 ft were showed and discussed.…”

Feasible Computationally Efficient Path Planning for UAV Collision Avoidance

“…Collision avoidance is the key for a successful navigation mission. In recent years, researchers have been working on collision detection and avoidance system (CDAS) that can be implemented on UAVs [1]- [3]. A good collision avoidance system is the key to further development on UAV such as swarm system [4].…”